I haven't done part A right away because I didn't want to insult anyone I liked for being a cool conformist.
Then my sister came home for boarding school and I knew she was the perfect person to interview. Everything she does- dresses, talks and acts- is to fit a precise label of cool. Her facade is "I don't give a shit". More exaggerated, I'd say she tries to be ghetto fabulous aka lil white girl trying to be "down". She wouldn't agree though.
She listens to music her friends like, dances the way guys like and pouts in pictures the way she thinks makes her look "cute". She acts tough, that is until one of her group mates calls her out on her fake demeanor, where she then proceeds to get on the defense that that person is more fake then herself. She is horid toour parents and is typically nicer when she needs money or the car. I feel bad for her at times because she does a lot to appeal to these people who may never take her seriously.
When I asked her a question like "how does it feel to fit in with a certain click" she responded "better then being with people I don't like". Respectable.
So I follow up with "but in what ways to you do things to make your friends like you?"
She then gets intensely defensive and starts exclaiming that she doesn't have to do anything, they already like her for who she is. She proceeds to explain how I'm fake and the ways I try hard to be something I'm not good enough for. She may be right, and yet I feel like I'm better then her. I think this might be how cliques work. People have to find others who are most like them, then identify who they are better than and who they wish they could be.
Jessica wishes she could be the female Eminem, while I sometimes catch myself aspiring to attempt to become a mock Blake Lively (I wish). What makes me think I'm better then Jessica when we practically do the same things, just for different types of people?
After walking away from her cursing rant, I thought of how scared she must get at times that someone isn't going to like her. And it isn't just my sister, its a large sum of people that fear they can't fit in, that they don't belong or may not be accepted.
But like my mom always said: If your fearful all the time, then your not living.
This makes me think of how so many people adjust their ways of life so that their considered cool, and then they become someone they never meant to be.
Its easier for some over others, who are already easily accepted.
I just think if everyone were to truily and genuinely "be themselves and do what they liked" all the time, then we may never get along with one another.
Social structure is what makes the world go round, and without it we may all go nuts.
Yet, its as if we're all trapped and have to decide what kind of citizens we're gana be.
Then we'll know what path to follow to be the best ________ we can be.
Part B:
Like I discussed above, some of my actions are caused by the desire for a bit more attention or recognition, whether to attract boys or seek approval from fellow trend followers.
Its hard not to feel special when you wear an outfit that is desired by other girls and happens to look good for you own body. It gives you a boost of confidence, and air of security that you know how to dress and wear the right attitude with it. But that feeling usually only lasts a day, where your then expected to repeat the fashion show the next day, robbing you of your time, money and energy.
And for what?
To prove yourself to people who may not even care all that much that you own the chic boots from Urban or new dress from Top Shop.
I do this is one of the least successful ways. I only partake in this masquerade every so often, and on the days I don't, I get critiqued and criticized by fashionista's (you know who you are) and informed how I could have improved had I had the blessed gift of style.
This, like everything in life, has to be taken with a grain of salt. I mean it is more practical to be comfortable and warm then suffering from blistered feet and little circulation.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Hw 30: Psychological and Philosophical Theorizing of cool
What are the sources of this sense of meaninglessness but also of the need for a sense of meaning?
An existentialists perspective on life typically asks the question "what is my meaning for living." It can be a haunting and depressing to think that everything is pointless when life is limited and your whole existence will be forgotten when the last person who knew you will die. People today have gone to the extreme measures to prevent being unnoticed or forgotten, for instance aspiring reality t.v. stars pulling stunts for attention, authors writing overly personal autobiography's and celebrities doing the unthinkable to stay in tabloids.
Although not everyone yearns for a purpose in the universe, there are other ways people seek acceptance and recognition from smaller crowds.
It can be concluded that everyone, in some shape or form needs that feeling of being wanted. Women seek it from men, men seek it from those more powerful them themselves, and the powerful seek awe from everyone. Large corporations promote products and release advertisements that are meant to attract customers by telling them they have an answer to a problem they NEED to fix. They use pop culture to lure people in, and some buy into it so they can fill the emptiness inside them with new toys that should either distract them from their inadequite lives or bring them one step closer to happiness. Whats ironic is how the CEO's go to these lengths to beat out the competition so they can make massive amounts of money , filling a hole of their own emptiness. Its like a never ending cycle of desire. But where did this need for meaning come from?
