Returning to Tuesday's class in which I discussed the dynamics of cultural transformation and how such transformation generally occurs on the fringes of collectivities...
When we encounter the "change makers" in a culture, more often than not they're people who have moved away from the mainstream and sought out ways to think outside the box. Most of us, most of the time, aren't doing that; we're smack dead in the middle of schools of fish carrying us through the well travelled and comfortable waters (that we don't even see as H2O). Einstein wasn't a professor or a student in some top physics program when he envisioned his theories, for example. Those professors would have scoffed at his imaginative discoveries and likely would have lured him into their unimaginative clutches for fear of not belonging. But his independence from the judgement of those he admired allowed him to follow his own call and create a new way of seeing the world.
As I think about all of the sub-cultural groups into which I'm embedded and that cajol me to continue to be a supporting actor in my own life, I'm constantly struck by how much I think inside the boxes that are all around me. I dress like my colleagues; I eat most of the same foods and dishes as others around me; I carry the thoughts that are similar to those of my friends; my music is a mix of the styles to which I've been exposed. That's an interesting example, by the way. I was recently listening to classical Chinese music and it didn't arouse my senses. So I kept listening...and still nothing. Why not? What am I missing by not hearing a synthesis between those melodic tones and the others that clearly appeal to me. I could be sitting on the most intriguing and dynamic fusion of sound that I could ever encounter, one that would open in my mind some amazing breakthrough idea about life -- but I don't hear it because maybe, just maybe I'm too stuck in the center of some familiar cultural system.
I understand that this is normal, that this is inevitable, that this happens to everyone. But I'm searching for dynamic wisdom...for something much larger than myself Maybe that's just me.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 273 of 273This week’s class discussions really got me thinking. The whole analogy about the school of fish and being the fish in the middle of the school was very interesting to me. I realized that people do keep themselves sheltered and surrounded by people you think and act like they do or want to. Some people spend their whole life transitioning from one “school of fish” to another and never at any point swim alone and live by their own rules. Throughout my life I have had friends and seen classmates get stuck in a clique and cant get them selves out. The only chances they see to escape are when they switch schools or moving to a different town. Both occur maybe once or twice in their academic life. Somehow these kids become a part of these groups and have to do what they do and think what they think. Knowing that some of these things are wrong or not something they want to take part in, they don’t think they have to strength to break away. That’s the key word there, strength. Strength is something everyone underestimates about them selves. Everyone is stronger then they think, and they will never know until they try. I’ve known so many people who just need that burst of confidence to make a change and do what is right for them instead of being told to do something that they’d rather not do.
On the other hand, there are people who never have and never will “swim” inside that school of fish. They do what they want, when they want, and don’t care what people have to say about it. They are their own bosses and that completely pleases them. Most of the time, at least in a school setting, these people are seen as outcasts of some sort for different reasons. In school, some kids may call them “geeks” or names of that nature. But, it is these people that come out of school knowing what they want, knowing how to be successful in a way that pleases them and not needing to be accepted by others. They also don’t feel the need to please everyone they know because they have gone their whole life with one goal in mind, doing whatever they need to do to please them selves.
It’s intriguing to hear about or see people who are acting and thinking outside the box or the norm. It is not a common thing that people do. When I hear Sam talk about it in class it fascinates me, I try to do my own thing and not follow what my friends do blindly but I also know that I don’t make the best example of it because it’s not just about the way you think and act, its what u listen to, the clothes you wear, etc. Some people stand-alone and some people follow a crowd, whatever works for them is good for me.
Individuality is often something thrown by the way-side. Everyone looks the same, even if they are trying to look different. All the preps look the same, all the emo kids look the same, all of the punks. Every “non-conformist” that tries to be different eventually looks the same as everyone else. But don’t tell them that. Just like the water being the last thing the fish notices, noticing that they look exactly like their “non-conformist” friends. People are idiots, all of us. We can deny it like everybody else and frankly that’s what everybody does. It shows in movies. They remake everything and there are fewer and fewer original ideas flowing through the silver screen. Music is on a 20 year cycle, the 70s came back in the 90s, the 80s are here now (that’s who we can thank for this shit on the radio), and hopefully the 90s will be back soon. Clothing, haircuts, colors, slang, its “Ever Revolving, Never Evolving” (borrowed from a 30FootFall record title). I have trouble with the punk scene (dead or dying). There are plenty of “punks” who would love to tell you what punk is. But who is to say what punk is? Punk is being angry about something or everything, having a voice standing for something. But I’ve met plenty of elitist assholes telling me that my pink t-shirt isn’t punk, that the patches on my jacket aren’t of the right bands, that my style of music isn’t for the size of my Mohawk (it was 8 inches once). So what can I do? Doomed to be a punk, doomed not to be. Can you play sports and be a punk? Can you have a nice car? I can, I did, so am I some weird hybrid punk/prep/rich kid? (my car is not that nice I’m using it for the sake of argument). And why does each person from another “click” hate the rest of another “click”? Is there some unwritten law of pure animosity? Did I miss the pledge of hatred? Must just be another thing we can blame on human nature like, not liking things because they are different. We can lump that up with greed. It’s human nature so it’s ok. Great! That’s how we can play off everything. We all look the same and shun out the nonconformist, make him or her feel like shit for trying something they really want to do to be different. But conformity is preached in television and movies all the time. Timeless classics are based in some one not fitting in and trying desperately to fit in. The ugly duck ling, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, Pinocchio , the jungle book (the Disney one), and well you fill in the rest (quite the cop out huh?). Conformity makes the world go around, and I don’t know about you but I’m getting dizzy.
People call us heroes, the newspapers compare us to superman, and to those who don’t understand us we seem crazy. We run towards danger when everyone else is running away from it. People talk about being outside the norm and the culture that I grew up in truly is. We risk our lives so that other can live. We do what is right not looking to be recognized as heroes but because we want to genuinely help. Growing up in a firefighter family changes how you view everything. Watching your father and father like figures run into a burning building changes a child. You start to become numb to it. When other kids or even other adults ask you why? You don’t have an answer. You just know that because of you someone else out there is safe. These characteristics stay with a child forever. It these characteristics which make everything person in the world a more caring person they help because they cannot because they know the person or are getting something in return. This also changes a Childs life because at any given moment he could lose a parent. Though this is extremely difficult to cope with the children realize that their parent gave the ultimate sacrifice to help those who could not help themselves. Growing up outside the norm takes on various disguises. Growing up in a firefighter community changes a person in many different ways. Even knowing the danger and watching others not return you still go out day after day, you still join up. These people aren’t stupid they know there is a high level of danger, but they also cannot help it. what others see as “outside the norm” running into buildings and putting yourself in harmsway we see as the norm. we have seen are firefighter family do it over and over before. You also gain a sense of family, not just your family but everyones. When your in a firefighter community everyone becomes your family. Whenever, wherever it doesn’t matter because we are one family. It is these reasons that I have grown up what is outside the norm to most people. While they are tucked in bed dreaming, im running into a burning building knowing that this could very well be the last thing that I do. I don’t think of myself as different though. This outside the norm opinion comes from the people around me, who aren’t part of this firefighter community. To me it is second nature, if theres a problem I go running to help not away to make sure im safe first because I no I can help, everyone can. This is why I grew up outside the “norm” and continue to do so. However I don’t see it like that. I see it that im in the norm because I try to help and that those who don’t help, who worrie about themselves when they are so capable of helping others, they are outside the norm.
The idea of people blending in to their society makes sense. It is just people adapting to their surroundings and then adapting the culture to fit in. back before civilization people lived in their own colonies and tribes. All the different tribes had their own different environments. People in the desert learned how to survive without a source of water. Native Americans learned how to live in the jungle because that is what they were given to work with. If you took a Native American and put them in the desert they wouldn’t survive. They all had their own manners, music, traditions; they all had their own culture. These ideas didn’t start to spread until these tribes and colonies began to trade and conquer. In the crusades, the Christians conquered land all the way to the “holy land.” At first they may have forced people to follow their ideas and beliefs. It soon became popular in their land and people started to follow it to fit in. they changed their own beliefs in their own land to fit into the ideas of foreigners. Just think about that, if America became mostly Hispanic, and the rest of the people began to speak Spanish and adapt the culture of the Hispanic community. The most powerful country in the world would change its ways because a large amount of “outsiders” moved in. it’s just our nature. People are pack animals; we need to fit in together. We care about each other; we love each other; we befriend each other; we care about each other. People invented medicine to take care of the sick. America has welfare so we could take care of the poor. You see the same behavior today in our society, but it’s not as noticeable because it occurs more slowly and we are more civilized. You see islands around America become more “American”. Countries like Mexico and the Bahamas begin to start speaking English to make money off our citizens. They begin to fit in to our culture to survive. To make money so they can support themselves and their kind. In Florida, more and more people are beginning to learn Spanish to fit in with the large Hispanic community. The “outsiders” are bringing in their ideas and teaching their ways to the natives. They were and did not think the same ways as the natives and introduced new ideas to the people. Once the two cultures have blended together, nothing new comes up until someone struggles away from society. They begin to have their own beliefs and ideas and begin to make their own trail. Either a new breakthrough or way of living; they can either be looked at as leaders or outcasts. New cultures can form around their ideas and ways. Because people want to fit in somewhere, whether it is with a crowd, or to be with someone else, to follow in someone’s steps. People just don’t want to be alone.
