Category: Culture

Donald Trump and the state of things

I think Facebook is a terrible venue to discuss politics, and I do my best to avoid it. There is no space for nuance or rumination. I can’t recall a single mind I’ve seen changed from a comment thread or meme. Discussing politics on Facebook turns the real problems we face into theater, and treating our politics as if it were theater leaves us with politicians like Donald Trump.

All that said, the recent actions of this administration worry me. Policy that makes selfish action easier for individuals and corporations hurts everyone. I intend to do what I can to make it harder to ignore the rights of racial and sexual minorities, the economically disadvantaged, and in the case of climate change the rights of humanity as a whole.

I’m available if you need help.

Resolve

I’ve done grammatical resolutions for the past few years, and I want to stay in that same vein this year. I find more and more people using the phrase “I feel like” in place of “I think.” I understand that this is supposed to express uncertainty about whatever follows, but I really dislike it being used that way. I hear it enough that it slips into my vocabulary often enough to bring it to my attention, and my resolution this year is to completely stop using “I feel like” in that way.

It irks me in the same way that interviewers who prompt with “Talk about…” do. While I wish I could make interviewers actually ask questions, I don’t really have the power to change that, so I’ll just quietly cringe until one of us relents.

One of these things is just like the others

Have you seen that video? Where she whips her hair back and forth? Or that video where we learn the days of the week? Or…this? Yikes.

Here’s what I don’t get: Rebecca Black, age 13 and Eden Wood, age 6, sing songs not written by them to music not arranged by them, appear in videos not directed or produced by them, and motivations are questioned. Willow Smith, age 10, does the same thing, gets reviewed by legitimate music critics, and even receives radio play. I’m not confused about why one song/video/whatever is more popular than the others, but I am confused about why they’re seen as different. Complaints and accusations of abuse and exploitation leveled against both Ms. Black and Ms. Wood are just as valid against Willow Smith. Being the daughter of a musician does not give her a free pass.

While it’s true that we police social deviance among adults, it’s also true that children are held to completely different standards, and plenty of actions that are socially acceptable among adults are not among children.

A Completely Serious Post

In which I redefine a word that has a universally accepted definition to create a unified subculture of people who previously lacked a label in order to make future profits by marketing to an invented demographic. Ready? GO!

Freethinker
1. A person who spends their free time thinking. A person who thinks for leisure.
2. A person who does not require compensation for their thought.
3. Unemployed.

Snuggie and Sales

Several members of my family got Snuggies this year for Christmas – and not as a gag gift. When I first heard about the Snuggie, I gave it no respect, dismissing it as the next As Seen On TV product, and I thought other people held similar views. I’ve been discovering more and more that people are just laughing off the commercials and buying the product as a genuinely useful thing, and giving it as sincere gifts.

It’s been almost a month since I stopped selling helicopters, but everyone in the company used (and wanted me to use as well) similar over the top sales strategies. They want to get people excited about the product, and stimulate an impulse buy. And though the helicopters I was selling were actually of pretty good quality (compared to versions of years past), it’s still ultimately something you get for someone for whom you don’t know what to get. Using the bare minimum of these sales strategies, I was able to sell hundreds of the things.

The Snuggie, on the other hand, isn’t a particularly useful product. In my opinion, the Snuggie is the unholy union of a sweater and a blanket, with some of the benefits and none of the versatility. It accomplishes something that nearly everyone was capable of before, but it does so in a novel way that is different enough to be seen as distinct. It’s interesting how keyed in sales people are to the fact that we’re not good at predicting happiness, and how often we fall in that trap.

American Studies

Just over a year ago, I graduated with a degree in American Studies. It’s really what interested me in general, and was (eventually) free of a lot of the crap that I disliked about college. But I’m far from done studying. It’s hard to find anything that isn’t a reflection of culture. Maybe one exception is the natural world, but it’s quite easy to see it through a cultural lens if you want to – most people do. I try and pay attention to culture because of its power. Obviously I’m simplifying a bit by saying that, there’s no one person or source who can identify culture, but if you pay attention to what people are interested in, and pay attention to a large amount of people, you can get a weak grasp of culture.

American culture in particular is important because we are so good at exporting it, and it’s influence can be found in every other major culture, and many smaller cultures. We’re pretty good at exporting our politics as well, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. Considering the wide influence of American culture in today’s world, why would I go anywhere else? I was born into the epicenter of contemporary culture.

Considering this, it becomes important to look at how culture is created. There are always people who have a greater influence on culture than others, and I like to think of them as ‘artists.’ Usually people define an artist as someone who creates cultural artifacts, but I prefer my definition. I think it holds up when you take the many kinds of cultures into consideration. These are the reasons I care about copyright, the internet, and New York City. It’s all about creating, and shaping the world around us. It may not have been a ‘real’ major, but I take it seriously.

Selfishness

When I think about my future plans, I’m usually flip-flopping between two distinctly different options.

a) Build a small house in the country that can completely support itself.

b) Stay in the suburbs, or move to a city, and try to influence things there.

I usually end up going in circles if I think about this for too long.
In the country, it’s easy to create something in the image of an ideal. But in urban areas, there is so much more to work with. But people are set in their ways, you’ll always be fighting against the current. Change is the one constant feature of culture. You’ll be stepping on people’s toes instead of letting them choose to make a change. You’re asking too much of people – most can’t make that change. You need to go to them. At least those who came would be committed. They’d also be disconnected from the rest of the world. What is the value in that? Isn’t there value in living well and being happy? Isn’t there value in helping other people? I don’t know.

I’m hoping I’ll have a better grasp of this by the end of this summer.