Why I Won’t Change My Look and How I Feel When People Judge Me - Hermes Iyele

Big Brother Naija housemate and now actor on the new Africa Magic TV show, The Slum King, Hermes Iyele is opening up to Channels Television about his punkish look which consists of a lot of piercings and colored hair. The actor reveals why he continues to rock this look, and opens up about why he will not change it, and how he feels about the people who judge him harshly for the look. Here is what Hermes had to say.

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Speaking about why he won't change his look and how he feels when people judge him, Hermes said:

HERMES: For me, looking like this is very intentional. As I've said, I come from a community where people look like this and are judged by looking like this as being violent, not being productive to society, and the rest of that. I take looking like this as a rebellious act to say that I can look like this and still be very intelligent. I have a lot of talent. I put in all the hard work that is necessary to get to wherever it is that society has crowned or ascribed success is, and still look like this. So people can look like this because at some point, in my communities, it's not so much a choice. You look like this by default of living in that kind of community. And because you look like that, people want to ascribe violence and every other sort of thing that is bad to you. So I want to be that symbol, looking like this and then people will have the reference to say "oh Hermes looks like that, he's not all that violent". So this is intentional to look like this. A lot of people have been telling me "cut your hair, look a bit more approachable, or whatever it is" but no. It's not just for me, it's for everybody coming after me that looks like this. It's really personal. It's something that I love to do. Look like this, be like this, be fashionable. As many people as I can inspire being me, I'm grateful for that but it's not the reason I do it. If I'm inspiring to people, I hope it's for the right reasons. It's for the reason of being absolutely productive to society and to self as much as you can be.

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