The idea of people blending in to their society makes sense. It is just people adapting to their surroundings and then adapting the culture to fit in. back before civilization people lived in their own colonies and tribes. All the different tribes had their own different environments. People in the desert learned how to survive without a source of water. Native Americans learned how to live in the jungle because that is what they were given to work with. If you took a Native American and put them in the desert they wouldn’t survive. They all had their own manners, music, traditions; they all had their own culture. These ideas didn’t start to spread until these tribes and colonies began to trade and conquer. In the crusades, the Christians conquered land all the way to the “holy land.” At first they may have forced people to follow their ideas and beliefs. It soon became popular in their land and people started to follow it to fit in. they changed their own beliefs in their own land to fit into the ideas of foreigners. Just think about that, if America became mostly Hispanic, and the rest of the people began to speak Spanish and adapt the culture of the Hispanic community. The most powerful country in the world would change its ways because a large amount of “outsiders” moved in. it’s just our nature. People are pack animals; we need to fit in together. We care about each other; we love each other; we befriend each other; we care about each other. People invented medicine to take care of the sick. America has welfare so we could take care of the poor. You see the same behavior today in our society, but it’s not as noticeable because it occurs more slowly and we are more civilized. You see islands around America become more “American”. Countries like Mexico and the Bahamas begin to start speaking English to make money off our citizens. They begin to fit in to our culture to survive. To make money so they can support themselves and their kind. In Florida, more and more people are beginning to learn Spanish to fit in with the large Hispanic community. The “outsiders” are bringing in their ideas and teaching their ways to the natives. They were and did not think the same ways as the natives and introduced new ideas to the people. Once the two cultures have blended together, nothing new comes up until someone struggles away from society. They begin to have their own beliefs and ideas and begin to make their own trail. Either a new breakthrough or way of living; they can either be looked at as leaders or outcasts. New cultures can form around their ideas and ways. Because people want to fit in somewhere, whether it is with a crowd, or to be with someone else, to follow in someone’s steps. People just don’t want to be alone.
By simply being here at college, writing this journal, I’m following the path of conformity in my hometown, neighborhood, and household. If I truly wanted to create my own path, I would be like my sister and not go to college, be the only one in my six-person at-home family to do so. So, just being at my computer and authoring this journal makes me a conformist, to some degree.
Now that I am at college, my major carries both some degree of conforming to the public and straying off the beaten path. My major is Secondary Education, a major which many people question me about and ask why I am interested in this career-path. The pay does not do justice to the work, difficulty, stress, etc. that it entails. However, it is what I truly want to do with my life. Realizing this has opened my mind to many different avenues as well. For example, hopefully, I will be going to South America to teach different kids down there.
Furthermore, in the education field I want to teach middle-school students (say, 6th-8th grade for clarity purposes). These are the grades rich in adolescence and the grades that most educators totally despise. Whenever I say that I want to teach these students, even the majority of people within the education field question me and wonder why.
What makes me not conform to everyone else? Nothing, nothing at all. I feel that while a lot of people “talk the talk” and strive to be different, their attempts are futile. Non-conformity conforms together. Everyone must conform to a degree if they want to be, what most United States-ians consider as “successful.” If you are successful, by this definition, are you then inevitably a true conformist? Even if you think that you garnered your current status by being “different?” In this sense, is “Dr.” Sam Richards more of a conformist than many of us will ever be?
I wonder, is the true anti-conformist not some rock star from decades past, not Cal-Berkley students during the 60s, but rather the average homeless person on the street? After-all, they have not conformed to this ideology of success that others have. They have probably not truly conformed to a whole lot during their life, other than the substance-abuse culture (there you go, even they are conforming to an anti-conformist culture), in many cases.
I consider myself an individual, but not different from everyone else in most cases. I know that I conform to society and my local community, just like everyone else does. I’ll keep jumping through the hoops of society, graduate with a degree shortly, hopefully land a job, and live in a community that I’ll unknowingly conform to. Excursions (not vacations) like I am hopefully doing to South America this summer is a bit outside of typical conformity, but it also is not.
After-all, trips like these (or missions, for the sake of argument) are to teach people of a different nation how to conform to how society feels the whole world should be. Whether you are attempting to further their education, so they can become knowledgeable, and hopefully advance to an industrialized nation like the US, or are teaching them about Jesus Christ, you ARE teaching them to conform. Tribes in the middle of the Amazon that have their own, unique, language and practice cannibalism are true individuals (as a group/society).
For once I am going to have to disagree. I believe that more and more people are starting to think outside of the box. Maybe for the past couple of years not only have people begun to think out of the box, but people have begun to teach others to think this way. I have had at least three teachers or professors within the past three years telling me to think outside the box, to be different, don’t go with the flow. Be a leader not a follower. This quote should be everywhere around America, it should be at every bus stop, at every coffee shop. This is the quote that will teach America how to act. In the 90s, people did what they wanted to do. They thought what they wanted to think. Now, I believe that finally people are starting to form their own opinions. I don’t think that this only applies to race and ethnic culture; this can also be applied to new ideas in businesses or any other types of organizations. Now, people are open to new idea and cultures. For example, I was sitting next to this girl the other day in class. By just taking a quick glimpse of her, she appeared to be white. I came to this conclusion well, because she had white skin. Well what she was wearing did not match the color of her skin. She was wearing basically a sheet with sequins that looked like something a person from India would wear. Now, I could be way off, but this girl did not appear to be Indian. Later when I went back to my room I thought about this. My conclusion is that maybe she has a close friend from India or the Middle East and she wants to learn and explore their culture so she decided to wear a sheet. I think more people need to do this, not wear sheets, but explore other cultures. Life is short and can be very boring at times, especially when you get to be Sam’s age! I believe the best thing you can do is think outside of the box and do something you thought you would never do before. So people try and do this right, they go to different countries and they come back with something from a gift shop and then they brag about how they were so exposed to the different culture. If you go on a cruise or you go to the wealthy parts of these countries, it is basically like you are in America just a thousand miles away. I think that if you are going to go to another country to experience their culture, you need to go to the worst parts of that country. If you are going to Puerto Rico, you are not going to go to San Juan to experience their culture; you are going to go to the places with the little shacks all over the place. You want to go to the places where your kids look up at you and ask why there are so many sheds around. I believe that people need to be open to new ideas and new cultures and I think that this will come in the future.
Everyone wants to fit in. Bottom line. Ever since we were little we always would naturally tweak ourselves; our likes, our dislikes, our style just to be apart of the “in crowd.” People mold and transform in order to be blend in. Why? --Because it is lonely on the outside. Being classified as different or unusual are not exactly looked upon as compliments in our society. People lie and do stupid things just to be part of a group. We see it here at Penn State every semester. What would you do for someone to call you their “brother” or their “sister.” Would you drink milk until you were forced to puke it all up? What about go through physical pain by walking on glass? Or how about eat live fish or have to do something stupid in front of fellow students just for the pure purpose of humiliation? Yea that sounds like a real bond right there. I will call you my brother if you do these absurdly ridiculous things that have nothing to do with a friendship. I think people have taken this mainstream concept so seriously that they lie to themselves just to be accepted. We’ve all read Catcher in the Rye. The whole point of that book is how phony or superficial people have become. People strive so bad to be part of the mainstream and they become fake and unreal. Take the classic movie Mean Girls for example. The plot of the whole movie revolves around how girls lie repeatedly to other girls just to be in the “cool” group. They give fake compliments, blatantly lie to seem “cool,” and would do anything for attention. The reason this movie is so funny is because it is so true.
I have a friend that doesn’t have an American name and he goes as far as telling girls he meets at parties fake names like Mike or Kenny just to fit in more. Changing your name? How crazy is that? One thing I really hate is when people go on and on and on about how they do not like someone and list millions of reasons why, yet they act like their best friend. I try my hardest to stay true to my opinions and myself. I am proud to say that I do not pretend to like a certain type of music or pretend I am interested in a certain hobby just to please others. If I have a problem with somebody I cannot act like we are friends. I do not know if this is always a good thing or a bad one. If I have a negative opinion about something it shows on my face. I will always be honest with myself.
Everyday people wake up and go through the motions. They get dressed, eat, and go to class or to work. After work, they go back to their homes to cook dinner, spend time with their families, do chores and go to bed so they can wake up early in the morning and repeat the whole process again. Throughout the day, they think for seconds what they would rather be doing instead what they are doing at the moment, only to forget or suppress that thought quickly and go on with their day. Those individuals, which compose the vast majority of society, fall into a never-ending routine, a deep sleep from which they are unable to awake. Similar to the fish being the last one to notice the water it is immersed in, humans today immerse themselves in professions in which they are unhappy, frustrated and stationary. I say stationary because drastic decisions must be made in order to move from one point in life to another or to change the current conditions of a person’s life. These decisions at times are to improve you, but because those decisions might be described as “unconventional” or “drastic”, people might be swayed into conforming and staying the way they are; slowly dimming that creative spark that at one point drove them.