Many factors of American culture add into the younger generations obsession with beauty. Many straight women are corrupted to believe that a source of happiness comes from having an attractive, fashionable sexy demeanor envied by other women and aroused by men. Thanks to all the constant advertisement for products and programs that are supposed to help women acieve such a goal quickly and efficiently, women have become beauty perfecting maniacks. One New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/fashion/03Boyer.html) shines a light on ways females figure would boost their self confidence, meant to make them happier and more likely to succeed. But for women to be constantly striving for perfection could lead to a never ending strain or unmet expectations and lack of achievement.
Valerie Boyer thought “If someone wants to make life a success, wants to feel good in their skin, wants to be part of society, one has to be thin or skinny, and then it’s not enough — one will have his body transformed with software that alters the image, so we enter a standardized and brainwashed world, and those who aren’t part of it are excluded from society.”
Albert Bandura is a Professor and Stanfors University a while simultaneously an author of Psychology, having written his first book Adolescent Aggression in 1959.
(Quote from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/bandura.html)
Theory:
"Behaviorism, with its emphasis on experimental methods, focuses on variables we can observe, measure, and manipulate, and avoids whatever is subjective, internal, and unavailable -- i.e. mental. In the experimental method, the standard procedure is to manipulate one variable, and then measure its effects on another. All this boils down to a theory of personality that says that one’s environment causes one’s behavior."
Bandura did a study and analysis on the personality and aggression in adolescence. He conducted an observational learning study to test his inference at personality as an interaction among three “things:” the environment, behavior, and the person’s psychological processes. These psychological processes consist of our ability to entertain images in our minds, and language.
People in this society observe the actions and lifestyles of others, mainly those they wish to be more like such as celebrities and trend setters, and do what their told to be more like them.
An existentialists perspective on life typically asks the question "what is my meaning for living." It can be a haunting and depressing to think that everything is pointless when life is limited and your whole existence will be forgotten when the last person who knew you will die. People today have gone to the extreme measures to prevent being unnoticed or forgotten, for instance aspiring reality t.v. stars pulling stunts for attention, authors writing overly personal autobiography's and celebrities doing the unthinkable to stay in tabloids.
Although not everyone yearns for a purpose in the universe, there are other ways people seek acceptance and recognition from smaller crowds.
It can be concluded that everyone, in some shape or form needs that feeling of being wanted. Women seek it from men, men seek it from those more powerful them themselves, and the powerful seek awe from everyone. Large corporations promote products and release advertisements that are meant to attract customers by telling them they have an answer to a problem they NEED to fix. They use pop culture to lure people in, and some buy into it so they can fill the emptiness inside them with new toys that should either distract them from their inadequite lives or bring them one step closer to happiness. Whats ironic is how the CEO's go to these lengths to beat out the competition so they can make massive amounts of money , filling a hole of their own emptiness. Its like a never ending cycle of desire. But where did this need for meaning come from?
Many factors of American culture add into the younger generations obsession with beauty. Many straight women are corrupted to believe that a source of happiness comes from having an attractive, fashionable sexy demeanor envied by other women and aroused by men. Thanks to all the constant advertisement for products and programs that are supposed to help women acieve such a goal quickly and efficiently, women have become beauty perfecting maniacks. One New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/fashion/03Boyer.html) shines a light on ways females figure would boost their self confidence, meant to make them happier and more likely to succeed. But for women to be constantly striving for perfection could lead to a never ending strain or unmet expectations and lack of achievement.
Valerie Boyer thought “If someone wants to make life a success, wants to feel good in their skin, wants to be part of society, one has to be thin or skinny, and then it’s not enough — one will have his body transformed with software that alters the image, so we enter a standardized and brainwashed world, and those who aren’t part of it are excluded from society.”
Albert Bandura is a Professor and Stanfors University a while simultaneously an author of Psychology, having written his first book Adolescent Aggression in 1959.
(Quote from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/bandura.html)
Theory:
"Behaviorism, with its emphasis on experimental methods, focuses on variables we can observe, measure, and manipulate, and avoids whatever is subjective, internal, and unavailable -- i.e. mental. In the experimental method, the standard procedure is to manipulate one variable, and then measure its effects on another. All this boils down to a theory of personality that says that one’s environment causes one’s behavior."
Bandura did a study and analysis on the personality and aggression in adolescence. He conducted an observational learning study to test his inference at personality as an interaction among three “things:” the environment, behavior, and the person’s psychological processes. These psychological processes consist of our ability to entertain images in our minds, and language.
