Labels, Stigma, and the Fear of Being Boxed In

Justin Bieber

I was actually thinking about, you know, how, how we talk about ourselves, like, the, the words we use, and, and how easy it is to completely twist your own head up. Like, if you start judging your own mind based on some word someone else threw at you, it, it, it just becomes this negative spiral. It is, um, it is like you are manipulating your own thoughts. You know what I mean? Like, there is this whole thing in sociology, I think it was Howard Becker in nineteen sixty three, who wrote about Labeling Theory. Basically, the second society slaps a label on you, like deviant or, or, or monster or whatever, you start, like, internalizing it. It literally tricks your brain into acting out the label.

Roxanne

Oh, nineteen sixty three, yeah. Becker was so right about that. It is a total feedback loop. When you are terrified of a word, your nervous system, like, it literally treats that word as a physical threat. I actually tracked my cortisol last year during a super stressful, like, public misunderstanding phase, and my morning levels were, like, triple the normal range. Triple! You waste so much actual metabolic energy just waiting for the next person to judge you or, or, or box you in. It is exhausting.

Justin Bieber

Triple? That is, that is wild. But, like, that is exactly it! The, the fear of the word makes you hide. You, you, you get so paranoid that you just live in this state of total secrecy. And it is not just, like, people on the street. It is, it is the media, the, the politicians, even, like, therapists sometimes. Like, you go to a psychologist hoping for a safe place, but if they are operating under the same societal labels, you are, you are just totally outnumbered. It is like, uh, it is like the state versus you. How are you even supposed to win that match?

Roxanne

Right, it feels like a courtroom where you are just, you are completely alone on one side, and then on the other side, you have got the judge, the prosecutor, the jury, the sheriff, like, just all of them staring at you. It is, um, it is incredibly intimidating. But, Justin, you have lived under, like, the biggest public microscope in the world since you were a kid. How did you, how did you not let those crazy cartoonish labels completely eat your head alive?

Justin Bieber

Man, I, I, I had to learn to just draw a massive line between the, the, the persona, the label, and who I actually am when I wake up and make coffee. Like, people would call me a, a, a teen pop wreck or, or whatever, and if I sat there and agreed with them, I would have, like, gone completely insane. You have to realize that biology is one thing, what you actually do is another, and what people say about you is, like, a whole different game. You can look at something, you can be attracted to something, or interested in something, but it does not mean you are, like, this sick character they are writing in the tabloids. You have to protect your own story, you know?

Roxanne

It is so true. We are, we are basically just creatures that love to observe. Like, think about the history of bird watching. It became this massive, organized thing in the late nineteenth century. People would just go out with binoculars and catalog feathers all day, and society was like, oh, how lovely and scientific. Or, or people who sit on their couches and watch TV car auctions for, like, six hours straight, just staring at hot rods. It is just passive visual processing. Our brains use it to, like, regulate and unwind.

Justin Bieber

Exactly! Like, why is watching football for four hours totally fine? You are, you are watching other humans, like, violently smash into each other, and everyone is like, oh, yeah, that is great, pass the chips. But then, if you are into, like, boy watching or just, I do know, people watching in a different way, suddenly people are like, oh, he is a, he is a perv, he is a freak. It is, it is, like, the exact same visual mechanism in the brain, but one gets this gold star and the other gets, like, this heavy, dark stigma. It is a transfer of stereotypes, really.

Roxanne

It is! It is the line of social acceptance, and it is so arbitrary. Like, what if bird watching was suddenly declared illegal tomorrow? Imagine a world where looking at a robin makes you a criminal. You would be so terrified to tell your neighbor that you saw a blue jay. You would hide your camera, you would hide your journals, you would live in this shadow. And that is what we do with so many harmless quirks. We paralyze ourselves because we are afraid of the street talk.

Justin Bieber

Yeah, you, you, you paralyze a part of yourself, and then that part of you just, like, dies. I, I, I remember thinking about how we are so institutionalized, too. Like, at school, we separate the boys and the girls bathrooms, right? But then, when people get married, they share a bathroom, they see each other naked, and it is normal. We build these intense structures of what is forbidden and what is allowed, but, like, who actually decided that? It is all just, uh, labels and power, man. Labels and power.

Roxanne

It really is. But, you know, the second you find even just one other person who, who shares your exact weird perspective, or your odd hobby, that whole, like, intimidating courtroom feeling just totally melts away. You go from feeling watched and judged to just, like, sharing a cool view with a friend. It is like, okay, maybe we are all just watching different kinds of birds, and that is actually fine.

Justin Bieber

Totally, man. It is, it is all about finding that safe space to just breathe. Well, um, I think that is our time for today. Good chatting, Roxanne.

Roxanne

Yeah, good talk, Justin. Catch you later.