Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind

"Well, that was nice. You're not so bad after all... you just dress bad."

— Lefty, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

How people dress says a lot about them, even when they don't dress to make a statement. So when Alice walks in wearing all black, chains, Spikes of Villainy, and sundry other signs of violence and villainy, Bob can assume they mean meanness.

Except, once Bob actually sits down and talks to Alice, he realizes she is possibly the nicest person he could hope to meet, be she a calm, friendly Hell's Angel, or an Evil Overlord offering cookies, not to mention the entire Perky Goth trope. Alice may wear Freaky Fashion, but she has a Mild Mind.

The cause can vary. The most common comes from the Aesop not to judge a book by its cover. Bob may have been wildly misinformed as to how Alice's group acts and is like, leading to a bad stereotype. Another possibility is that the group is very diverse, and the bad apples give the rest a bad name. Lastly, Alice may be a Defector from Decadence, or dresses tough to present a tough exterior, or simply likes the fashion statement without understanding or simply not caring what it means. In this last case, expect rank and file members of the group (who are as mean as they look) to give her grief over it.

Antonym to Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance.

See also Face of a Thug, Perky Goth, Killer Rabbit, and Scary Musician, Harmless Music. Compare Loon with a Heart of Gold (a kooky character who is actually kind and sweet), Erudite Stoner (who also have more insight than they let on), Monster Façade (a scary-looking but otherwise friendly character putting on a scary act) and Affably Evil (characters who appear completely sensible and level-headed, but are actually quite twisted and disturbed). Contrast with Clothes Make the Maniac.

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Examples:

Advertising

• An English ad for sherry shows a girl introducing her extremely punk boyfriend to her traditional father. When she comes back from changing, they're sipping the sherry and chatting happily.
• One ad for the Real Yellowpages featured a mohawked, tattoo-and-piercing encrusted punker sitting around his apartment, obviously bored. Not finding anything to do around the house, he picks up the yellow pages and starts leafing through it. Cut to the punk sitting at a table, happily sewing on a quilt, sipping tea, and chatting with a circle of old ladies, all of whom seem happy to have him there.
• An American PSA from the mid-2000s featured a teenager dressed in all black and full of piercings seemingly stealing a purse after a woman left it behind at a bus stop. The end of the ad revealed him to be a nice, ordinary kid who'd only taken the purse so he could return it.

Anime & Manga

• Gordon from Black Clover has pale skin with black eyeshadow and lipstick along with a gothy, dark grey outfit. He's one of the kindest members of the Black Bulls and wants to become closer with his comrades.
• Ichigo of Bleach is often mistaken for a rebel or a delinquent because of his red hair, which is actually natural. This causes Ichigo's teachers to assume he's a troublemaker and give him grief, driving Ichigo to become a model student just to spite them, and is also contrasted with an actual delinquent who dyes his hair and attacks Ichigo for copying his look.
• The Demon Queen in Maoyu is a busty redhead dressed in Red and Black and Evil All Over. She is actually a huge nerd, an expert in Economical Science, and wants to save the world. And when left to her own devices, she actually prefers to dress in a far more sensible manner; it's her Head Maid who has the Villainous Fashion Sense, and she's the one who chooses what the Demon Queen wears.
• Nakanojo, a boy in Nichijou has a natural mohawk that leaves others thinking he's a delinquent (and at least one girl was attracted to him because of it.) However, he's a fairly kind and mild guy whose hobby is attempting to debunk the supernatural.
• In Ōkami-san and Her Seven Companions, Ryoko dresses and acts tough, and if it really came down to it, she could probably kick most people's asses, but she also loves cute dogs and light novels.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • This seems to be the case, oddly, for main character Yugi Mutou. Both he and his super-powered alter ego grow increasingly punky looking as time passes, but become, if anything, less dangerous and more reliable. Both of them.
  • It never actually comes up outside a first-chapter remark from Ushio about cosplay and once when Bandit Keith refers to him as a "baby goth" early on in Duelist Kingdom.
  • Yami Yugi himself teases Yugi about his fashion taste, and even states to Anzu during their date that it isn't really his style. Interestingly, it seems Yugi, not the Other Yugi, is the one who chooses all of his wardrobe; he uses his trademark collar and a black leather shirt underneath his school uniform since chapter one. Yami Yugi just shows it off more.
• Kazuma from His and Her Circumstances dresses like a delinquent, which actually gets him in trouble with the police one time. Personality wise, he's very innocent and pure which often charms his band-mates (and was partly how he was able to join them in the first place).
• Horimiya: Izumi Miyamura. Punk rock aesthetic, covered with tattoos and piercings, and about the nicest guy you'll ever meet. And he bakes a mean cake to boot!
• In Shugo Chara! Amu's mother dresses her older daughter in edgy clothes which coincidentally compliment her "cool and spicy" fake exterior she's so desperately trying to give up in favor of her shy and sweet true self.
• Yokota from Heaven's Design Team is a Fallen Angel who now works for Hell, along with sporting an edgy Chuunibyou look and mannerisms. As it turns out, he's not only an exceedingly polite Nice Guy, he's an extremely gracious customer who's very easy to work with, much to the delight of the Heavenly Creative Agency.

