Radio Earmuffs

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Not sure if this is in the right section, so moderators, feel free to move it.

Recently, I had gotten a pair of radio earmuffs. I started wearing them to school, usually in the hallways. As kids passed by me, they would give me a weird look. Why do you think this is? Could it possibly lead to bullying?

I don't know if it's too late to answer, but I'll try my best.

The kids probably think you're listening to music, since the earmuffs kind of look like headphones for listening to music, but it looks kind of different than the typical headphones for that purpose. Maybe they think that you have a strange a preference for headphones, and they think you are strange because of it. Or it makes it more obvious that you're wired differently from them. I may be wrong, but that's my guess.

I wear earplugs instead of headphones to school (I find them easier to carry around, but that's just my opinion). My classmates have noticed them and asked what they are. I don't know if they are looking at me weirdly, though. I just told them that I'm sensitive to noise, and the earplugs cancel some of the noise. After that, some people would talk louder around me, but it would stop after I tell them that they can talk normally. I get called "weird" every day, but that's for other reasons. I haven't been bullied because of it, but I realise how extremely fortunate I am to have never been bullied. (My classmates actually defend me when another student or a teacher is mean to me. I guess it just depends on the school.)

I don't think you will be bullied for that. If you like you could get either earbuds, clip-ons or collapsable headphones but there probably isn't any need. The ones you have now, are probably fine.

Back when I was about your age, my mother got a really cheap, two bit radio as a freebie when she bought a jar of cheap coffee. It came with earbuds. I used it at school and the other kids were quite impressed that I had a transistor radio (bear in mind, this was 2004, not 1954, so I didn't think the transistor radio was the most modern thing).

Nowadays, the people I know (my age) compete to have the biggest, most expensive headphones, not the smallest, most discreet headphones. Maybe it's different for teenagers but my twentyager friends would think your radio earmuffs are the coolest.

I think teen culture is all about conformity and twenties culture is all about novelty.