Consumerization

In sociology this week we learned how the media creates a consumer culture. Ads are in influx everywhere: movies, billboards, video games, and TV, just to name a few. Thus it is not surprising that people grow up in a world where product placement is rampant. Just take for example the fact that we say Kleenex and Q-tip. Neither of those are the names of the product; they are the names of the brand. However, our society has become so accustomed and influenced by these products, that the brands have surpassed the actual product in terms of usage!

The scariest trend of consumer culture has to be in our children. From the day they are born, kids are bombarded with toys, clothes, and food advertising companies. They are too young to understand that they are being advertised to, so they suck them right up. By the time they begin to realize what advertising is, it is too late. They are already hooked on the brand. Odds are, they wont move away from the brand for a long time, if ever. For me, that got-to-have product as a child was Beanie Babies. I was obsessed with them. I collected soo many of them, I still have them all in a box in my closet! I remember waiting in line to buy the new ones, and eating repeatedly at McDonalds when Beanie Baby Minis were the Happy Meal Toys. I was too young to understand I was being advertised too, but I was hooked. And through smart product integration, McDonalds walked away with a hefty sum of my parents money as a result!

Nothing

Last weekend I went to the mall and did the Nothing Project. I stood at the overhang where you can look down to the floor below you, and let go of my thoughts. It was somewhat hard to stop distracting yourself, as every fleeting thought you get distracts you and compounds into more thoughts. I spent a couple minutes training myself to think only of what I thought while observing, and not to let those base thoughts transform into a long distraction. It took some time, but eventually I was able to do nothing.

I spent most of my time doing nothing looking down at the people below me. They were all going through their daily routine. It hit me that I am not the only person. It was interesting to see all the people. They go about their own lives, completely independent from me, except for this one brief fleeting moment when our paths intersect. What are their lives like? What do they think? What are their aspirations? I felt like an outsider. As everyone was walking around interacting, here I was standing still, an observer. I also learned and interesting lesson on how busy other people are. Although I never moved my body in 10 minutes, not a one person, and I saw many people pass by me multiple times, asked what I was doing, or even paid me notice. It just goes to show how busy people are in life, and how this constant thought and action distracts them from the small things.

Community Service Hours 9-10 (And More): Phonebanking for United 4 (School Name)

Name Of Organization: United 4 (School Name)
Location: 475 Half Day Rd
Date: Saturday March 12th 12:15-3:45 PM
Supervisors: Kay Hoogland & Adam Didech (kayhoogland@mac.com or adam.didech@gmail.com)

I completed my community service hours as required by class today with the election campaign, but I am far from done assisting with it. I arrived at the office building at around 12:15, and after spending about 20 minutes getting a group photo taken for the website, I was put in a cubicle to make calls. I've always been deathly afraid of chatting on the phone. I'm a bit socially awkward, and I always fear what to say and how to say it. Because of that, phone banking was scary at first. However, I quickly got used to it, and by the end of the day, I was actually enjoying talking to the people to get out the vote. Tomorrow I will be canvassing with the same group, and I hope to help out even more in the future. This election means a lot to me, and Im glad I can be a part of it.

Death

Death is inevitable. All living things eventually die. Yet why then is death so hard? Why do people fear death? The answer to these questions can be found by examining American Culture. American culture is based on rugged individualism; Americans like to be dependent and dont want to have to rely on others. Because of this, death scares Americans silly. When we are sick and dying, we rely heavily on others to make it through the day, just take Morrie's caregiver as an example. This reliance on others comes as a shock to Americans, and it scares us. In addition, death is uncontrolable. We Americans like to think we are powerful, that we shape our own destinies. As a result, death, especially the sudden kind, comes as a huge shock to Americans, and makes them exceedingly sad and worried.

I'm glad that we got to approach the topic of death this week, as it is something, due to current events, I exceedingly need to rant about. I apologize if this doesn't stay 100% on topic, but its something I need to share. Late Monday night, at 11:04 PM, my cat Jake died. While most people understand that it is sad to lose a pet, very few people realize how hard this has hit me. Jake was more than a cat to me. As I've been saying to people who have asked about him this week, he was like a father, a son, a best friend, and a brother all rolled into one fuzzy ball of joy. He gave me unconditional love, and was always there for me. Whenever I was having a bad day and felt sad and alone, I could always count on Jake to cuddle up with me and make me feel better. He was the most gentle cat in the world; he never got angry, and always was a joy. Sunday afternoon, I found him lying sideways on the floor moaning my name (literally, he was saying Paul). We rushed him to the animal hospital, but we found out it was too late. His liver had failed, and when they tried to pump fluid into him to restore him, they found cancerous tumors throughout his body. Jake fought hard, and he managed to defy odds and make it through the night for my mother to get back in town to see him. By Monday night though, he was in an oxygen cage in order to give him enough air to breathe. We knew he wouldn't last the night, and we didn't want him to die scared and alone. We took him over to a visiting room, and cuddled with him. 30 minutes later, he died in my arms. This has been an exceptionally rough week for me, as having anyone close to you die would be. I could end this as usual by tying my personal experience back into the lesson of the week, I certainly have a way to do that in mind. But I'm not going to. I feel like it would be a disservice to Jake's memory if I simply used his death as an easy way to complete an assignment, and that is definitely something I'm not prepared to do. I will however tell you that death is hard, and it is not pretty. You go through life taking everyone for granted; you don't realize how truly blessed you were until they are gone. Whether that's actual sociology or just my observation, I don't know, but I'm prepared to live with it either way.

How Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

This week in class we learned about Mores. Mores are cultural rules (either written in law or not) that people are expected to follow. If one breaks a more, they will be looked down upon at the least; however, its entirely possible for their to be much more dire consequences. Take for example an American woman traveling to the Middle East. She would be expected, nay even required, to wear a burqa. While she might not know this more of society, if she breaks it, the consequences can be dire. The example we learned about in class was street crossing. Here in Illinois, we are expected to wait for the crossing signal to cross the street safely. However, in India, intersections are more of an unorganized show of brute force than an orderly taking of turns. If an American went to India and tried to wait his turn at the intersection, he would be waiting forever.

However, our mores vary even here in America. Every summer when I was young, and before MTV turned the area into a laughing joke, my family went to the Jersey Shore. I don't remember too much from those early visits, and we stopped taking them when I was around 10. However, two years ago we started going there again. This time, as I was much older, I was much more in tune to my surroundings. Two things shocked me about New Jersey. The first is that when it comes to crossing the street, pedestrians always have the assumed right-of-way, and motorists are always expected to maneuver around them. As a result, there were very few marked crosswalks, and people were frequently crossing in the middle of a block. Another more different in New Jersey than here in Illinois pertains to getting gas. In New Jersey, there are no self-service gas stations. Attendants assist customers at every gas station across the state. This shows that a variance of mores doesnt only occur between countries, it can occur in different sections of a country as well.