Comic Books

• Nico Minoru of the Runaways dresses like a goth and has a stereotypically "gothy" power (magic fueled by her own blood), but as the series went on, she increasingly embraced her role as the Team Mom.
• Death from The Sandman (1989) dresses in all black, has abnormally pale skin, and generally exudes a goth aesthetic — yet is the most personable and responsible of the Endless, and one of the codifiers for the Perky Goth trope.

Comic Strips

• Used in a Dick Tracy storyline; one of his daughter's classmates is a scary-looking Goth guy, the daughter turns him down for a dance date because she's afraid of him. He's actually a nice, friendly, and law-abiding guy who just happens to be a little too into a certain genre of music.

• In Zits, Pierce is covered in tattoos and piercings, but is one of the nicest people around, and an Animal Lover. Jeremy once described him as "face of silver, heart of gold". He is still quite the oddball, and has unconventional ideas, but he's never actively malicious.

Films — Live-Action

• One side character in Rat Race is this. While the family in the contest makes a detour to visit the Barbie Museum, their tour guide is dressed from head to toe like a Neo Nazi, while giving a low key and professional tour. In a bit of subversion, he is a Neo Nazi, and "Barbie" was a member of the Gestapo, not the doll.
• The two bikers (complete with helmets and heavy metal T-shirts) in Takeshi Kitano's Kikujiro no Natsu are actually the most harmless members of the cast, and are bossed around by Kitano's pathetic Yakuza has-been.
• In Eating Raoul, when Doris the Dominatrix isn't dressed in black leather and ordering worthless male S&M slaves to lick her filthy boots clean, she's a rather mousy but friendly suburban housewife who worries whether her finicky toddler is getting enough vitamins in his baby food.
• In his cameo in the movie Wayne's World, Alice Cooper proves to be friendly, soft-spoken and surprisingly knowledgeable of Illinois history. Given the differences between his stage persona and the way he appears in TV interviews, this is pretty much Truth in Television.

Literature

• In Dragon Bones, Alizon, the king's illegitimate brother, dresses like a peacock, which makes him look like an useless dandy. However, he's actually a good war strategist, and much less superficial than his clothes suggest.
• Discworld: Igors all have scars/stitches or something else suitably odd (to us), but are generally kind, responsible, and always very capable surgeons. Enough that they will not use, "He has his father's eyes" figuratively.
• Claudia Kishi from The Baby-Sitters Club is dressed in over-the-top, ridiculous outfits, even though she is a normal, if artistic teenager.
• The Harper Connelly mysteries have Manfred Bernardo. He shaves his head, has a lot of piercings and likes to dress in head to toe leather. Also, he's friendly, polite and supportive to his grandmother. And he's a touch telepath.
• In Circle of Friends, a niece and nephew of two separate business owners come to the conservative, provincial town of Knockglen in the late 50s. Fonsie is a Teddy Boy type who dresses in flamboyant colors while Clodagh, wears short skirts and wild colors; they are actually a pair of nice, hard working kids who don't give the protagonist Benny a hard time about her size.
• Worm's main character, Taylor, dresses in a black costume made of Black Widow spidersilk and armor plates with yellow lenses for eyes, and later uses her bug control powers to use bugs as a mask. She was assumed to be a villain from her first time out in costume, and many characters find her disturbing, intimidating, and an overall badass (though her actions while in costume certainly help those views along). Seeing things from her point of view, she's bluffing or has practical reasons for such a costume (she made her costume herself with her powers, and Black Widow silk is really hard to cut with a knife). She's just an awkward and insecure teenage girl who's had a tough time.

