My parents were not comfortable with me going out and interviewing people, so I interviewed my mom. We talked about when she was in her 20s and she had four piercings on one ear.
I first asked her why she wanted to have that many piercings, and what about it appealed to her. She told me that she liked it for two reasons: first, because she thought that it was artistic and creative, and second because she thought it showed that she was different. Along that line, I asked her how she felt when she saw other people with the same style, and she said it made her want to get more piercings to show that she didn't belong to their group either. I asked her if that couldn't become a bit of a slippery slope, a self-destructive cycle. She said it probably would have been, but she had her family and her career to consider.
The one main thing that I do like that is wear clothes along the lines of Japanese fashion. It's definitely not to fit in and probably not to please people, seeing as the type of people who I would be fitting in with or pleasing are on the other side of the world if not entirely fictional. Japanese fashion in general tends not to just be about the clothes or the company, it usually has to do with identifying with a certain type of character (see lolita fashion-- fans of the style do indeed like frills, but are mostly interested in capturing a sense of leisure and whimsy often identified with Rococo era nobles), and this is something that I definitely partake in.
I (sometimes) base my outfits on what I see in anime and manga, but I don't want to please the characters, I want to be them. After at least 10 years of buying bellbottoms I now wear skinny jeans, not because they're 'in' but because they have a similar fit to the pants from a Japanese schoolboy uniform. It's not because I want to look like my favorite characters, it's because I want to feel like them-- my friends may notice I've got much more of a "go get 'em" attitude in skinnies (not a word) than bellbottoms, because the one in bellbottoms is always the gentlest character. I adopt the manerisms of anyone I like, and if I see myself as that person it helps even more.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Top-Down processing
Bottom-up processing refers to processing something subconsciously and then dealing with it consciously. Top-down processing refers to considering something consciously and then digesting it and deciding how to act on it subconsciously.
In this assignment, we are asked to take the desire to be "cool" as an attempt to fill a greater void inside of us, to cover up the emptiness . This is somewhat similar to the Existentialist view that we are all lost and searching for our identity. The attempt to be 'cool' could be seen as one way to define ourselves, and therefore fill the void of not knowing exactly who we are.
My personal view is more akin to Social Constructivism. Social constructivists believe that nothing is completely intrinsic, that everything we define ourselves as is created within a social context. With this belief, it is impossible to pin down one definite source of the 'emptiness inside' or even claim that it definitely exists, because the social context in which people reside is different for everybody.
Along these lines, I believe that no one is above the influence of the outside world, and if they were they would be in deep trouble. And while I agree that there is no one source of this emptiness and that how it translates into our daily lives is, though not 'different for everybody', at least widely diverse. Therefore, I am going to speak from experience and claim only to know the inner workings of my specific group: teenagers who live in nice neighborhoods of urban areas and have had very little go wrong in their life.
With regards to that group, I have my own theory as to one of the potential sources of this emptiness, and it has to do with top-down processing. I believe that in some cases, instead of the desire to be cool being spawned as a solution to the emptiness we feel, the two are more like siblings: both descended from a desire for acceptance which quickly became impatient and devolved into a desire for attention.
Instead of starting with a basic, untouchable, intrinsic emptiness that we attempt to fill with acceptance in the form of admiration (aka. 'coolness'), we start with the essential human desire for attention and from that begin to spin off methods for fulfilling it. One possible solution is to be cool-- to gain attention by having others flock to bask in your glow. Another potential method, almost the 'evil twin' of the cool method, is to create this emptiness-- others will flock not to soak up your happiness, but to lend some of their own. It's the same thing as a child falling down and then, when nobody notices, staying on the ground and saying 'ow' much louder than really necessary.
In this assignment, we are asked to take the desire to be "cool" as an attempt to fill a greater void inside of us, to cover up the emptiness . This is somewhat similar to the Existentialist view that we are all lost and searching for our identity. The attempt to be 'cool' could be seen as one way to define ourselves, and therefore fill the void of not knowing exactly who we are.
My personal view is more akin to Social Constructivism. Social constructivists believe that nothing is completely intrinsic, that everything we define ourselves as is created within a social context. With this belief, it is impossible to pin down one definite source of the 'emptiness inside' or even claim that it definitely exists, because the social context in which people reside is different for everybody.
