You don't have to but we don't have time to get to know every single person in the world on a personal level, and the way someone looks can tell you a lot about them

I always heard it as, "you wear a hat to be associated with other people that wear that same hat".

You put on a cowboy hat so that people assume you like big trucks and country music.

You're free to walk around looking like human trash but then also you shouldn't be surprised when people assume you are human trash. Remember, you don't always just represent yourself. You represent other people in your social group. Like if you're a teenager you represent teenagers.

The assumption is that all the nerds that play cards at comic book stores are fat, dirty, and stinky because enough of the nerds that paly cards at comic book stores showed up fat, dirty and stinky that this became the stereotype.

Had they all shown up in suits we'd probably have a different opinion of them. It doesn't matter if they're nice people, we have no idea, we didn't get the opportunity to talk to them... all we know is that they look mega-gross so we assume they're all mega-gross. And now, if you admit that you like playing cards at comic book stores, we'll all assume you're mega gross too

So, it really would have been helpful if enough of them had cared what others thought of them enough to clean up a bit so they didn't destroy the reputation of all the other people who wear that same hat

And if you're a business owner, if you let people look like this in your business, it can hurt your business. There's a reason we all assume Wal-Mart is trashy as fuck and that's because the people shopping at Wal-Mart have a tendency to go there looking trashy as fuck. So much so there use to be a website dedicated to looking at all the insane ways Wal-Mart shoppers dressed