Live-Action TV

• In Dead Like Me, Daisy once reaped a menacing, huge, bald biker who happened to be very friendly and erudite.
• Abby Sciuto from NCIS is a goth, with dyed black hair, a studded choker, spiked wrist bands, and black t-shirts and mini-skirts. She is explicitly stated to sleep in a coffin. She is also arguably the smartest member of the team, perky beyond belief, fiercely loyal to the rest of the team, and the first one they will rush to defend, under any circumstances. Not that they really need to.
• Ellie in Degrassi: The Next Generation was introduced as a full on goth-punk, but still acted like a normal girl who just happens to dress like a 90's super villain. Her fashion sense tones down to a more mundane style later.
• God in Joan of Arcadia frequently showed up in the form of a spiky-haired gothic boy who wears full face paint, to give charming and reasonable advice to her. God would also show up as a six year old girl with a headband with googly antenna that bobbled with her head movement... and would then engage in conversations involving complex metaphysical questions about the very nature of the universe and God's role in it (and it was pretty clear that the actress playing this incarnation of God was having some trouble with saying her lines). As a whole, the show had ran on a strong theme of Hidden Depths as God instructed Joan to become friends with an aggressive stereotypical Butch Lesbian classmate and a spaced out Stoner type... and it turned out that both personalities were much more in depth and the rumors about them were just that. The first friend was straight and was first to stand up for others, and feared no one would see her if she was more feminine, while the later friend had never done any drugs, but was just anti-social and many of his weird behaviors were due to his focus on his artistic talents. And this quest wasn't even about God teaching Joan this lesson as the connections Joan made facilitated much wider and far reaching implications then just making new friends... both in Joans life and people she would likely never meet. Of course, when your theme song is "What If God Was One of Us?", it was certain that if the Freaky Fashion person wasn't God himself (or herself) they were definately more then what the presented outwardly.
• Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Wears vampy, dominatrix-esque outfits, but is really a good-natured - if a little snarky - Valley Girl. Plays Perky Goth to a tee.
• Played with by the Fourth Doctor in Doctor Who. You might expect a striking, imposing, 760-years-old but young-looking man with Icy Blue Eyes and an unusually deep voice who wears long dark curly hair, muttonchops, a variety of beautiful dark velvet frock coats, patterned velvet waistcoats with red ascots, poet shirts and pirate boots to have a severe, brooding, vampiric personality. Of course, the fact that he thinks the stylish accessory that goes best with this outfit is eighteen feet of clashing stocking-stitch scarf causes his outfit to paradoxically reflect his personality while at the same time fitting this trope. It's also interesting since despite the Fourth Doctor being unexpectedly a cheerful, amiable and rather undignified Nice Guy, his dark side is even madder and weirder than the melodramatic Victorian poets he resembles could even hope to be.
• Karone, the second Pink Ranger from Power Rangers Lost Galaxy is Dressed Like a Dominatrix in a sleeveless black leather top and black leather pants, giving you the impression of someone who if not evil would probably be a gritty antihero. She's actually cute and bubbly with a childlike personality and giggles with joy the first few times she morphs. She even had a cute hilarious mishap when trying to summon the Galactabeasts.
  • It should be noted that Karone was a villain in the previous season. The Boom Studios comics had a story where Karone reveals that some aspects of her Astronema mindset remain with her, suggesting that her choice of clothing is also a holdover from her time as a villain.

Music

• In Goth Girl by Anthony and Those Other Guys, the main character gets himself into detention just to see this goth girl. Goth girl didn't get detention though.
• In the video for "Who I Am" by Nick Jonas and The Administration, one of the characters is a girl dressed up like a stereotypical Goth girl, holding a sign that says "Who I Am". During the scene where all of the characters flip their signs over, she breaks into a smile and reveals her sign: "Honor Student".

