This reminds me of a scene on South Park when Stan asks the goth kids to participate in a dance video project and the first three refuse to do it, saying “I won’t participate in your conformist project!”. But the last kid says “I’m such a non-conformist that I’m not going to conform with the rest of you, and I’ll do it.”
@Irukandji I remember seeing that cartoon years ago and I still love it. It more or less describes an aspect of human nature. Unless we have particularly low self-esteem, we tend to assume we’re a step above the “masses”, yet in many ways (or most) we are the masses whether we like it or not. (I’m so self-aware for recognizing this, so that must mean I’m outside the masses! Right? Oh, guess not…)
While there may be a useful designation for people who follow the crowd blindly, we all experience the confirmation bias, we all think our choices and conclusions are the best ones (otherwise we wouldn’t choose or conclude them), and I don’t see much use for terms like “sheeple”. More of than not, no matter how accurately or nobly the terms try to be used, they just come off as labels for “stuff I disagree with” (“fake news” has suffered a similar fate). In other words, inherently biased and not at all fairly applied.