By hearing that the fish is the last creature to realize that they are in water, I began to think: am I blinded by own actions and fallen into a “trend” or into the “mainstream”? I notice that there is a certain routine to all of my days; class, study, gym, hang out with friends. There is nothing out of the ordinary or transcending. Could my life really be that meaningless? It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong, I’m doing what every young adult is raised to do: get an education and get ready for the real world. However, I don’t feel like what I am doing is wrong, I feel like I am not meant to do what I am doing right now. I wake up every day wanting more out of myself, my classes and the world in general. And what do I do? I keep doing the same routine every day and for what? The major that I am in right now is not my ideal one, which might mean that I will end up working in a job that I don’t like for the rest of my life. I believe that the creative spark that once shined brightly within me has been dimmed, initially by my parents and then by me. There were things that wanted to do when I was younger but because it might’ve affected my grades in school or because doing the things I wanted to do meant comprising the things that I was already doing. For example, in High School I wanted to take music classes, which meant that I would need to resign from being class president so I would have time to study. When I consulted my mother about this decision, she laughed at me and proceeded to say that I shouldn’t be a quitter. At the time, I reluctantly agreed with her. Now I regret not being able to take music lessons, not being able to feed the creative spark that burned within me at the time. I believe that if I would have taken the classes, I would have a lot of more pleasant memories of high school than if I was the class president.
Perhaps it’s not too late for me and my creative spark. Is it ever too late? I hope not.
Well, I don’t know. I can’t say that I consider myself to be particularly innovative or creative or any junk like that. I spend probably 40% of my time bitching about my life. Not because it’s particularly unpleasant, but just because it’s what I do. I’ve kinda sorta writing been writing this book. It’s semi-autobiographical in that it’s mostly about a guy who IS me, only in situation that I haven’t found myself in yet. I don’t think it’s a particularly groundbreaking work of literature. It probably isn’t even that good. But it’s me. And there’s only one me. All the totally unique experiences that I’ve had are what shape me. I don’t think people should have to go out of their way to be outside the box. There is no box. There’s just you, and me, and everyone else. One of the cultures I think myself most grounded in would be the Indie subculture. It’s about music, and books, and clothes, and everything else. The thing of it is, for a culture that prides itself on being unique and independent of anything that has come before it, there’s a huge number of people who subscribe to it that just mime what they’ve seen others do, or what they’ve heard others think. It almost seems like those who try the most to be different gravitate towards their own little unions of conformity. And so I say this: don’t try to be different, just be you. I’m different simply by virtue of being me. I don’t think that lends me any extraordinary powers of composition, but what it has given me is a unique perspective with which to view anything and everything, and that lends itself to me being able to come up with some fairly strange ideas. I used to do this thing a while ago where I would wear glasses with no lenses, only the frames. Whenever I was asked why I wore them, I’d say something like, “I like the idea of wearing glasses with no lenses.” I wouldn’t call that any sort of radical thinking, just the opposite in fact. I wanted so desperately to be thought of as quirky and strange and all that junk that I would go out of my way just to be ridiculous. That’s the problem. Too many people try and be different. I’m sure Einstein didn’t try to be Einstein, he just was. I’m going to stop short of sounding incredibly pretentious by shooting out some old Taoist proverbs and just say that the people who take the strangest paths aren’t the people who look for them, I think they’re really just people who choose the path that comes easiest to them.
This article, “Cultural Transformation and Our Personal Lives” and the video Sam made are completely true and very interesting. People act just like the people around them do. We do his so we feel like we “fit in”. We can see this happening for example in our Soc 119 class. If we look around the classroom, we see that the people we sit with are most likely to dress, talk and act like we do.
One example in my personal life was when I used to live in Puerto Rico. When I lived in Puerto Rico, most of the guys there shaved their legs and that was something normal and part of their culture. Then when I moved to the United States, when people started noticing that I shaved my legs because that was part of my culture they thought I was gay because here in the United States only girls do that. Because I wanted to fit in with the rest of the kids in my school, I stopped shaving my legs and started dressing like most of the kids in the school did. Most of the people do this subconsciously, and thinking they are just being unique in someway. Also, since I moved to the United States, I started to listen to American music because that is what most of my friends listen here, so I started to get used to listening to their music.
In life, like Sam said, most of us are followers and not unique. We pretend we are doing things our own ways, but in reality we are not. We are just imitating others. This is not something wrong and something we should be ashamed of, but something most of us do. We all need to start thinking about things that we do that are unique, things that separate us from others. In my case, I can think of a few things that make me unique, but like most people, I dress and do most things like most people do. I admire the kids that dress the way they want, without caring about what other people think about them.
Life is short. Like Sam said in class, we are all going to die! We all need to do things that make us happy and that we feel comfortable doing. We should stop caring about what other people think about us. I know this is not easy to since most of us care about what other people think about us, but we at least need to try. Being unique is something that most of us do not how to do it, but we all need to find out a way to do it and put those thing in action.
“Creativity has been put to sleep”
Although it is hard to see even more so believe everyone is a victim of copying each other. It is a trend that begins from a young age, one is programmed to believe what the “norm” is and what “cool” is supposed to be, with fear of stepping out of the box to not be seen as the outcast. It is literally programmed in our heads from about age five from watching our so-called innocent Disney movies and sometimes even from our parents. That is how our individual creativity begins to numb, the irony is we are all taught from a young age to be leaders not followers.
The majority of the time when people choose to break out of the crowd and become their own person they realize they are better off being themselves, hanging around people they actually like, wearing clothes they think are trendy, and just living in peace. Of course it is never easy to be the “odd ball” for fear of ending up alone. I myself was always in the “cool” crowd in high school and I couldn’t stand half of the people I was supposedly friends with. I wore the clothes that were in, went to the parties that were hosted by the same people, and judged everyone outside the box just like everyone else did. Every year I realized I was getting out of my “norm” because of the 120 people I would stop and make conversation with I only remained friends with about 10, which were the ones I truly considered liked. By my senior year I no longer had a problem talking to the “weirdoes, geeks, smarties, Goths, skaters, emos, or different” people and found out they were a hell of alot more interesting then the popular crowd. I’m not saying I’m the wisest and fairest of them all, I admit I do still follow some trends and a bunch of other things I probably do not realize, but I feel everyday I am more myself than I ever was before. Even in college I had to take a deep breath and step out of the box. As a Hispanic growing up in a Hispanic and Black environment it was a culture shock when I stepped on to this predominately white environment. I had to step out of my comfort zone and meet new people that I now realize just look different than I do and nothing more. One thing that I hate to see are the minorities sticking to each other on this campus because they refuse to step out of their comfort zone (don’t get me wrong there is absolutely nothing wrong with having friends from your own culture my closest friends on this campus are Hispanic and Black). As Yeonee1215 said “Do we take the blue pill or the red pill.” – Matrix
P.S (This blog really got me thinking Sam you’re awesome!)
Swimming upstream. It sounds difficult. Do I want to put forth the effort? I don’t know. I may be alone. I don’t like to be alone.
This thought process has fueled my life for the most part. I am well aware I am part of the mainstream because that is where I have put myself. In the last few years, I have been trying to look mainstream but think originally. It takes a lot of energy for me to focus on one thing at a time and trying to act one way and be another has been draining. I feel like a liar because I know I’m cheating myself. But then I think to myself, “would I be happier if I had all my own thoughts?” I honestly don’t think I would. My energy and joy in life comes from interacting with others and bouncing thoughts off of others.
I called my dad this afternoon to discuss the ways in which I’m unique. I called him because that is who I look up to most and who I go to feed the mind. He asks me to take a test and I go through a series of questions that will somehow sum up my personality and originality. I was surprised to find that the description was actually dead on. But how many people have the same description? I like to think my inner thoughts are unique, but how will I ever know because how many people honestly share what they are thinking most of the time…those are the people mainstream society calls unique or in middle school, weird.
ms. Realistica feels as if RainyDaysSuck plagiarized her blog. someone please take this under consideration. I know what I say is true but don't plagiarize or try to paraphrase what I wrote! Thank You!!!
Before I answer the final question I just want to say that it is impossible to break free without risking the chance of being pushed off alone. The people who try to break free and be completely different, most times, are treated poorly. If you dress very different or act strangely the others around you treat you like you have a disease. And no matter what anyone says, people cannot stand to be isolated from everyone. So this leads to conformity, no matter how unique you are. Occasionally a person can think of a whole new concept, such as a new form of music, and still be accepted, but this is rare. Much more often than not that idea is scoffed at.
Also, it is impossible to be completely unique because there are so many people in the world. Even just in the community around us, how can we be original? How can we be the one person who branches of from the mainstream without just joining another sub group? Take the Goth idea for example: many teenagers decide to wear all black and shun the “popular” people so they can repel against society, and be unique. But how are they rebelling if so many teenagers do this? They quickly find a group of friends that wear all black and shun society and suddenly they are no longer unique. Moreover, people act unique in order to fit in. It is the cool thing to be an individual; you just have to be the right person with the right idea. Consider Uggs, which are known for their ugliness (hence the name), one famous person had to start wearing them and then slowly everyone joined in. If I, one day began to wear them and no one had heard of them I would have been ridiculed. You have to be the right person.
Anyway, to answer your final question, that spark comes from the collection of people around you. It is a unique combination of already thought of ideas. Say I talk to my preppy, girly, Russian friend and we have a deep conversation that gets me thinking about a specific topic. Then, the next day I am speaking to my outdoorsy, relaxed, hippie friend and I get his input on the topic I was thinking about. After I get input from a bunch of different friends, with different backgrounds and different feelings on the topic, sooner or later I am going to have a different, new view of the original topic. But really it is just a collection of all the ideas of the people I spoke to. Because your new, unique thought has to come from somewhere. It is very rare that an exceptional, one of a kind thought just pops into your head out of the blue.
ms. Realistica feels as if RainyDaysSuck plagiarized her blog. someone please take this under consideration. I know what I say is true but don't plagiarize or try to paraphrase what I wrote! Thank You!!!