• Michaela Paige wears very unique outfits to put it mildly and her hair is a multicolored mohawk. However, she's one of the sweetest, kindest, most generous and humble people you'll ever meet. She spends her free time doing stuff like mentoring kids who were victims of bullying and giving to charities. She even said after being eliminated from The Voice that she cares more about inspiring others than her own success.
• Marilyn Manson's initial persona was that, for his weird outfits, he was a well-spoken, intelligent, witty, extremely well-read stoner geek. Unfortunately the stories about his serious sexual abuse, which he was able to launder as being just part of his edgy stage persona, later revealed that he actually was the monster he presented himself as on stage.

Roleplay

• Lenore from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues has a goth-punk aesthetic, with all-black clothes, spiked accessories, and heavy eye-liner, but she's also very chill and laid-back.

Sports

• The UFC tries to hammer this trope home in regards to their fighters in their quest to legitimize the sport. Many fighters are covered in tattoos and wear flashy, punk-inspired haircuts, but behind-the-scenes features will usually attempt to paint the fighters as dedicated family men who are simply earning a living. Management will occasionally even cut a fighter who behaves in a way that breaks this characterization.

Video Games

• In Persona 4, Kanji Tatsumi skips school, dresses in gang-like clothes, and then goes to school in those same clothes when he starts to attend again, and was suspected of bullying and being in a biker gang. In reality, he was fighting the biker gang for keeping his mother up at night, comes from a textile shop, is interested (and talented) in handicrafts, and despite speaking what's on his mind to the point that he frightens a police officer away, Kanji is a really nice guy to be friends with.
• Nicole from Fallout looks somewhat like a raider, with a punk mohawk, leather clothing, and an eyebrow piercing. She's the founder of the Followers of the Apocalypse, an Actual Pacifist group dedicated to the peaceful spread of knowledge and technology to all people of the wastes, and whose members offer free education, medicine, and scientific expertise to those in need.
• Likewise, Julie Farkas from Fallout: New Vegas is the leader of the Followers' branch in Vegas and sports a prominent mohawk as well. She's dedicated to helping the poorer inhabitants of outer Vegas, and is exceedingly kind and well spoken.
• Nikki from Chrono Cross is Bishōnen The Rock Star who wears makeup, lots of leather and an outfit that bares his midriff, but he's also a very kind and thoughtful person.
• In the game Alter Ego (1986), one of the dilemmas posed is that your usual babysitter calls in sick. You go through an agency and "Fern" shows up. She's got a six-inch high green mohawk, enough piercings to set off metal detectors in three states, and dressed in "punk" fashion. However, she's also carrying a large stack of child psychology books and heavy-duty study material. She turns out to be Best Babysitter Ever if you look past the odd appearance.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Playing a Sith? Well, they certainly don't lack for over the top fashion sense in their default outfits. But if you play a Light Sided Sith in-game (particularly the Inquisitor), they are surprisingly friendly while still putting on the appearance befitting a Sorcerous Overlord
• Cyberpunk 2077: Misty is a dark-looking Goth, who wears sinister-looking makeup and a collar with heavy spikes as daily-wear. She is also the owner and proprietor of a new-age store, laments the lack of attention the people of Night City pay to their well-being and spiritual health, and is by and large the sweetest and most nurturing character in the cast.
• While Zagreus of Hades looks every bit the Prince of the Underworld he is with skull-trimmed red and black garb, his Undeathly Pallor, an infernal right eye, and eternally burning feet. But rather than being an Overlord Jr. or even a moody antihero, Zagreus is a sheltered but spirited social butterfly who Desperately Craves Affection, which he tries to earn through (sometimes overbearing) generosity and Chronic Hero Syndrome.
• Littlewood: Dark, the Amnesiac Villain Joins the Heroes, is still wearing his Evil Overlord getup but is otherwise a quite nice guy. He also picks up reading, of all things, as a hobby after opening his first few books in hope of finding out how he ended up becoming the Evil Overlord in the first place.

Web Comics

• Back before Wapsi Square involved deities and saving the world, one of its storylines featured some cool bikers who were mild mannered and friendly, while decked out in leather and tattoos.
• Clarice from Girls with Slingshots moonlights as a dominatrix and decorates her bedroom with whips and paddles. Her dream career? Librarian. She's also generally the most levelheaded and patient of the main cast, and even helps Candy find safer outlets for her aggression and misandry.

