in my own experience it is better to judge persons as indidviduals, other then lableing them based on what they like to wear as well, also known as dressing "preppy"

preppy is what yuppies wear, right? It's like right now: scene and chavs... a whole lot of "styles" are emerging. 

My mother always told me that clothing conveys attitude. I don't believe it. 

On other topics... I think humans have a need to group, even over senseless things like fashion. And as humans, we fear what we do not understand. Example: prep does not understand facial piercings of goth and is disgusted. Goth does not understand why prep cannot accept/look past facial piercing and refuses to communicate. 

We all value different things. Perhaps this is why we're drawn together? Amongst my dungeons and dragons group, we have one mall goth, one lolita(c'est moi), a handful of "geeks" with quote shirts, and a few grungy kids (delicious kurt cobain-esque trench coats). We don't care about the clothes. We're here to play the game. Sometimes I wish everyone played DnD because you learn to work with people (contrary to popular belief, we don't all live in our mothers basement and are covered in pimples. We don't wear long cloaks... all the time... unless we're LARPing.). Like if you hate the cleric in your group. TOO BAD. You have to be nice because otherwise, you will not be healed.

Though at the end of it all... it's the human condition. Finding our place. "where do i belong? what's my purpose?" that might be the root of it all. 

I don't really give a damn what they are called. But yeah... Ive used the term preps as well (when I was in highschool many years ago) to describe those kids of privilage who look down on everyone else for either not being as privilaged as they, and/or for being close minded to other people and their choice of dress, music, religion, etc. Really when it gets down to it, lumping people in categories isnt really fair. A few of these so called "preps" ended up becoming my friends by junior and senior year... but they weren't the close minded asshole types. They just happended to hang out with, and be accepted by them.

I think that it stems from a built in inclination to create the me/us against them situation. When little Mistress Night RavenBat (formally known as Ashley) revels or rather wallows in her own presumed "darkness" and "misunderstood nature" and people subsiquently raise their eyebrows at her, then somehow this validates her "inner morbidity". If those horrid preps cannot understand how tormented and deep she really is, or if they just dont happen to share an affinity for  ookie spooky stuff, then well they must deserve to be shunned and become the enemy. All thats left for her to do is wage her battle using the only tools the media has given to her, which leads directly into the gang interaction that was spoken of before.

Why does everything seem to boil down to gang/tribe interaction?

Because it has been in our nature since we evolved into the humans we are today. It boils down to "Safety in numbers' Or " Birds of a feather fly together"  kind of stuff. we seek out those who are like minded or something that makes us similar and we stick to that.   Its a pack mentality and its in our nature to be that way. That and if you wanted to get more scientific, sort of, It's in our genetic memory. The collective memory or memories we have learned throughout evolution and it stays with us.

Some people just think of themselves as better than others because of some mundane things like 'fashion' or 'music'. No one cares to look deeper, and I personally believe that not all the preps are bad, and that some might be a little open-minded and might accept us, but we'll never know if we keep on bitching about them.
You're no better than the preps if you just label them. Isn't that what we complain about?

Some people just think of themselves as better than others because of some mundane things like 'fashion' or 'music'. No one cares to look deeper, and I personally believe that not all the preps are bad, and that some might be a little open-minded and might accept us, but we'll never know if we keep on bitching about them.
You're no better than the preps if you just label them. Isn't that what we complain about?