Hey, What’s up? Wait! Why did you take your earrings out? And your pants are pulled up so high. These are the first things I said to my date; the first time he met my parents. I had invited him to a pirate’s game in Pittsburgh and he met us there. When he showed up he didn’t even look like himself, even his hat was on his head correctly opposed to the way he usually wore it, which was backward of course. I asked him what was up and he told me he wanted to make a “good” impression on my mom. I had already told my parents about him and he was what my dad likes to call a “thugabee.” At that moment, I said but if that’s the way you dress then its you, and you shouldn’t hide it because your afraid of what my mom and dad might think of it. So as were sitting there he put his gauged hooped earrings back in turned his hat around but he didn’t pull his pants down any further at request of my mom. He said he didn’t do it out of respect so I just let him go. We then went on with our evening and had a good time, and he was just Ed and that was the way it was.
At that time I didn’t think too much of it but now I think about tit and find it interesting that he thought I was necessary to hide his style, or his “subculture” like we learned in class, from my parents. Something that he had no problem showing around his buddies or the rest of the society. The best part is around his own family it was just the way it was, his older brother was exactly like him, actually that’s where Ed got his style he really looked up to his older brother. They were all “cool” but then he gets around my family or people he thinks may judge him and he hides who he is. We all do it in a way we try to conform to what society likes or the subculture that we are brought up around. I for example I am a victim of the hair straightener and what they like to call fake baking. I have very curly hair and I straighten it sometimes because that’s what’s in well that’s what everyone seems to think looks best. And of course I wouldn’t want to be pale so I have to go tanning. I pay for all these things that will make me ”fit” in better, but now I think it may be costing me more than just money. I think a lot of us tend to lose track of who we really are and our individuality just so we can fit into the mold society things is best were part of a subculture but is it the one we should really be in or is it the one we have been forced to be part of. Everyone will always be part of one subculture or another and most likely they are in many. But maybe we should try to be individuals and then fall into a subculture instead of being forced to be part of one because that’s what society finds most “attractive” and “acceptable”
I am a leader first and foremost, the captain, the chief, the commander amongst my peers. I am humble but strong and confident when need be. I am loyal and respectful, but I don’t like to be pushed around. If I want something I go after it, normal people are not like me, I am above average. I’m incomparable to others because I don’t just go with the flow, I create it. When I say I lead, I don’t force, or boss people to do as I do, they just do. It’s as easy as a quote I was once told, “If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. If you really make them think, they'll hate you.” I mean, how true is that? I believe that my ability to lead along with my inability to go with the flow is a major part of the success that I have achieved thus far in my life. Someone once reminded me though, that I’m going to die…kind of interesting in a chilling way.
Another way that I am different, unique, or even rare in a sense, is the way that I whistle. I can whistle and smile at the same time. It’s loudly effective and looks funny and amazing to people seeing it for the first time. How do you do that? That question is the most common question that I get after displaying my talents. And my first answer is most likely that I’m born with it. It was first discovered by my grandfather who passed, God bless his soul, George Owen Walker. He told me to never let go of it, and still to this day, I can remember the smile on his face when I first showed him.
Though I have many talents and abilities, the last one of them that I will share is my ability to be as athletic as I am weighing 305lbs and standing 6’4”. I play basketball almost every day in the IM building and do it well, with quick thorough finishing moves that surprise my opponents. I am a “big man” that can shoot the three dangerously to the opposition. I can even dribble penetrate and create a shot or a lane to the basket for myself. My body shape is definitely unique as I am a man with boobs. HA HA, funny, yes, but still unique. My charm, kindness and strapping body out shadows any physical difference that I may have, at least to those who get to know me.
I love life and it is shown through my actions each and every day. And I think that I am very different from at least people I grew up with, going to college and gaining knowledge from crazy professors. Not many people who look like me are in the position that I am in today. Thank God I’m me.
I always have to follow my parents’ orders since I was young. I’m Asian so it iss very normal that parents have power over their children. I never really get to do what I want or make decision for myself. Even in school, teachers do not let you say anything in class. You pretty much just have to go with whatever they are saying. If they say it is right, then it is right. Nothing else you can do or say. Then I came to US to study and teachers actually taught me to think! I can actually say what I wanted to say without getting punish. Then I went to private school. I was surprise because the whole school was full with Asians. My graduated class has only 10% Americans. And it is so weird that I feel more comfortable hanging out around Asians rather than Americans. Even though I have lots of American friends but still prefer to hang out with Asians. However I realized that I became more and more like American everyday. I started to like American food and started to talk like one (which is a good thing). I even started to dress like them, just went along the stream. I was scared that if I do not do whatever they are doing then I will not fit it. I think it is human nature to want to fit into whichever society they are in. I used to be like that too. I think people who follow what other people are doing do not know who they are. They do not know who themselves really are that is why they just do whatever other people are doing and “pretend” it is who they are. People who think inside the box are narrow-minded and do not open to new ideas. Human beings are used to the way they always thing for whole life and I think they are scared to think of something else. They scared that they will get rejected from the certain society if they have different ideas from other members. They do not want to be different and they want to fit in. If they start to act differently then they might not be able to go back in their society. People just need to take that step and not to be scared to have new ideas. It might be hard to start it but once u start doing then it gets easier. After that you will learn who yourself are. The world are full with 6.7 billions human being and not everyone can be the same. You just need to be unique from everyone else.
As Sam said, some fishes swim down the stream and the other swim the opposite way. Those fishes that swim to the opposite way of the stream are just like us. We think that we are unique and different from others but actually we actually are not. Every day, as I look around to the different places I see there is conformity everywhere. For instance, everyone wears different kind of brand names, types and styles of clothing, but the common thing is that those clothing are made out of cloth. I know this is funny of how I talk about the clothing, but from what I know from my own society, in many years ago before us, human beings knew how to invent clothes we used leaves as clothes instead. And what I am trying to say is that everyone is the same no matter what ethnicity or race we are; we are human just like everyone else.
Moreover, to those who think they are unique maybe because they think the way they create their own style or how to live their own lives comes from their creation. In fact, it is just a transformation of other people’s ideas. For example, for girls, they likely want to cut their hair short all the way to their neck because they think it is a new style that their fellow peers created. However, that short hair style was created since I was a little kid and now I am a college freshman already. Also, for some girls who have curly hair they want their hair to be straight because they want to fit in today society. On the other hand, for girls who have straight hair want their hair to be curly because they think it is a style that people in their society want it to be. I, too, my hair is straight but I always wanted it to be curly because I think it is cool and it might catch everyone’s attention and it goes with the flow. “The fish that breaks free will not have that safety net and the comfort of other fish supporting him. That fish is taking a risk, and that is where innovation stems from.” said dark chocoholic. According to this quote I totally agree with her or him because if that fish is dare to take a risk and something bad happens there will be no one to back him up. In short, not all people are daring to take the rejection from the society that they are living in. In general, I believe that the cultural transformation occurs when people in the society try to change their way of living to fit in their individual crowd but It will take generations to be adapted from everyone.
We really do all act the same. You just walk around campus and you can easily see everyone’s similarities. Most people have their iPod headphones in, dressed similar and have similar hair styles. What’s so crazy about this is that you can figure out what things you do that make you a follower as well, such as the movies I watch. I only really watch movies and TV series that are the most “popular” as shown on the New Movie list. Why don’t I just go through the movies and pick for myself by reading the descriptions and looking at the covers? This is because we are all just too lazy and would rather let everyone else pick our favorite movies. If we would just go out on a limb and do things for ourselves for once then everyone’s creative could really show. That’s enough about that topic, I would like to move on to talking about my group discussion for this week.
I really loved my first discussion session we had on Tuesday. You just never get the chance to actually sit down and have a conversation with a group of completely different individuals all about your age. We started to talk about a few things from class, including that exercise we did in class where the Black student had to categorize everyone according to their race. Of course he was way off when we went over the results, but it was just so interesting to this because I would have made the same choices as this kid did. It is just so hard to tell a difference between people these days because we are really all just so mixed up I feel, in terms of race and ethnicity. I personally am a mutt! Half polish, but then half (Italian, Dutch, Swiss, German, Spanish, and Russian) So who knows what category this kid would have put me in. The whites I suppose, because that is what I most look like.
Another thing that my discussion group got into was our backgrounds from before college. Some peoples high schools were 97% Black and some were 100% white, so these students explained how they needed to adjust to college diversity in order to make themselves hangout with everyone but their own race. There are so many cliques you see as you walk around campus, especially through the HUB. The Asians, the Indians, the Blacks…does that make things worse for everyone? I think that sort of helps encourage the separation of races on campus. Not very badly or anything but it definitely causes some issues. I personally just love talking to everyone I can and getting a better understand of all these diverse backgrounds my fellow students have.