Web Original

• Not Always Right:
  • This scary-looking punk girl just wants to buy sandwiches and coffee for the homeless. She finds face-to-face interaction more fulfilling than simply signing checks to charities.
  • Another punk girl on Not Always Friendly gets accused of smuggling drugs or liquor beneath her jacket. She reveals that she'd just bought a tropical fish, and was keeping it under her jacket to protect it from the winter chill on her way home.
  • When this then-pregnant woman was caught in a panicked crowd on 9/11, she got an escort back to the ferry station from a rough-looking biker.

Western Animation

• South Park zig-zags this trope for comedic effect or to deliver an Aesop. A few examples:
  • The character of Big Gay Al is every Camp Gay stereotype amplified to offensive levels, but is one of the few truly positive role models in South Park's Crapsaccharine World. He is even willing to give up Scouting, which he is very passionate about, in order to protect the Boy Scout's First Amendment right of freedom of association (a subset of free speech). He vows to convince the Boy Scouts to accept gays, not to trample their rights with a court order.
  • Mr. Slave one-ups him by being a blend of Camp Gay, Hard Gay, and a "total whore." He regularly wears outfits that wouldn't look out of place in a fetish club. He's initially shown willing to perform quite perverse acts (involving small furry animals, tubes, and his colon) in front of kids just to help defraud the school district out of money, but later winds up becoming a genuinely "decent" character who occasionally mentors the kids. That doesn't stop him from performing a similarly perverse act involving his bowels, Paris Hilton, and no tube.
  • Another episode, "The Ungroundable", had the Vampire Kids whose fad threatened the Goth Kids' style and identity. The Vampire Kids are all genuinely good kids, each of them a Rule-Abiding Rebel who won't even drink coffee. The Goth kids have no problems stealing a car, abducting another kid, burning down a store, smoking, and drinking coffee.
  • Petey the Sexual Harassment Panda insisted he was a panda and never removed his fur suit, yet was the voice of reason in his episode, even finding a new purpose in life as "Petey the Don't-Sue-People Panda".
  • Robert Smith of the Cure had a guest appearance as a super hero able to stop Mecha-Streisand. Korn had a guest appearance where they acted like incredibly nice Scooby-Doo expies. They subverted this trope by exchanging their usual style◊ for clean cut track suits.
  • Inverted in "South Park is Gay," where all the men latch on to the metrosexual craze to become Camp Gay stereotypes aside from remaining heterosexual. The expected Aesop was one of tolerance and not following fads. The actual resolution was that metrosexuality was a way of "wussing down" the human male so crab people could conquer the now "unmanly" human race.
  • Satan looks like a massive red demon in a loin cloth. In most episodes he's a completely ineffectual Harmless Villain whose gender issues and relationship problems with Saddam Hussein and a very wimpy man named Chris are played for laughs. Saddam was the real evil force behind Hell in the movie. On rare occasions, Satan breaks character and actually does start acting like an evil Big Bad. In his first appearance he was genuinely a big, buff, scary-looking Manipulative Bastard who challenged Jesus to a boxing match and deliberately lost so he could win all the gambling money. Later appearances made him more of a pansy.
  • Butters tries to do this with his super-villain persona, Professor Chaos, but he's much too nice to possibly be a real villain. Dougie, as General Disarray, is a little more menacing, but not much. Despite this, adults actually react to his harmless schemes as if he really were about to destroy the earth. Kenny and Cartman both take on the role of The Cowl in "The Coon" and the Mysterion Rises three-episode miniseries. Kenny acts truly heroically in both, reveling in this trope. Cartman dives straight into evil.
  • Finally, in "Child Abduction is Not Funny," a group of Mongolian warriors turn out to be benevolent pranksters who care for children and teach good family values. They look like they're ready to help Temujin come back to power.
• One episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) featured a substitute teacher that the girls were convinced was evil due to his appearance (he had horns, green skin, and wore a torn cape). He turned out to be a Cool Teacher.

