Power to the Sheeple

I spend most of November really digging the term Affluenza. In one word it just said sooo much that was on my mind. I have a great affection for words and how they are used. For how they feel when spoken, or the images they produce. Yes, I know I am a huge nerd, I have just come to terms with it.

My husband, whose thinking processes just astound me, introduced me to my new favorite term "sheeple". Sheep+people=sheeple. I had always referred to them as "herders", but I think I like sheeple much better.

It came up in a conversation we were having about a friend of mine who had told me that she hadn't read anything in the past ten years longer than a magazine article. I was telling Brian that I just couldn't conceive of it. Reading is so much a part of my life, to me that would be like choosing to live in black and white when I could be living in color. I couldn't wrap my brain around the choice.

So we started talking about how choosing illiteracy (a non reading lifestyle) makes for perfect sheeple. You are exposed to much fewer original ideas. As soon as he used the term, I had a lightbulb moment and I burst out laughing.

Since I was so curious, I looked up a few definitions and merged them into one I liked...

• noun. Individuals who have lost all traces of actually individuality, forfieting their right to choose their own way, to wander aimlessly following another individual or group's ideals and beliefs so they can be included in groupthink in their "herd".


• Allowing the influences of different forms of media and group members to hold great sway in the formation of attitudes, behavior and opnion.


• To accept the group think as fact without examination.


• Not only to be told what to do, but to accept the paradigm of thought as absolute thereby removing the weight of personal responsibility.

Sadly, although I think each gender has sheeple, sometimes it seems as though women are just very predisposed to becoming sheeple. Its almost as though all of the things that would make you a "good little girl" in societies eyes also would make you an awesome sheeple. Don't offend anyone, be agreeable, being nice is much more important than being intelligent, don't disagree, pretty>intelligence.

It always seems as though women who are more independent minded wind up being labled with unflattering names that sound alot like witch. Sometimes, well deserved, sometimes because of society's expecations. Well, and many of them were burned as witches in earlier times. Raising two girls, my greatest hope is that they will be their own person, follow their own path, be strong and intelligent (even when their mother doesn't agree). But then I see the other side of it, and I hope that by the time they are mature, things will have changed.