When I think about “change-makers” in my world my mind immediately turns to a book that I read in the past year called The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, Gladwell explains how trends and societal movements are able to gain momentum and speed. Through his research he has discovered that there are a couple of rules that govern the spreading of ideas and trends. A lot of his research focuses on the type of people that throughout recent history have made enormous strides in pushing products and behaviors. I really don’t think it matters at all how transformational your ideas or behaviors might be because if you don’t display these ideas in a way that appeals to others you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You also need to be connected to the world in which you want to appeal to. Basically, you can’t be a loser. Gladwell aptly calls those people who are extremely ‘well connected,’ “connectors.” These are the people who when you’re with them walking down the street will run into about five people whom they will say hi to. These people have the ability to reach out to many people with their ideas. But it isn’t just the sheer number of people that makes them important to be able to push ideas, they also always find themselves belonging to a wide variety of social circles. For connectors to appeal to so many different groups it is assumed that a conforming personality could not attain acceptance into so many different types of groups.
I would group myself into these so-called connectors. I always find myself observing people and the way that they group themselves and find acceptance. I love introducing my friends from different groups to each other and watching how they interact. I rarely find myself to be at the center of one group but rather on the fringe of many groups. Not to say that I don’t conform to mainstream trends. I do in many cases. But it has been a part of my personality as long as I can remember to find something interesting about the people who I meet.
As a result I find myself associating with many groups. Not all of which would I say I identify with but nonetheless I am able to find people in those groups who bring me in to a small degree based on a couple of genuine conversations. It’s been a huge privilege to be exposed to so many different groups in my life. I have found that when I am just open with someone I’m just meeting for the first couple times I predispose myself to a rich and full relationship. I can choose to stop pursuing a relationship whenever I want but first impressions are everything and if I want to show someone who I am I do it in those initial contacts. As a result I can spread myself out over many groups and feel accepted in just as many.
I strongly agree with the idea that I heard on Tuesday September 8 in class which stated that the closer you are to a culture, the least innovative you are. If one just bases his life specifically in one culture it is most likely that we will be narrow minded about other cultures and their ideas. People in the same culture will share most of their beliefs and way of living regardless of the uniqueness of every individual. If we expand our curiosity and respect our differences we can learn and take the best of every culture improving ourselves. Having knowledge of different kinds of thinking will give us confidence to express our opinions and raise our standards of living. But it is true that the easiest way to live is following others even if is not the best way to live. Everyone sees happiness and satisfaction in a different perspective and people conserve the ideas that made their ancestors content, but they no longer apply to modern day. It takes time and courage to change those strong traditions that everyone keeps following without an acceptable reason. I believe that every single one of us is creative in its own way it is a matter of personality, wants and needs that lead to changes. We do not create or change because we are not exposed and if we are we have not found something to truly connect to that. Everything in this world is connected or related somehow, but we do not approach with an open mind and we find things not interesting. We all had once a great creative idea, but the question is what stops us from believing in that idea and develop it. This is when culture gets involve specifically values, if it is accepted in your family or what others might think. Today we do not have the same necessities that others had before us; we have advanced technology for everything that we do which I think can be very negative because it does not help us think out of the box. In today’s society you need to be exposed to many different cultures, travel and know how the world thinks very well. Someone who was raised with no fear of being themselves is most likely to come up with his own way of living than someone who was suppress by the government and culture. The key is getting involved with other cultures but not forgetting about your roots which make the person you are physically, and incorporating other ways of living that make you happy. It all depends on personality and the people you get surrounded by, being different is difficult but I think is worth the risk.
I am by no means a unique person living on the fringes of society. I am however a person who frequently pays visits to the fish outside of the school because I realize that the world has more to offer than just my surroundings. I am someone who on the outside resembles mainstream but on the inside has more to offer. I was not always this kind of person but along the way I have had experiences that changed by view of life. For example I recently discovered that I love heavy metal music. The issue is that I am the last person on earth you would except to see at a heavy metal concert. To me however there is something liberating, and beautiful about this kind of music and I love it. It is hard to explain but its almost as if my whole life I had all these emotions bottled up inside and the first time I went to a metal concert their was this explosion and I was suddenly free, weightless. I have never had this sort of experience with anything else. I also love to write and feel it is one of the only ways I can truly be creative. I write poetry and I believe that nothing feels quite as good as reading a poem you wrote and being proud of it. I guess the spark comes from experiencing something that just blows you away, from getting a little taste of something different. And then wanting to come back for more. The thing is though that if this kind of music became mainstream I do not think it would have the same effect on me. If everyone read my poems they would not feel like my own anymore. I would feel almost robbed of something unique and mine. I like the fact that I am different in those aspects its like my little secret something that makes me different and sort of keeps me sane. I’m not sure I would want to share that with the world. With that said I do think that everyone has a way of escaping the social chains of mainstream, its just that most of us do not feel the need to show it. Some people write poetry, others play music, paint, etc. Everyone is capable of being unique, and everyone releases that unique energy in some way. I guess it would be nice if the whole world went around doing their own thing and showing of what their good at. The problem is that by showing the world what we have to offer we run the risk of being critiqued and judged. Most of us rather keep it safe and follow what is already considered acceptable.
Growing up, we are all usually encouraged to stand out and be different or to break from the pack and be a leader. However, at the same time we are can be put into classes in school that seem to be engineered to strip us of all individual creativity. We take art, writing, and photo classes where the style of your instructor is basically the correct style. If Picasso took art at my school, he would have failed it.
There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of things in society or learning system today that truly promote individuality.
In many ways, society itself is screaming at us to be conformists. People who usually go against the grain are ostracized in some way, shape, or form. As a personal example. I grew up as the youngest child in a household with all boys. I was real close to my mother, who hates rap, so I didn’t listen to rap until I hit third grade. That resulted in me being the brunt of all sorts of jokes in my all black elementary school about how I was the tomboy who acted white.
When I went to my African American, Catholic, all girls high school, I was still dubbed as the tomboy with the ‘good’ hair. I thought that would change when I got to college because everyone is so different. WRONG. There was more division and persuasion to fit into a certain group at Penn State than there was in my all black, girls only, catholic high school. Black students seemed to attack other people’s ‘blackness’ because they have white friends, listen to ‘white’ music, or go to ‘white’ parties. They basically play the ‘if you’re going to be one of us, act like one of us or we’ll revoke your black card’ role. The term ‘oreo’ gets thrown around a lot over here. At home, people would kid about my hair texture. Here, it seemed like they were offsetting others because of more personal issues, such as the way they talked and their interests. The tomboy joke even went more extreme when people started asking me if I was bisexual because I wear a lot of t-shirts, am athletic, and don’t like dresses or heels. I sometimes feel the need to tell people that I grew up in the deep south, have been a victim to direct racism many times, attended all black schools and churches my whole life, and lived a block away from the projects so I don’t really feel like having someone who, according to all their high school facebook pictures, grew up as one of the few dark spots in their crowd to preach to me about the qualifications of being ‘black’.
I guess that the biggest thing that blocks individuality today is the need to be a part of a group. I stifle a lot of my individuality just to fit in with everyone else. In elementary school, I felt ostracized and left out, so I started listening to rap to fit in. I buy the clothes that’s in style so that no one talks about me when I go out on the weekends. The Top 25 Songs on my Ipod playlist are not the songs I sing out loud in public. No one wants to be that one weirdo who doesn’t fit in. And the crazy thing about it is that all over the country there are hundreds of definitions of normal, so depending on where you travel, there may be oh so many more ways in which you have to conform in order to not be the weird kid. For instance, where I’m from, it feels somewhat rude not to talk to people who sit next to you, no matter where you are; we are known for being really open with each other. Up here, I’m way too open and have been dubbed a creeper because I talk to strangers. I didn’t even know what a creeper was until I came here! I guess to end this novel, I’m just going to say that sometimes it seems as if all our lives, in some sort of way, we are given the impression that we must be a certain way and if we refuse we are dubbed as outcasts instead of creative individuals. This is just my opinion and I’m not sure if I even stayed on track with the topic because I took a few things personally, but I’m just saying, it gets tiring chasing after the vision of the norm when that it’s always changing or being updated, despite the fact that it might not even exist 40 miles away from your current location.
I find this to be a difficult subject for its complexity in as Sam said “sociology” however also at a philosophical level as well. So mainly where does this “uniqueness” or this “spark” of creativity coming from that separates us from the box, which becomes the thinking’s of outside the box? To be honest I don’t know, however I would guess—experience. Maybe its experience of what one goes though externally (of their body) but also that which goes on internally (or mentally) which forms a character that has been impacted and uniquely shaped by experience that when that one trigger experience or action or thought happens, the idea becomes so clear, so creative—so original. The experience of life though person A’s life is not the same perspective of life for person B, even though they are in the same society or culture, based upon similar ideals, norms, values, fashion, etc. I see it almost like the old-school game Tetris where these similar shapes (a.k.a experiences) are falling upon everyone, yet falling in random orders and at different angles. And then out of chance or out of perspective of an experience all the shapes finally fall to form that solid base for someone and “click”—the creativity is formed, while the other people have shapes just falling upon each other, not yet their turn to someday have that solid base before their enlightenment. However if the experiences that create that uniqueness are random and rare within one’s mainstream culture due to their magnetism to be alike, it wouldn’t seem fair. Therefore there needs to be another factor involved to allow one to choose or to ignite their uniqueness. I don’t know what this second factor could be other than the choosing of our own experiences and trying to align or rotate them into some sort of pattern till we hit that “Tetris base” where we will find our, “thinking outside the box” opportunity. I don’t think it’s something that you can force to make it come faster but part of the journey of life and those who do find have understood some aspect of life that we have ignored and have only amplified its characteristics because they discovered the “water” within the fish bowl. With my own creative spark, its within me, it just takes the right amount of trial and errors to discover what to do. But this is the part of life, and I do believe people can die without finding this innovation and that is a very depressing thought of life’s journey and discovering the proper sequences of experience or perspective to make your life into something that could have been better. As Sam puts it, “we are all going to die,” so the only thing we can do is try to gain as many experiences as possible till we have focused the proper perspective to ignite our own innovation.