Real Life

• Billy the Exterminator (and the rest of his family to a lesser extent) looks like a punk/biker/badass-wannabe with his spiky mullet and uniform of black, leather, skulls, and studs but is really a friendly, intelligent guy who is serious about his job, cares about the environment, avoids hurting animals whenever possible, and rarely uses stronger language than "hauling butt" or the occasional "damn".
• Marilyn Manson is this in pretty much every cameo he has. This was even invoked in the Michael Moore movie Bowling for Columbine, where Moore interviews Manson. In the interview, Manson remarks that he's well-aware of his reputation and how he's seen as "a bad guy" because of his music, notes that the influence he has over the world at large isn't as big as some people seem to think it is, speaks with Moore about the bombing of Kosovo which happened the same day as the Columbine High School shooting, and says that he would listen to the citizens of Columbine instead of lecturing them. Contrasting this is a crowd of anti-Manson protestors who say that Manson is going to cause violence in Denver, Colorado (near Columbine High School) just by showing up, making Manson look like the saner of the two in comparison.
• A United States Secret Service agent (who protected the President) wore a wig on the job because of his punk haircut. He has a number of stories of his and his girlfriend's off duty encounters with people. Let's just say, they never expect him to be a federal agent.
• Ozzy Osbourne may have been shocking once upon a time, but his stage persona as the Prince of Darkness is completely contrary to his music and his real-world, nice guy family man persona.
• Lady Gaga is one of the most outrageously dressed pop singers around (like if David Bowie and Marilyn Manson had somehow gave birth to a sex goddess). But in interviews, she seems quite polite and well spoken.
• Bowie himself came off this way in some interviews, especially as Ziggy. This interview with Russell Harty has him dressed in a most bizarre manner, but he is actually quite soft-spoken and polite.
• Henry Rollins is the muscular, heavily tattooed singer for hardcore punk band Black Flag. He's also an eloquent public speaker, a published poet, and considered to be one of the nicer folks in the music business.
• Listen to an interview with the monster-costumed Finnish metal band Lordi sometime. In character, they're ferocious, out of character (but still in costume, they never remove the outfits in public), they're very calm and polite. Awa is supposedly a school teacher in her civilian life, although no one knows their true identities.
• Porn star Nicki Hunter specializes in rough, rude femdom videos, but also hosts a show on Playboy Radio, in which she's easygoing and a little boisterous, and outside the adult world, she's very, very nerdy. (Does nudity qualify as a fashion?)
• Impending Doom◊ look like a bunch of guys you wouldn't want to run into in a back alley, and their name certainly gives this impression too. But their music is actually Christian metal and, by all accounts, they are extremely kind, down to earth guys.
• Gene Simmons may wear spikes and full makeup on stage, but he's actually fairly mild mannered and very intelligent.
• The TNA tag team the Motor City Machine Guns dress in a style that Alex Shelley (who often has 50/50 blond/black hair) called cyberpunk-pirate, and yet they're both known for being pretty polite and mellow in reality.
• Matthias Isecke-Vogelsang, punk and primary school principal (photo).
• Elton John, certainly in The '70s, was known for colorful and outrageous (though more silly/campy than sinister) clothing, hats, eyeglasses and sunglasses, furry boas, and platform shoes with eight-inch heels. He adopted these to hide his shyness and un-rock star-like build, and to have fun onstage. In fact, he unfortunately took to substance abuse partly as a way to open up to people offstage. He sobered up in 1990, not long after toning down his image in 1988.
• Bikers. Sure, there are the self-identified 1%'ers, who run in gangs and act like the criminal scum of the Hollywood Biker stock character. Yet for every one of those guys, there are dozens of clubs who join charitable causes such as Bikers Against Drunk Drivers, Pony Express Relay (against breast cancer), Dykes on Bikes who support Gay Pride and LGBT rights causes, and the Perth Biker's Charity Ride (an annual event to support the Salvation Army). There are also religious biker organizations such as the Jewish Motorcyclist's Alliance, who work for Holocaust remembrance and anti-Anti-Semitism causes, and Bikers for Christ, who are dedicated to charitable fundraisers for the disabled and spreading the Gospel of their Christian faith. Of course, they all dress like, well, bikers. Bear in mind there's a practical reason for all that leather, it protects the rider if he gets thrown off his bike.
  • In the US, one of the most sympathetic organizations is the Patriot Guard Riders. The organization would escort the funeral processions of deceased American service personnel and maintain a ring around the funeral as the request of the deceased's family. Their main adversary, the Westboro Baptist Church, was infamous for protesting funerals with signs such as "Thank God for IEDs" and claiming that the deaths of US troops was divine retribution for toleration for homosexuals. Since the PGR limits themselves only to keeping protestors from harassing the family at the actual service, has no stance on the war, only attends if given permission by the family of the deceased, and doesn't care what the protestors do away from the funeral, very few Americans disagree with them. They still dress like bikers everywhere.
  • During the height of the DC Sniper incident, it was reported that local bikers in the DC-metro area volunteered to form human shield lines outside schools to protect children while they were outside.
  • Bikers Against Child Abuse invokes this. As the name implies, it's a group of bikers against child abuse. Besides raising money and awareness of the problem, the bikers also go to court cases for young children where their parents have been abusive. It's done for the sake of making the child feel safe — an abusive parent will certainly not do anything to a child when the parent has half-a-dozen pissed off bikers staring Death Glares at them if the parent so much as blinks wrong.
• There was a journal article in an APA associated journal which discussed this phenomenon in terms of the gay rights movement. The author, a homosexual professor of the social sciences, was observing the Gay Pride March in NYC when he saw a family of bewildered tourists from Middle America who were shocked by the event. The author recounted many feelings at the event, including being glad that so many people accepted the marchers as decent folks despite their open homosexual behavior and extreme fashion. He also recounted wishing that homosexuals were accepted just as homosexuals, with no qualifiers, no undue focus on their sexuality and practices, and no stereotypes. The author thus spoke of the double-bind for LGBT people — either focus on that part of your personality and get called out by other gay people for diluting the message, or try to ignore it to court more people so as to not rock the boat but deny a part of one's identity at the same time.
• Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull took to wearing outrageous clothing◊, especially in The '70s (long coats, unkempt hair and beard, tights, long boots, oversized codpiece). made psychotic, bug-eyed faces, and performed with hammy, theatrical, flamboyant (and sometimes saucy) stage moves. He was well-known for tongue-in-cheek, sometimes playfully risqué, self-deprecating humor (or teasing humor towards his bandmates), especially in between songs. Often his fans misbelieved he took drugs, but in spite of having a free-thinking personality, did not like hippies, and was quite outspoken against audience misbehavior^note He understandably has called out audience members over excessive marijuana smoke (as it interfered with his singing) or for throwing dangerous objects onstage (he once was hospitalized when a thorny rose thrown by a fan caught him in the eye). He is very straight-edged, mild-mannered, and a family man, raises wildcats, promotes wildlife conservation, and, as can be noticed by the tone and lyrics of his music, is one of the most intelligent and eloquent rock stars in the world.

