The most important thing about this blog is that it should be real. I really want to be as honest as I can and not hide any pretenses or be hypocritical. I want my readers to know that I am trying my best to be as open-minded as I can and take everything into consideration so that I'm not prejudiced. I was looking back at my last post and I think it was too hostile. I am not trying to condemn anyone. I write what I feel and what I think, but I want to be sure that I'm as objective as I can be when it comes to writing about facebook and other cultural phenomena. Yes, I think I have found my niche. I am no sociologist, but I am totally interested in modern culture in general and how it affects life!
My friend Charlotte (or Mikcracker) told me about "cool hunters". They are people who are hired by companies like MTV, whose target audience are teens and young adults, and are constantly out searching for what's "cool" now. That's why there is a bunch of hipster bullshit shows such as "My Life As Liz". Here's the catch: everything that is cool turns uncool when it becomes mainstream. Hipster, a term coined by the beat generation (Ginsberg, Kerouac etc), is basically a non conformist kid who liked to do drugs and listen to jazz. Now,a hipster is an indie music listening styled out vegetarian with pseudo-intellectuality. Hipsters have become uncool because even Kesha sings about them. They are no longer unique but ubiquitous (SAT word, hells yeah).
My point is that what if I am tapping into the cool/uncool fad realm by removing my facebook? Is it possible that unconsciously I removed facebook because I see it as uncool because everyone has one? My friend Brooke told me that there is a surprising amount of people at her school that want to delete their facebooks as well. She told me that in one of her classes even the professor mentioned something along the lines of that people are deleting their facebook more than ever before.I'm curious to know if I am just on the same pretentious road that I tried to evade in the first place! Let's be real, there's even a movie about facebook with Justin Timberlake. That's pure marketing. Facebook used to be exclusive to college kids but now anyone can have one. Does that mean it lost its cool and I'm just trying to follow a different trend? I don't know if I can really answer that, but it has certainly been on my mind. The only thing I know is that since I removed my facebook I don't feel any cooler, but I have experienced feelings of condescension to people who do have one. I am not purposely trying to be better than people who do, I am trying to be honest with myself and identify these feelings and figure out the cause and effect. Part of it definitively has to do with the trend theory, but I know that I can't help what becomes a trend and what doesn't. I just want to inspire people and show them that ,down to the core,facebook isn't about networking anymore, it's about making money and showing off. That, my friends, will always be uncool.
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4 comments:
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html
if you ever said this in a speech, i would hold a lighter up to it
I wouldn't go so far as to say that hipsters are the end of western civilization, just that it's become a fad. These kinds of things come and go. I ain't worried about it. BUT generally, they suck dick.
We see everything published on Facebook, random television commercials, magazines, and newspapers all in the purpose of earning a dime from the people who potentially review these ads, which in turn ripples through the population providing any given person with a reasonable (not really, its actually really stupid) excuse to throw a Harry Potter lightning bolt on their head. Advertisement/movie WIN. However, being independent does not mean that you are looking for the next best thing. Subjecting your personal feelings and emotions to the public is what people lack in today's day and age. Instead, we have people taking awkward-angled photographs of themselves to hide what they truly look like (personal satisfaction maybe??).
The bottom line is that we cannot control what the new trend is going to be. If I could, well I reckon I would be a millionaire not caring about the welfare of the people around me. When it comes down to it, I guess, is that people are more concerned with their personal satisfaction and not their personal health/wellbeing. What if a person didn't spend money on Koby Bryant's shoes, or maybe Britney Spears's perfume? Is that a lot of extra money? In the short-run, no. However, in the long run it could be payments on a house, car, cell phone bill, etc. Sorry for ranting, could go on forever supporting your argument; however, I could also argue against it in the case that it could potential be good for the United State's economy. Anyway, take it easy.
P.S. Thought you were an English major...you missed a few spaces up there lol.
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