Comment Re:It's Called "Mob Mentality" (Score 2, Insightful) 391
Better go for informative; I'm sure a lot of people does that, or something much like it. It wont be healthy for you to be frightened every time.
Look, it's not even malicious... or not necessarily at least. Take me for instance: I don't do it to "get ahead" in a group, I do it because I'm very introverted and geeky and wouldn't fit among my friends and relatives if I didn't do some "cultural shaping" so I don't come through like a fucking alien. Not to mention I really like girls, and when you approach a random cute girl at the coffee shop, chances are she won't be or like introverted and geeky (read: shy).
So what do you do? Sulk, stay lonely? Sure, you can do that. Or, if you're smart and analytical, you can learn to determine what people expect from other people they like, and then adapt yourself so you're closer to the appropriate model (which is different for different circles and environments). And you know what? It's exactly what "naturally" popular people do, only difference is doing it unconsciously vs. deliberately.
As the OP said, the tricky part is not losing your own identity in the process. But if you're smart enough to pull this off, you probably won't need to worry about that either. You'll just let you "be yourself" and go back to the lab and the crypto or AI algorithms or whatever it is that you do for fun, when you don't feel like human company, that's all.