People in this society observe the actions and lifestyles of others, mainly those they wish to be more like such as celebrities and trend setters, and do what their told to be more like them.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Hw 29: Merchants
This program on PBS revealed some of the tactics and lengths some large corporations go to sell a product. It proposed some complex points, that perhaps if a product isn't as in demand as to make them millionaires, they use pop culture and the desires of youth to make it into main stream and popular product.
"Is it nostalgic to think that when we were young it was any different. That the thing we called youth culture wasn't something was just being sold to us, it was something that came from us. An act of expression not just of consumption. Has that boundary been completely erased?"
"Is it nostalgic to think that when we were young it was any different. That the thing we called youth culture wasn't something was just being sold to us, it was something that came from us. An act of expression not just of consumption. Has that boundary been completely erased?"
People become so money hungry, so power driven and need to be ahead of the competition that art has become one big marketing campaign. It seems like once these experts find admirable beauty in things they only thing of it as a way to get ahead as opposed to appreciating it and savoring it for what it is.
Body image is used in the same way. Cooperate America takes a demeanor that is desired by the majority, for instance the midriffs referred to in the video. The general population of teenage girls all look up to model's and actresses of a certain style, figure and features. Advertisers use this as a way to convince girls that their product will bring the girls one step closer to achieving
But then again, people need these products just as much as these corporations need their money. Americans are cereal consumers addicted to purchasing new things as a way of making themselves feel better, perhaps they think they deserve all the latest gadgets and would feel more valuable themselves if they had it.
Entertainment companies own many aspects of society,
Look at teen market as major empire, their going to take over with weaponry or music, TV, clothing and all a part of this market.
"The MTV machine listens heavily to children, being ahead of the curve so you can give them what you want them to have. The MTV tunes in so that they can pitch what Viacom wants to SELL."
These corporations try to use celebrities and main stream luxuries to make products they want to make a lot of money off of more appealing. These corporations want teens to think its what they want as if their being original on their own.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Hw 28: Informal Research
"You gotta open yourself up to all kinds of people and all kinds of interesting opportunities if you really want to be cool. Cause if you limit yourself to some narrow definition of cool you're gonna end up an ignorant loser."
I can't find the web site i found this on, it was written by a former high school student on his theory of "cool" and his big revelation he finally came to at the end of his High School career. This was the most valuable quote from the whole paper, all the other points were repetition of what we already discussed.
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=338
This was article written by Jeff Rice entitled What is Cool? Notes on Intellectualism, Popular Culture, and Writing. He raises the same points we have but words them better and backs them up with well thought out examples.
He refers to an advertising section that was in Wired magazine called "The Phenomena of being cool" where it begins with the statement "Attempting to capture cool is a trap." I instantly think this means that if you not initially cool on your own, aspiring to become it by figuring out what is commonly seen as cool and mimicking it would turn you into a wanabee poser which is actually the most uncool quality in the book. Trying to hard is universally seen as lame, no one giver you credit for effort when trying to fit in with a certain crowd. It seems like trying to trap cool and hold on to it to analyze later only makes you seem like you care too much, yet another uncool attribute.
"Cool became remote, the opposite of mass. It morphed into the gadget, car, person, or party available to few but coveted by many."
Cool is like a valuable luxury, desired by many but owned by few. If everyone was considered cool then such a title would lose its value and less people would feel special about being cool. Its all about status, being a higher ranking then another, seen as the star in multiple people's movies. Not everyone is corrupted with such a glim outlook, and its more easily the people who don't care about it that succeed at actually achieving it.
On the other hand, this quote sums up easily how cool is a limited supply to be distributed only to the ones who invest the most money, time to appearance and networking to get into the right crowds. Now that I think about it, there are probably those who do put a lot of effort into being cool, and while their effort may pay off others may just not cut it.
As I continued my researched I realized there are various websites that can help those in need of becoming cool in short simple steps.
I got this from AskMen.com: http://www.askmen.com/money/how_to_250/252_how_to.html
It made me laugh when I first read it because it gave about 15 "simple ways" of transforming your self into a considerably cool person, arguably though I would say into a tool. The rules are juvenile and one of them even say trying too hard to be cool is notably uncool, and yet that's exactly what the site is constructing desperate internet nerds to do.
From a website SoSuave.com the author lists the fundamental aspects of cool that any man who wants to get a women needs to live by. It is one of many dating sites that instruct men how to act, dress and talk. To be able to follow these rules to the core where a person would act this way all the time seems ABSURD. It makes me wonder what it says about women of this society, if we could possibly be tricked into beleiving all men were as gunine as we thought or if there is really a good website behind the charm.
