Originally Posted by SmallFront

Some people enjoy fitting a stereotype. Or, rather, there is enough of the type to make it a stereotype. But that doesn't change what they are. It doesn't even have to something bad. There are positive stereotypes too. What do you think "a selfmade man" is, if not a particular type implying certain connotations? Yup, that is a stereotype as well as a description too. Saying that the dumpster diver serves platitudes is hardly stereotyping anything. He is a dumpster diver, and while he was doing it, he moralised about the way things should be, using clichés. The "stereotyping" of him is his own doing.

You might even have noticed that quite a few people even on here make it a political statement to "live car free". Not just something they chose for themselves, but something they can use to beat others over the head with, attempting to take the moral high ground.

It's the same sort of deal: Those people fall into various stereotypes, good or bad, depending on your view, but most are so singleminded/focused on that that they have a hard time not proselytising to everyone they meet.

This includes quite a bit of the dumpster divers: Spending so many hours a week to get something "free" (i.e. the work put into it is hardly "free"), often in the dark, while trying to tell parents and everyone else in society that what they are doing is wrong. Most people stop dumpster diving for food when they have to hold down a job that might take a lot of their energy, and have to do other things in their life (kids, renovate a home, take care of a loved one, take courses along with a full time job, or even hold down more than one job to make ends meet).

There's a reason that type has become a stereotype. It takes something different to not fit the type where the precedence is already set.

But, hey, if they get joy from going dumpster diving for food and feel that that is the smart way to spend their time: Have at it, Horse.