Along these lines, I believe that no one is above the influence of the outside world, and if they were they would be in deep trouble. And while I agree that there is no one source of this emptiness and that how it translates into our daily lives is, though not 'different for everybody', at least widely diverse. Therefore, I am going to speak from experience and claim only to know the inner workings of my specific group: teenagers who live in nice neighborhoods of urban areas and have had very little go wrong in their life.
With regards to that group, I have my own theory as to one of the potential sources of this emptiness, and it has to do with top-down processing. I believe that in some cases, instead of the desire to be cool being spawned as a solution to the emptiness we feel, the two are more like siblings: both descended from a desire for acceptance which quickly became impatient and devolved into a desire for attention.
Instead of starting with a basic, untouchable, intrinsic emptiness that we attempt to fill with acceptance in the form of admiration (aka. 'coolness'), we start with the essential human desire for attention and from that begin to spin off methods for fulfilling it. One possible solution is to be cool-- to gain attention by having others flock to bask in your glow. Another potential method, almost the 'evil twin' of the cool method, is to create this emptiness-- others will flock not to soak up your happiness, but to lend some of their own. It's the same thing as a child falling down and then, when nobody notices, staying on the ground and saying 'ow' much louder than really necessary.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Merchants of cool
I personally tend to subscribe to the "of course they manipulate us. So what?" kind of view about advertising. I mean, in some instances, corporations are definitely in the wrong. I heard from a friend that Coca Cola buys the cheap water for their soda from poor villages in Africa even if they're in a drought and people are literally dying of thirst. That undoubtedly fits under the category of evil.
Still, I don't really see pinning down and even manipulating customers for profit as "evil". At most, it's a little rude. The main reason I think like this is because the way I see it, from the customer's end it's pretty much the same. Since advertising companies are intentionally pursuing the result it counts as manipulation, but if they just sat there and did nothing youth culture would still happen. It might happen differently, and a little slower, but teenagers would still get obsessed with whatever crazy thing they came up with. I really don't see a problem with what they're doing until it causes a genuine tragedy, like a teenage girl committing suicide because she doesn't live up to supermodel standards.
Which I'm not saying doesn't happen. Things like self-confidence issues and the related definitely are a terrible side effect of modern marketing culture. But we have to remember that while we're criticizing society for victimizing teenage shoppers, those shoppers are part of society too. Those teenagers are the ones that decided what's cool, and the process of it getting commercialized and processed and made and packed and shipped doesn't really change that.
Basically, the way I see it, advertising is a phenomenon that takes advantage of an already existing culture. There are nasty reprecussions, and I'm not saying it's the best thing in the world or completely without flaw, but I am saying that the system isn't completely at fault. It may accelerate both the negative and the positive, but if there was more positive to begin with then we wouldn't have these problems with it.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
The coolest informal research you ever did see
This homework assignment was to do informal research on some of the sources of cool. I tried to focus specifically on "guides". What I mean by this is sources that tell you how to 'be' a certain way. If there are instructions for it out there and it's not something that you'd have to do with the instructions or not, someone must think it's cool.
Smugopedia. Web.
As this website describes itself, "Smugopedia is a collection of slightly controversial opinions about a variety of subjects. We offer you the chance to buy a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction at the small cost of alienating your friends and loved ones."
Within some circles (I think this includes our classroom as well) the slightly controversial opinions offered are seen as the "uniqueness" so often thought of as cool, and the sense of self satisfaction that comes from all but shamelessly proclaiming the superiority of your opinion is what is defined as "confidence". Worth reading if your circle of friends thinks like this, but in that case chances are you're not satisfied to use someone else's opinion.
"How to be Ninja (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009..
"How to be Gangster (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009..
"How to be Emo (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009..
"How to be Nerd (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009. .
"How to be UFC Fighter (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009..
These are all of the videos from Ryan Higa's "How to be..." series. Even though the videos are meant as parodies, I still think it's valuable as an example of perceptions of archetypes in our culture. They won't really teach you anything about being those things, but they might teach you a bit about how to be like Ryan Higa and his friends.