When thinking about cultural transformation, it leaves one to wonder how an individual becomes an innovative thinker. In today’s society I believe there are very few original trends and even less people who want to step outside the box called, “normal.” I will admit I too follow what is perceived to be the style, and the attitude of a person of this time. There is safety in numbers and more people think they will dart rejection by following others. Not only is following trends easy but most people do not think creatively enough to question their motives. For example; some people wear only designer clothes because they think that will give them power. Although, I am definitely for creative thinking and setting new paths, setting those new paths can be a difficult feat. In a media crazed society everyone is extremely judgmental. If you want a 9-5 job on Wall Street, do you think that a CEO will hire man not well groomed with long greasy hair, and neon print clothing because he is innovative? This is probably not going to happen because society and those cultural expectations have been placed on virtually every job, and every lifestyle.
This culture makes it hard to become an original person because they always fear if they are not what is accepted they will not succeed. For the few people that break out and start new ideas it is uncertain where their thoughts originate. Perhaps some of this people were sick of their old society ways and decided no matter what they were going to change, and then that change was accepted. If that change was accepted though, even if it was their new idea, society will follow like sheep, and then they in return have created the norm they were trying to break. This is really a vicious cycle. Now not all new ideas or interesting trends become a phenomenon, which is fine. Main stream media is quick to transform something in to a new style or way of living.
I feel some culture transformations stem from the fact that people have different personalities, and like different things. When people do not give into the temptation to fit a particular stereotype that is where, and when those true original ways begin. Those minds are happy at not fitting in, their okay with being ridiculed, they have accepted who they are. I am interested in those who strive to be themselves, and only themselves, not a version they think people will like, but the real them. These people say what they want, aren’t afraid to dress the way they like, they practice the religion they choose, they act like how they believe. These people do what they want, and they are truly admirable.
A Fish to Find its Own Wave
I just heard these song lyrics that go a little something like this “This is the world that we live in, we get bored …” I think that this is a main point in beginning to answer your question. Your question to us is where does the creativeness come from when people actually swim in that different direction and make an impact, make a change. I believe that changes and inspiration to create change come from boredom and a lack of feeling content with what you have.
After looking back and hearing this statement about how we follow people and that it’s the people who are on the edge who begin the change I have to come to some realizations. I see myself and my friends and how there are a lot of different ways that we are following people. From the clothes that we wear, to the way that we speak even we are following each other. However, there are some things that I feel I am my own person about but in that do I still follow or am I a creator? Something such as this: I dance. Not many people would come to college to study dance, especially here at Penn State. How many people go to school for something like finance, engineering that they don’t have any interest in whatsoever just because they will feel secure in the money they will be earning afterward? How many I feel that the inspiration comes from longing, wanting something more out of what you have. You find this place in your “belly” that makes you want so bad to do something that it is indescribable. So we are saying that it is people on the edge who begin new things people who are maybe in settings where they have no choice but to be on the edge of the pack they are forced to figure out new things or people who are bored who need to find something more.
My question is, why? Why do we follow people because we are too lazy to think for ourselves? In one aspect I remember coming to college with all of these beliefs I had about what I would do or what I wouldn’t. But I always found it extremely hard to say no to people especially if it is more than one person who is influencing me. Maybe it is because it is comforting to feel that you are with someone in something and it doesn’t matter how big or little that thing is. It is securing to know that someone is in front of you. Why don’t more people become leaders, but where would we be without followers?
I definitely believe there are people who are “change makers” who impact our culture. There was an advertisement in 1997 ran by Apple Computer, advertising “Think Different”. In this ad, they show Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr, John Lennon, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pablo Picasso and others. Apple accompanied pictures of these people with a great little poem. “Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” These people were creative, innovative, and changed our world and the cultures we interact with. We are bred to fit into certain cultures and follow certain beliefs. There is nothing wrong with this approach as long as it is balanced with the freedom to sometimes stray and develop our own beliefs and cultures. I know I was raised both Christian and politically moderate. As I have grown older, my family allowed me to diversify myself and experience other cultures. I have interacted with people of different races, beliefs, backgrounds, that have contributed to who I am today. The emergence into other cultures allows me to examine my previous thoughts. We, the current generation, is raised to do well in high school, get into a good college or university, and then get a good job. Sometimes it is difficult to experience or interact with different cultures, it can cause stress and confusion. I feel sometimes it is very hard to leave my comfort zone. I think to myself, if I am happy where I am, why should I experience other things? I do believe being “cultured” is a good thing and can make a truly rounded person. The impact of cultural systems is very clear, and leads us to develop our own “melting pot” of ideas. It’s not just food, religion, and music, I think it’s your whole life. Every aspect of life has a piece of culture tied to it, it’s what brings us together but also what sometimes separates us from one another. The differences between everyone is what makes society great. It allows everyone to bring something different to the table and can lead to new ideas and innovation. I want to learn to continue to embrace other cultures, ethnicities, and social groups, so I can share that knowledge and impact others.
I absolutely love that this topic/idea was brought up in class because it is one that I have thought about countless times before. Living in a culture such as ours is believed to be a gift and a privilege; people come from all over the world to be able to live as we do. But how many of us have really stopped to think about how living in our culture has affected our daily lives? How does our culture affect our decisions: everything from our “choice” of hairstyle to how we speak. Like Sam said in class, we believe that we are free thinking people and that we make our own decisions, but when it really comes down to it, most, if not all, of our decisions are influenced by the people and ideas we come in contact with every day. We are all a product of our culture, whether we like it or not. Like Aristotle once said, “there is nothing new under the sun”. As much as we may strive for originality in our endeavors and our personalities, there is really no such thing. Everything has been done before. Every idea has been thought before. It’s a kind of disheartening thing to think, but it is ultimately true. Most of us are too immersed in our culture to realize how alike we all really are and how much things influence our day-to-day choices. And I also believe it to be true that the only truly original ideas come from those of us who choose to distance ourselves from mainstream culture. Someone who is in the mainstream culture is just so caught up in everything that sometimes they forget to truly think for themselves, even if they think they are doing just that. Sometimes we don’t even realize when our “opinions” aren’t our own; we may have heard them from a friend or the television and had it influence us. The bottom line is that mainstream culture tends to stifle creativity. Even though we may think that we are all original and make our own choices, the facts beg to differ. Example: Penn State. Around November, you will be hard pressed to find a girl not donning a North Face jacket and Ugg boots. Why do we all look the same? Because we are all influenced by each other and we have a hard time trying to break the mold because for most people, their deepest and darkest desire is to fit in and feel accepted. Even those people who refuse to admit it, deep down they are just yearning for acceptance. So in conclusion, mainstream culture can be a suffocating thing for most people and sometimes it’s best not to fall victim to the need to feel accepted and start thinking for yourself.
Hmm, interesting. I tend to think of myself as a fish who comfortably switches directions every now and then to join other fish. The problem is that many of the other fish tend to not want fishies like us to cross into their group. Those fishies are so set in their labels that they’ve closed themselves off to anything even remotely close to progressive thought.
The thing is, you don’t need to run directly against the flow of the upstream in order to make a change. Simply bringing one aspect of a group over to another can can cause a merger of information and ideas, thus progressing culture and unifying thoughts. However, the trick is not bringing the information, but for others to be willing to accept it. Many people (sorry, I’m ditching the fish) think that, in order to accept a different believe, they must surrender their own. This can be seen in things as huge as religion, or as petty as a favorite sports team. It’s fascinating to see how concepts carry over like that.
Oddly enough, I think of of the best proofs of how useful combining beliefs can be is easily viewable on Spike TV. I know, I cringe to think that anything progressive can come out of the primordially appealing programming that is Spike, but let us look past the manly facade, and delve into the (however scant) reality behind the UFC.
The Ultimate Fight Club, while hyped and advertised, is not quite as choreographed as some things like professional wrestling. Yes, there are a couple fights here and there where the outcome has already been decided, and yes, the fighters’ “interviews” beforehand are scripted to give them the attitudes they’re expected to have (black man overbearing, china man spiritual, country joe has a heavy accent and is rude). But really, the event is focussed off of the discipline known as MMA-- Mixed Martial Arts.
Mixed Martial Arts doesn’t have too many surprises: it encourages trainees to be experienced in as many fields of practice as they can. This method has proven itself through time to be the most effective way to ensure that one can beat another opponent. There is no one discipline that can defeat two others combined together.
In martial arts, it seems like common sense. However, I’m constantly amazed at how many people seem to reject this idea when it comes to religion, activities, learning, and the friends they choose. This is the basic principle that I try to hold myself to; to try and diversify my activities and interests as much as possible! It makes life so much more interesting.