So suave says:
THE DEFINITION OF COOL
http://www.mindfields.org.uk/blog/?p=140 - How to be Cool and Attractive , written in 2007
“Do you know the old story about the Sun and the North Wind having a bet about which one of them could get some guy to take his coat off? Well, the North Wind had a go and blew his hardest, but the guy just clung to his coat with all his strength. But all the Sun had to do was shine and the guy took off his coat because he was too hot."
All these sites about how to be cool make me wonder how many successful cases there have been. Its been elaborated in class that there are two types of people, those who care about being cool and those who don't. Its been established that some of those people who don't care end up being inevitably considered cool anyways, while others have to work to keep such a status, perhaps by investing in trendy clothes, expensive work out plans and flashy gadgets. But is it possible that some people are so superficial, so shallow that they have to resort to changing their day to day way of life just to fit in with a larger crowd? Is it that much more important to be valued by the majority as opposed to a smaller more meaningful selective others?
I can't find the web site i found this on, it was written by a former high school student on his theory of "cool" and his big revelation he finally came to at the end of his High School career. This was the most valuable quote from the whole paper, all the other points were repetition of what we already discussed.
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=338
This was article written by Jeff Rice entitled What is Cool? Notes on Intellectualism, Popular Culture, and Writing. He raises the same points we have but words them better and backs them up with well thought out examples.
He refers to an advertising section that was in Wired magazine called "The Phenomena of being cool" where it begins with the statement "Attempting to capture cool is a trap." I instantly think this means that if you not initially cool on your own, aspiring to become it by figuring out what is commonly seen as cool and mimicking it would turn you into a wanabee poser which is actually the most uncool quality in the book. Trying to hard is universally seen as lame, no one giver you credit for effort when trying to fit in with a certain crowd. It seems like trying to trap cool and hold on to it to analyze later only makes you seem like you care too much, yet another uncool attribute.
"Cool became remote, the opposite of mass. It morphed into the gadget, car, person, or party available to few but coveted by many."
Cool is like a valuable luxury, desired by many but owned by few. If everyone was considered cool then such a title would lose its value and less people would feel special about being cool. Its all about status, being a higher ranking then another, seen as the star in multiple people's movies. Not everyone is corrupted with such a glim outlook, and its more easily the people who don't care about it that succeed at actually achieving it.
On the other hand, this quote sums up easily how cool is a limited supply to be distributed only to the ones who invest the most money, time to appearance and networking to get into the right crowds. Now that I think about it, there are probably those who do put a lot of effort into being cool, and while their effort may pay off others may just not cut it.
As I continued my researched I realized there are various websites that can help those in need of becoming cool in short simple steps.
I got this from AskMen.com: http://www.askmen.com/money/how_to_250/252_how_to.html
It made me laugh when I first read it because it gave about 15 "simple ways" of transforming your self into a considerably cool person, arguably though I would say into a tool. The rules are juvenile and one of them even say trying too hard to be cool is notably uncool, and yet that's exactly what the site is constructing desperate internet nerds to do.
From a website SoSuave.com the author lists the fundamental aspects of cool that any man who wants to get a women needs to live by. It is one of many dating sites that instruct men how to act, dress and talk. To be able to follow these rules to the core where a person would act this way all the time seems ABSURD. It makes me wonder what it says about women of this society, if we could possibly be tricked into beleiving all men were as gunine as we thought or if there is really a good website behind the charm.
So suave says:
THE DEFINITION OF COOL
- Being independent
- Being indifferent
- Being funny
- Being socially adjusted
http://www.mindfields.org.uk/blog/?p=140 - How to be Cool and Attractive , written in 2007
“Do you know the old story about the Sun and the North Wind having a bet about which one of them could get some guy to take his coat off? Well, the North Wind had a go and blew his hardest, but the guy just clung to his coat with all his strength. But all the Sun had to do was shine and the guy took off his coat because he was too hot."
All these sites about how to be cool make me wonder how many successful cases there have been. Its been elaborated in class that there are two types of people, those who care about being cool and those who don't. Its been established that some of those people who don't care end up being inevitably considered cool anyways, while others have to work to keep such a status, perhaps by investing in trendy clothes, expensive work out plans and flashy gadgets. But is it possible that some people are so superficial, so shallow that they have to resort to changing their day to day way of life just to fit in with a larger crowd? Is it that much more important to be valued by the majority as opposed to a smaller more meaningful selective others?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)