What people misunderstand about stereotypes is that they are a list of things that are generally true about a group of people. Take any person that is part of a group and one or more of those things is very likely to be true, probably most of them. Being exceptional to a stereotype in some way does not mean you aren't part of it.
What's more there are so many stereotypes out there that typically one cannot exit one stereotype by "being differant in every conceivable way" without simply entering another stereotype of some sort.
When it comes to blacks for example, there isn't just ONE racial stereotype, there are actually several, and you can't really break a mould without entering another one.
What's more when you get down to it people of ANY type or ethnicity want to see themselves as individuals, rather than part of a stereotype or mould. Sadly despite that desire people are typically not unique and beautiful flowers despite what we want to believe.
Before people scream and yell about this, you can take the whole idea of stereotypes and extend it into a science called "sociology". Sociology for those who never studied it (unlikely since it became required when I was in school) is the study of large groups of people, and patterns of behavior. Whether people like the idea or not, the fact is that it works and shows exactly how predictable we are. Even the exceptions are mathematically accounted for in predicting many trends. While everyone likes to look at sociological figures and go "well I'm in that 1% that we allow for when computing the trend" chances are you aren't no matter what you want to think.
Indeed the annoying thing about sociology is that by saying "I'm not a stereotype" you just became one because that's the predicted reaction that will be given by pretty much everyone. The exception is the guy who is like "oh yeah, I'm the stereotype and bloody proud of it" but even so they simply enter into a minority stereotype demographic.
I know people are going to disagree and resent this, but let's just say that when I was in school I didn't like the idea but was sold on it after a period of time. Stereotypes are true, apologies to those who feel it negatively impacts their perception of individualiy, civil liberties, or whatever.
At any rate, sociology is used for marketing. One of the reasons why a company like Nike can make so much money is because they realize that Black people like their sneakers, and like seeing athletes in black dominated sports jumping around and such. They also like to see themselves better as white people and such.
So they take the fancy sneakers, get a popular black athelete to jump around, and perhaps do something like put a white guy in the commercial who tries to play basketball ineffectively (I mention this last point not to enflame anyone, but because examples were shown of this specifically when I was in school. I believe it was actually a Powerade commercial though with them talking about 'camp powerade' with all these macho black guys doing fancy aeriel slams, and some fat white guy not making the cut who could barely dribble).
At any rate the single out a target audience who wants the product, bombard it with images that appeal to it sociologically, and BAM! marketing gold. It keeps working so they keep doing it.
Of course in doing so it confirms a stereotype, and a lot of people don't want to see themselves as being sheep, or feel they can be that closely associated with a given behavior.
Things like sociology can also identify trends like racism or reverse racism in marketing as mentioned above.
The guy making the comment is correct, jumping around like that in an urban enviroment is exactly the kind of thing they would use to sell shoes, sports drinks, and other things to the black community and would do it successfully. Stereotypical but true.
You aim a product at white guys, you do it differantly. You aim it at rednecks (excuse me outdoorsmen) you do it differantly still.
The point here is everyone is a stereotype, and like it or not for all comments about "sheeple" we are social creatures and tend to band together and emulate each other's behavior. With enough information technology this can be plotted and predicted. In the end we all wind up being more like others than differant, and it can take a fairly intense microscope to find genuine signs of individuality. Even getting into psycology (the study
of the individual mind and psyche) which also works it can take a lot of work to really find the core of individuality in a person. It exists, we call it a soul, but it's not quite as powerful as a lot of us would want to believe.
Incidently, I am probably more of an individual than most people. We DO exist. We are known by the label "Insane" (sanity being defined as by what is normal for society.. odd that). Society does not treat us well, even when we are functional within it. As I've pointed out, I'm a disabled.