However, there are definitely things I definitely “go with the flow” on. I don’t enjoy going to big parties with thumping music, but I do it anyways because everyone else does. I am NOT very diverse in the foods which I eat, and I’m afraid I haven’t been too good about keeping the friends diverse. The majority of my friends are quite white, and I don’t fret about it too much. While I will not deny someone a friendship with me due to their race or ethnicity, I don’t make much of an effort to extend my friend base. However, I would like to note that my first kiss was from a black girl. ;)
When I was writing a resume I had asked myself If I don’t consider myself as creative, will that be a block when I am trying to find a job later on? By the way what is creativity, I believe it is not how suddenly you come up some idea and then you work on it, it become a invention. Maybe there is something that had given you thought, give you the idea and you work upon the thought and then you get your invention. There is always something that you can chase up to. People learn from other people’s idea but when you realize something new you become the fish which not only swims in the mainstream while most of us are schools of fish well travelled and comfortable in water. And maybe I am not one of those fish who likes to be in comfortable water.
Once before I blamed on my parents for not making any decision for me and now I thank them for doing that. I went to a private high school, which most public schools are better than private schools in Beijing. I wanted to be in a public school just like all my classmates and friends but I did not pass the score to enter a good public school on my high school entrance exam. I was too ashamed to go to a regular high school instead of the best schools. I choose private school to escape from that situation. My parents did not oppose my decision; they told me if that is the school I choose I should hold on to it. I did not realize what they said until my first semester ends. I failed on three subjects and what can I say, I did not study in that school I was fooling around all the time like everybody else. Most of my classmates did not come to school for studying they were in school because their parents wanted them to. I feel sorry for them, they do not even know they wanted to be in the future, they are under their parents control and they don’t want to escape. But back then I was like a fish in the comfortable water, I could hang around and spend my happy four years in that high school and then go to a normal college. What’s wrong with that I asked myself when I had that thought about my life. But Hey, I don’t want to be a person who does their job they don’t even like. What I changed after the first semester, I played and studied and had my happy four year. Eventually I came to Penn State. As a fish I swim out of the mainstream but there are lots of other fish who is and had swam out of the mainstream too. And there is no way that I can be creative on this.
What sparks the change? I’m honestly not sure. I’m not sure where to begin to even think about where that power of change comes from. I’m almost certain that it takes a rare breed of an individual to even go about truly going against the grain. I think that deep down, we all want to be that individual. We all want to be the hero who sparks change. We want to be the one who defied all odds and went against every social boundary to accomplish something new and amazing. We all are dreamers. Only a certain few are ever able to see their dreams through. The rest of us, because we’re so deeply ingrained in our social habits and boundaries, the rest of us eventually must let go of some of our dreams, if not all of them. Life will probably take us in an entirely different direction than we had planned for ourselves. We become capable of living a life that we never expected. We are more than capable in good ways and bad. We have no idea what we’re capable of. We never think that we’ll mess up and end up in the places that we find ourselves and think, “How did I fall this low?” But maybe, just maybe, we are also capable of achieving our dreams, and of sparking change. I can only hope that one day I can say to myself, “How did I get here?” and just be in awe and amazement of where my life has taken me. I can only hope that someday that feeling will be inside of me.
To spark change, we must rid of our social habits and standards. We have to somehow get outside of that infamous, wretched box. We have to think and act outside of it. But my question is, how do we get outside of it? What must we rid of and throw off in order to escape the clutches of our limitations? What must we do to throw off our limitations? What are our limitations? Why do we have limitations? Our thought patterns, daily routines, clothes, music, culture, language, habits, hobbies, and our comfort are all areas that we limit ourselves in. We all are taught to think the same way, we’re all taught to act the same way, we all learn how to dress by looking at others, we listen to music that we’re used to, we talk the way that we’ve been trained to talk, we do the same activities that we always do, and we seek out anything that lies within our narrow comfort zones. We really are creatures of habit. How do we break out of our comfort zones? How do we even go about wanting to break out of them? For me, I’m honestly quite content with following the mainstream just as I have been, maybe someday one of us will find out how to want to change.
A consistent characteristic of human nature is that we resist change, to both our immediate surroundings and to the overall culture we have become accustomed to. For this reason, society and the institutions that compose it are very slow and difficult to change. When you think about some of the virtues we enjoy in our modern, western lives, we can see how the people before us created and molded this lifestyle we enjoy. Those people fought the stagnant traditions of an American culture to give us the new liberties we could not imagine living without. As recently as forty years ago, it was still strange for a woman to work outside the home, and if she did, to hold a position much higher than a secretarial job was difficult. Not only was she discriminated against and denied opportunities, but if given that opportunity, she faced the attitudes of a sexist workplace. Now, a vast majority of women hold jobs outside the home, and there are laws protecting their employment and work environment. These women can only have these liberties because of the resilient drive of the generation of women before them who fought to change workplace attitudes.
While few people consider themselves to be changing the world, largely because of the attitude that one person cannot make a difference, those of us who deviate from the cultural norm, even slightly, are in fact promoting the change and acceptance that has shaped our modern society. As was discussed in class, if we think about all the different subcultures we belong to, we can see the ways in which we are each unique and the ways in which we perhaps promote a change in collective thinking.
In my own life, I am very familiar with stereotypes and the reaction one gets from breaking out of the expected mold. While my deviations are very slight, they are part of an overall change that slowly encourages the acceptance of variety in our cultural mindset. As a woman, there are certain things that are not generally associated with my gender, and the response of people in finding out I participate in them is always one of surprise. I am a woman, I am part of the Army ROTC program on campus, I ride motorcycles, and love going to the shooting range for target practice. Whenever people find out about these characteristics, they are always surprised that a woman is participating in them. During our weekly safety briefing, my company commanders always stress that we must have appropriate behavior because “it is not difficult to pick out a ROTC cadet” and that our behavior is a reflection on the program and the Army institution. And I am always reminded that my participation is a cultural oddity, despite the thousands of women in the armed services, or the numerous women in our program, because no one walking down the street would pick me out as a ROTC cadet. Nor would they pick out any other woman as a participant either. But my participation and that of other female cadets is a process to change those attitudes, just as previous female service members have made my participation possible. Thirty years ago, women were not even sent to basic training because they were not considered a part of the actual military, and therefore did not need any of the training or physical conditioning required of male service members. Similarly, motorcycling popularity amongst women has increased in recent years. While it is still seen as odd and unbefitting of a woman, by many, to ride a motorcycle, our partaking in the sport encourages attitudes of acceptance. So while I am not changing the world, the activities which I choose to join are part of an overall movement that will push forward change. If we each look at ways in which we are unique, we can all see how we are part of a larger change that will affect future generations and the cultural attitudes of our future society.
I totally agree with Dr. Richards that cultural transformation generally occurs on the fringes of collectiveness and the “mainstream”. There are many examples of people who were on the fringes and did not act with the mainstream and they became “change makers” in society. These examples occur in music, politics, art, philosophy, etc. A great example of this is Anwar Sadat of Egypt. In 1973, no one in Egypt would have ever thought of going to Israel and making peace with the Israelis. However, one man stood up, became a “change maker”, and went to Israel himself and made pace with the Israelis. Even though he paid the price by being assassinated in 1981, he has changed the history of the Middle East and relations between Egypt and Israel to this day. He also won The Nobel Peace prize. Another example is hip hop. As many people know, hip hop was created by a minority in a time where hip hop was not the mainstream. Now hip hop has become mainstream. In many situations, things that were on the fringes of collectiveness become the collective. Also a couple of years back no one has ever heard of Uggs. Slowly but surely this new style of shoes has become the “cool” thing to wear. These are just a few and simple examples showing how cultural transformation can occur at the fringes of society.
Not always that a person who is on the fringe of collectiveness will create cultural transformation however. There are examples where the fringes of society stay at the fringes and do not become “change makers”. Referring back to the Uggs example, some men tried wearing them and tried to make them the cool thing to wear for men. This however did not catch on with many people and it did not become mainstream. This does not mean that being and staying at the fringes is a bad thing. This is what is great about humanity and human beings. This is what differentiates us from “other” animals. There are people who act and look the same, while there are others who are totally different.
As I think of this myself, I ask my question of how I come into play with this. Do I follow the mainstream with everything I do, or am I unique? In 7th grade I was voted the most unique student of my grade in my school. And now thinking back to this I wonder why I was chosen that way. The answer is that seventh grade was my first year in the United States after moving from Egypt. There are many different cultural differences between the U.S. and Egypt. I was considered unique because I kept many of my heritage and traditions during that time. However year after year I have become encompassed within then U.S. ways of living, and started unknowingly to move to the mainstream. I have started to dress like Americans, act in many ways like an American, etc. And not to mention, lost my Egyptian accent. I am proud to say though that now that I have matured, I still keep many of my heritage and traditions. And I hope one day I could become one of those “change makers”.
I read this post and was unsure of how to really respond, so I read some of the other people's posts. I find it hilarious that the majority of the people who responded, in at least one sentence in his or her response, attested to the fact that they are unique, or step off the beaten path as much as possible. People lamented how when they did something different they were mocked, or made fun of. It reminded me of when one of the TAs in my section asked if any of us consider ourselves racist. Everyone was unbelievably quick to say that no, they are not racist, they do not even see color! Everyone just says what people think others want to hear, people try to act differently for the sake of acting differently. If everyone who claims to be a "non-conformist" actually is, then clearly Sam's "school of fish" theory should not apply, there should not even be a school of fish. But clearly there is. It is obvious that in theory everyone wants to be their own person, take the initiative, not follow trends, etc. but seeing as I would be hard pressed to find a girl here that does not own a pair of Uggs, or a boy who does not wear flip flops, I think its safe to assume that not everyone who says they take "the path less traveled" actually does. People do their own thing to the extent they assume is socially acceptable. Even self proclaimed non-conformists conform, just because they do not follow the main trends doesn't mean they don't conform, they just conform to a different set of rules.