Ryan Higa has thousands of subscriptions to his youtube channel and has gotten popular enough that he has acutally been contracted to make a full length movie which will be comming out in theaters. Based on that, I'd say he's considered pretty cool.
Andrews, Scott. "What Men Want." AspireNow. Web. 12 Dec 2009..
This is one of the many online guides to what men want from a relationship. There is a corresponding guide to what women want on the site as well.
The matter of what men or women want is the subject of constant pondering and several cheezy romantic comedies. These guides attempt to offer a solution. Whether their advice actually helps probably depends on who you use as a test subject.
"Guide to COOL--fd." Web. 12 Dec 2009..
This is a parody of cool, desplaying many of the same ideas we've discussed in class. It makes fun of alterations usually thought of a cool on objects like cars (such as making them lower, faster, and louder), highlighting their rediculousness by demonstrating them on a cat.
Especially cohesive with the themes of our class is the idea that desplaying a big company logo on something makes it cooler. Given the use of this concept in a parody the artist behind the comic probably also subscribes to the view of the masses as corperate puppets.
"Top 100 Coolest people in the World." ListAfterList. Web. 12 Dec 2009..
This is a comprehensive listof the top 100 coolest people in the world. I figured this probably fit with the theme a little, because if you wanted to rip off someone else's cool these are the people to immitate.
What impressed me most about it was that it seems to draw from a wide variety of perspectives on cool, listing people ranging from Justin Timberlake to Thich Nhat Hanh.
Smugopedia. Web.
As this website describes itself, "Smugopedia is a collection of slightly controversial opinions about a variety of subjects. We offer you the chance to buy a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction at the small cost of alienating your friends and loved ones."
Within some circles (I think this includes our classroom as well) the slightly controversial opinions offered are seen as the "uniqueness" so often thought of as cool, and the sense of self satisfaction that comes from all but shamelessly proclaiming the superiority of your opinion is what is defined as "confidence". Worth reading if your circle of friends thinks like this, but in that case chances are you're not satisfied to use someone else's opinion.
"How to be Ninja (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009.
"How to be Gangster (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009.
"How to be Emo (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009.
"How to be UFC Fighter (nigahiga)." Web. 12 Dec 2009.
These are all of the videos from Ryan Higa's "How to be..." series. Even though the videos are meant as parodies, I still think it's valuable as an example of perceptions of archetypes in our culture. They won't really teach you anything about being those things, but they might teach you a bit about how to be like Ryan Higa and his friends.
Ryan Higa has thousands of subscriptions to his youtube channel and has gotten popular enough that he has acutally been contracted to make a full length movie which will be comming out in theaters. Based on that, I'd say he's considered pretty cool.
Andrews, Scott. "What Men Want." AspireNow. Web. 12 Dec 2009.
This is one of the many online guides to what men want from a relationship. There is a corresponding guide to what women want on the site as well.
The matter of what men or women want is the subject of constant pondering and several cheezy romantic comedies. These guides attempt to offer a solution. Whether their advice actually helps probably depends on who you use as a test subject.
"Guide to COOL--fd." Web. 12 Dec 2009.
This is a parody of cool, desplaying many of the same ideas we've discussed in class. It makes fun of alterations usually thought of a cool on objects like cars (such as making them lower, faster, and louder), highlighting their rediculousness by demonstrating them on a cat.
Especially cohesive with the themes of our class is the idea that desplaying a big company logo on something makes it cooler. Given the use of this concept in a parody the artist behind the comic probably also subscribes to the view of the masses as corperate puppets.
"Top 100 Coolest people in the World." ListAfterList. Web. 12 Dec 2009.
This is a comprehensive listof the top 100 coolest people in the world. I figured this probably fit with the theme a little, because if you wanted to rip off someone else's cool these are the people to immitate.
What impressed me most about it was that it seems to draw from a wide variety of perspectives on cool, listing people ranging from Justin Timberlake to Thich Nhat Hanh.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Cool family member interview
For my cool family member I interviewed my mom (not Paula, this one is Nancy, a professor of social work).
When I asked her what makes someone cool she said that it is important for someone to be different, a little rebellious, funny, and reflective of the underdog. She is a Mets fan, as am I. I asked her whether she thought that this is just what society expects of a cool person or if those qualities are truly admirable, and she said that she really does value them in a person.
