Seen in the wild

Maybe she thought you’d mistaken her for Little Bo Peep and was offended at your use of “ewe”.

And their counterparts, the NB beardy blokes.

My dd's bf (14) has a really interesting insight on the current identity trends of today's generation, which blew my mind a fair bit!

He's really into his music and it's sociological impact over the years. We got talking about how music for previous generations was key in forming a whole identity and community for youths for each generation (mods, rockers in the 50s and 60s, punks, new romantics in the 70s and 80s, goths and emo in the 90s and 00 etc.)

He blew me away when he said he thinks the reason so many young people are getting hooked up on stuff like gender identity, cos play etc is there aren't any 'music' subcultures in schools/ universities anymore.
Thanks to Spotify etc making pretty much all music universal and available to all, there isn't a common glue to bring people together and give them something to identify with.
He said in school today, its more likely all your friends will like different music, and there definitely isn't a whole culture attached to the music in the same way it used to.
And as young people are still experiencing the coming of age 'identity crisis' and looking for a 'community' to belong to, gender stuff etc is filling that void for many people.

I think he's really onto something there. I know for me personally , music subcultures were absolutely everything for me as a young person.

It would be so amusing to see a whole gang of middle aged to ancient women doing the "sweet Lolita" look. Say in a pub somewhere trendy like... I don't know, where is trendy now? Shoreditch, Dalston, Spitalfields, Hackney?

I particularly fail to understand the young women who dress in very stereotypically feminine ways, dresses, long we’ll groomed hair and shit loads of make up ( or even cartoonishly feminine like HH) and then announce they are neither male or female and are they/thems. Why present as stereotypically feminine and female in your appearance and then demand everyone pretends not to notice this, through forced pronouns?!

It’s compelled speech and it’s all about power.

"I am non binary, you can call me They/Them"

Wait a mo...
If HH objected to the second person, unsexed, singular or plural 'you' being applied to HHself and sporty, shouldn't HH also have refrained from using the conventional first person 'I' and 'me'?

Oh great. Let’s all celebrate paedophilia.

You binary-fetishising beast, Samphire. You realise you have literally killed poor Holly?

Bloody hell.

See now, that is a look I can appreciate. Lots of frippery.

It's a Japanese fashion called sweet Lolita.

Probable 'age player'. Should have probably also asked what age they/you/them identified as. If that is you didn't have a life and things to do rather than be a prop in their.thems game.

At least the actual Holly Hobby wore boots. (I may or may not have had a poster on my wall...)

Their outfit sounds more like the Grayson Perry look.

They/them needs to learn about the difference between second and third person pronouns.

Fucking numpties.

I never wanted "old" people, shops, corporations or government departments to get into my various subcultures when I was young. The whole point was for it not to belong to them!

Was HH into the Lolita subculture do you think?

Oh dear OP you ruined it. They wanted to shock you and for you to ask about non binary so she could get all afronted and triggered but you just carried on as normal. Poor Holly you didn't play her game.

When I was that age I had a variety of styles. It would be whole outfits, rather than mix and match IYSWIM.

Luckily no need for anyone except me to need to adjust according to what I was wearing!

Thanks OP you certainly made me laugh

Admirably professional of you not to burst into laughter. I’m not sure I could have kept my reaction to just a smile.

That’s interesting. Unexpected choice to identify as NB and then dress in an outfit which would be perceived to be at one end of a “binary”. But I guess a feature of youth trends / fashions is that they don’t remain static. Perhaps NB now means “I can wear whatever I like”.

Just a small step to “we can all wear whatever we like and we are all NB”. And once that point is reached across youth culture, all that energy, introspection and campaign activity can (fingers crossed) be redirected onto other issues - climate change, food security, AI, child poverty, human trafficking, fundraising for cancer research, the actions of global superpowers, whatever.