Is being different from the norm, for the sake of being different, any improvement on following the herd? How is it bravery to be totally different? And what's the point? We're a social species, we wouldn't be alive if we had a habit of going off and doing our own thing. How many of our ancestors would have survived if they didn't avoid new, different and unusual things?
That's not to say that things can't be different now, but it explains part of why things are currently this way.
I used to refuse to wear black because everyone else did. Black was boring. Same went for brown. And grey. Now most of my clothes are brown. Why? Because they're comfortable, fit well, and look good; they suit me. The colour is irrelevant except where certain combinations don't go together.
I've had bleached copper hair, dreadlocks (including a couple of purple ones) and a purple afro. Some people looked at me strangely then, but no-one treated me any less respectfully then than they do now. They might have had some derisive thoughts, but what do I care if they don't act on them?
I wore a suit to the first interview for my current job because that's one way to ensure you have a chance at the job. Is that fair? Possibly not, but a suit could be considered an investment, a way of ensuring you have a greater chance of getting the job. I only wore the suit to the first interview; for the second interview I wore casual clothes, as almost everyone else working there was doing. The other interviewees wore suits. I also had the perfect credentials for the job, and my last job included work that was very similar to the work I was being considered for. Do you think it was the suit, or the lack of the suit, which got me the job?
The point is, being superficially different hasn't had any noticeable positive or negative effect on my life. And following the herd is easier. It's unfortunate that quite a lot of people are unconscious conformists, but I believe your 99% statistic is too high.
But doing something different for the sake of being different inevitably leads to the cycle of moving from one uninformed group to the next, which you already mentioned. How do you stop that cycle? I think you do so by accepting yourself for who you are, regardless of what you look like, and looking past the surface in all your dealings with others. As long as we say either, "no, I can't wear black, I'm different" or "yes, I want to wear black, I'm cool" we're perpetuating that cycle of conformism/rebellion.
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