I then asked her what she thought the coolest aspect of herself was, and after thinking for a while she answered "My candor." When asked to elaborate she said that often her students say she is cool because she talks openly about her own life; she isn't just a professor to them, she's a real person. She continued by saying that she thinks it takes courage to step out of a role like that.
I asked her who the coolest member of her side of the family was. After verifying that I was only talking about her family and she could therefore not answer Bruce Springsteen, she answered that they were all cool but it was probably a tie between herself and her brother David. She said that he was probably the most rebellious. I pointed out that her sister, Joanie, is an anarchist communist who had once taken a building hostage as part of a protest in high school. She said that that didn't quite fit the criteria of being a little rebellious.
When I asked her what makes someone cool she said that it is important for someone to be different, a little rebellious, funny, and reflective of the underdog. She is a Mets fan, as am I. I asked her whether she thought that this is just what society expects of a cool person or if those qualities are truly admirable, and she said that she really does value them in a person.
I then asked her what she thought the coolest aspect of herself was, and after thinking for a while she answered "My candor." When asked to elaborate she said that often her students say she is cool because she talks openly about her own life; she isn't just a professor to them, she's a real person. She continued by saying that she thinks it takes courage to step out of a role like that.
I asked her who the coolest member of her side of the family was. After verifying that I was only talking about her family and she could therefore not answer Bruce Springsteen, she answered that they were all cool but it was probably a tie between herself and her brother David. She said that he was probably the most rebellious. I pointed out that her sister, Joanie, is an anarchist communist who had once taken a building hostage as part of a protest in high school. She said that that didn't quite fit the criteria of being a little rebellious.
Cool people interview
Can you tell I got tired of thinking of witty titles?
Anyway, here are some of my friend's thoughts on coolness. I tried to interview cool looking people on the street, but no one was comfortable having their picture posted online.
Yu-Xi:
Why do you like clothes like that? *indicates*
Um... they're comfy. And warm. Versus nudity.
What is a really cool outfit that you'd want to wear?
I don't really have a cool outfit that I like to wear. I like to wear just a T-shirt and Jeans, because that's easy to wear.
What do you think are important elements of coolness?
I like someone who... is interesting? And... ah... not closed-minded.
Yay! *we high-five*
Na:
(she didn't ewant her picture posted)
What makes a person cool?
Um... I guess... uniqueness? Like... someone who does something you wouldn't see every day.
Why do you wear the kinds of clothes you wear?
Oh, my mom bought them for me. 'Cause she's like 'you have to fit in', but I don't really care. I don't really get to choose what I wear.
If you did get to choose, what would you wear?
Um... I have no idea.
Ja Min:
Can I take a picture of you to put on the blog?
No. Say that not taking pictures is cool.
What do you think is the coolest outfit you have?
Nothing.
You think being naked is the coolest outfit you have?
What? No. Wha... I didn't mean 'no clothing.'
Anyway, here are some of my friend's thoughts on coolness. I tried to interview cool looking people on the street, but no one was comfortable having their picture posted online.
Yu-Xi:
Why do you like clothes like that? *indicates*
Um... they're comfy. And warm. Versus nudity.
What is a really cool outfit that you'd want to wear?
I don't really have a cool outfit that I like to wear. I like to wear just a T-shirt and Jeans, because that's easy to wear.
What do you think are important elements of coolness?
I like someone who... is interesting? And... ah... not closed-minded.
Yay! *we high-five*
Na:
(she didn't ewant her picture posted)
What makes a person cool?
Um... I guess... uniqueness? Like... someone who does something you wouldn't see every day.
Why do you wear the kinds of clothes you wear?
Oh, my mom bought them for me. 'Cause she's like 'you have to fit in', but I don't really care. I don't really get to choose what I wear.
If you did get to choose, what would you wear?
Um... I have no idea.
Ja Min:
Can I take a picture of you to put on the blog?
No. Say that not taking pictures is cool.
What do you think is the coolest outfit you have?
Nothing.
You think being naked is the coolest outfit you have?
What? No. Wha... I didn't mean 'no clothing.'
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