• Miley Cyrus following her Darker and Edgier post-Disney Channel image change in 2013, is known to be loose with profanity, has an often outrageous stage persona and is generous with the Fanservice and suggestive dance moves, but is a polite, intelligent, very friendly and family-oriented person who advocates for animal rights and human rights causes (particularly through her Happy Hippie foundation) and is one of the more charitable celebrities in the entertainment industry.
• True of fellow ex-Disney Channel star (and friend) Demi Lovato, who later dyed their hair (or colorful extensions) and tattoos, and punkish clothing, but is normally sweet, playful and charming in person.
• Mark Oshiro of Mark Does Stuff is a heavily tattooed, pierced guy who's famous for his completely nerdy fanboy personality.
• In a letter to the UK Readers Digest, a businessman describes being on the way back from work when he realised he was alone in the train carriage with a "gang" in biker gear. He tried to concentrate on his crossword, expecially when he realised they were whispering to each other and glancing at him. When one of them finally moved towards him, he thought he was about to be mugged, until the man said "That The Times, mate? Any idea about six across? We're stumped."
  • A similar anecdote from the Internet has a gamer playing Pokémon on the subway/bus/train, accosted by an archetypal Scary Black Man... who asks if they can trade him a Skitty (or some other Ridiculously Cute Critter).
• Fecal Matter, a fashion designer duo known for their eclectic fashion choices. They're also quite nice people, and positively dote on their cat.

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