On the other hand, I think liking and disliking certain things is ingrained in us from the time we're babies, for example, how Sam said he didn't like the traditional Chinese music. From the time we're born we are surrounded by such a specific culture, so to a certain extent our likes and dislikes are out of our control; also, we assimilate to make making friends that much easier. There are so many interesting and innovative paths people can follow and different choices people can make. In their responses a lot of people commend those who start trends and "swim upstream" without saying they hope to do the same. Its just another case of people toeing the line of what is socially acceptable. I am not trying to say that I am above the fray, that I don't care what others think of me at all, that I'm just so much more awesome than everyone else. I'm just trying to say that maybe people should actually stop caring what people think, if they want to follow the trends, follow the trends, don't pretend you're something you aren't.
I like to think that I dance to a different tune and that I do what I want. I listen to crazy music and have eclectic fashion taste. I enjoy all kinds of fun and have all kinds of friends, and probably the quirkiest humor ever. Though, let’s be real here… American culture has made me what I am and it will continue to shape what I become. I feel that it’s impossible to be truly unattached unless you live alone in the woods. What culture would you have, then, if you were truly alone? When I think of American icons who switched it up, I can only think of a handful who actually tried something completely different. It takes a lot of charismsa to carve your own path, as well as a high intellect. I’ve met people who do their own thing, but their everyday rituals don’t really seem to catch on. In fact, most of these people are seen as ‘strange.’ The reason people conform is that it’s easy. Just going with the flow allows us to live conveniently. It seems like people are obsessed with not becoming part of the machine, though I personally think it’s largely subconscious and unavoidable. I’ve kind of given up on trying to be different and nowI just do what I want; whether or not it’s what everyone else is doing. What sets me apart is my attitude toward life. Sure, I feel exactly like everyone else does in many cases, though as a whole, I can truly say that no one is exactly like me. I’m kind of impulsive and sometimes it gets me in trouble, but all I really care about is seizing the moment. I’m not trying to say that I’m unique, but that I feel like most people are unique underneath it all. People hide their true feelings all the time, and one of the most exciting things for me is uncovering this truth. It’s not a bad thing to simply live in an era as everyone else does, as long as you realize that you need to take your life into your own hands. Everyone dies alone, and I will die alone. I need to make sure that I didn’t do something horrible just because it’s common practice. Most of my pastimes were introduced to me by others and it’s good to try most things once, but I only continue these activities if I actually like them. Modern culture has such a broad array of things to try; no one could possibly pick all the same ones I do. In the end, though, who am I kidding? I’m living in today, just like everyone else.
Everyone can say we are different and we each have our own unique style, but in reality we are all creations of society has told us to become. The media has influenced us into what we should wear and what we should listen. For example people who listen to rap should follow the hip hop culture by wearing baggy jeans and cool sneakers. People who listen to punk rock are supposed to wear black clothes, black makeup, and skinny jeans. Just like Sam said in class, because we are too engrossed and comfortable within our own bubbles, we are not able to appreciate other cultures.
Since we are apart of these many subcultures, we only was to associate and familiarize ourselves within those lines. We are too scared to cross the line because we feel that we won’t be able to relate or feel accepted within other subcultures. People feel comfortable in what they are used to. Most people will never explore other lifestyles other than their own and never realize what they missed out on.
Society has trained us to think within the box. History has shown us that once we think outside the box people will be harassed and will be looked down upon. When Michael Jackson came out, not everyone welcomed him to the spotlight because his dancing style was different from others. It is hard for our society to embrace change and step into something new. Because our senses are trained to hear, feel, see, and, taste in a certain way; we are reluctant take in the new experience.
In a way I try to live my life by experiencing new things and trying to meet new people. Sometimes it is hard to come out of my shell because I am afraid of what I might experience or how I may feel. I am very much comfortable within my surroundings that I do not want to explore and break from my subcultures. In the end I know I am limiting myself by not breaking the barrier. I would like to listen to different styles of music other than just what’s on the radio, but it is hard because I have to go look for those types of music when I am able to just turn the radio and music will be on. In order to escape our bubbles, we have to go out of our way to look for such things.
Should we be content in a life society has made for us? I guess it should be our job to force ourselves s to break out of our circles. We should stimulate our brains and become more creative and innovative so we may be the ones to make that new genre of music or bring out the new fashion.
In today’s world there are many cultures and subcultures, and it is your choice as to which one you want to choose. After that choice is made, it becomes easy to get stuck into that culture. If you’re used to seeing things done a certain way that is what you’re going to see as maybe not the only way but right way. Some of the key factors of what makes you the person you are, is your family, the environment you grow up in, and the people you choose to hang out with. All of these different aspects are going to contribute as to what type of sub-cultures you’re going to adopt, keep and evolve from.
I was born and raised in New York City, and have lived there all my life before coming to Penn State. So you can basically say this is where I got my “swag” from. What I mean by swag is how I dress, talk, what I like to do, and how I carry myself around individuals. All of these things affect how you’re seen by other people. Some people aren’t concerned with how others see them and could care less on how they dress, act, and are seen by others. Me on the other hand, it’s the other way around. I would say I’m looked on as a person that you would call “cool.” All my life I would hang with the crowd that is considered popular around school and my neighborhood. It’s weird, but I just always loved attention and popularity, I like to stand out in a crowd. But I’ve noticed along with the popularity comes fake friends and hate from others.
So is change good? I believe change is good but you just have to make the right decision for yourself. I’ve noticed that since coming to college I’ve became more open as a person. Before coming here I would never have conversations longer than a couple sentences with a person outside of the African American and Hispanic race but that all changed. Now I’ve spoke to, hung out with, smoked with and drank with people outside of my race and I am proud of that.
Change is good and people have to realize that. There are some people who will never try to do so because they’re closed minded. If you’re closed minded you’re going to lose out on different opportunities and maybe even past up on some good friends, so it’s only your lost. The first step to doing this is to opening yourself up is to swim upstream, learn new things, and just give those things a chance. Who are we to say what’s right and what’s wrong, only God knows the answer to this. If this were to happen I wonder what the world would be like.
I truly understood what you meant by saying to stay away from the mainstream. By staying out of the mainstream we are able to experience more and learn more. The example used about the school of fish was really enlightening to the topic. I have always tried to stay away from the mainstream and break away and do my own thing. I try to keep friends around me who are the same way. I have a very diverse group of friends. I like people based on their character and less on the way they look. I am black and I have friends that are white, Asian, Hispanic, Dominican, Caribbean, and African. Actually next weekend I am going to my Asian friend’s wedding. It will be my first friend to get married and she will have a Korean-American wedding. To add to the last statement, my ex- boyfriend is Haitian. So as you can see I don’t stick to mainstream and I keep diversity around me.
I have never liked to do the same things as everyone else or to join a group just because everyone else is doing it. I do things because they better me or because they make me content. I choose friends who do their own thing. They aren’t the type of friends to call me everyday and ask do I want to go get dinner. They do things by themselves. I guess in a sense I am saying that I am independent and I keep independent people around me.
One example of how I don’t follow trends is my selection of clubs. This semester I have joined Eco-Action and S.T.A.T.E.R.S. club. They are both service clubs that focus on becoming environment friendly and recycling. I joined these clubs because I strongly believe in what they stand for. Most of my friends laugh at the fact that I joined those groups because it’s not everyday you find an African American evolved in that type of club. The fact that they don’t approve makes no difference to me. I joined the clubs because they make me feel good and like I’m doing my part to help the environment.
I will say that in a few ways I do follow mainstream. Those ways are clothing and hairstyles. I follow mainstream in these two areas because the styles that are mainstream I like. They weren’t forced on me instead I choose them because I feel they fit me better.
By not sticking to mainstream, I have learned so much more. If I wouldn’t have made friends that were diverse, I would not have learned as much as I did. I came to this campus wanting to better myself and diversify myself. I feel that as of now I have done just that.
When it comes to the juxtaposition of cultural transformation and our personal lives, there are a few things that – in my opinion – truly separate me from “the main stream”, whether they be on a cultural or a universal spectrum. Not solely based on the fact that it is nearly impossible to genuinely be of today’s sophisticated and worldlier versions of the “change maker” within my community or culture, do I associate my degree of unconventional virtue(s) with such desolate connotation but also, because it is nearly impossible to
So, this breaks down to me as the follower or the leader. I believe that humans tend to stay in the mainstream with the other “fish” because they are scared. Growing up I think that everyone deals with that constant battle of finding yourself, and it’s fair to say that some of us may never know because we were too busy following the fish in front of us and sometimes it’s not easy to recognize. I for one have learned to let loose and do what I feel and wear what I want. Even though I might look like I can fit in to a subculture, don’t judge me because the next day I’ll look like I belong to another. I strongly believe that it has everything to do with how you were raised. I was born in the United States and both my parent in Colombia, South America. Before I can say my first word my mother sacrificed everything she and my father had managed to build and moved my brother and I back to Colombia. Now, my family is fairly wealthy there and we were excited but, what my mother and father had planed was something different. We grew up possibly one of the poorest cities in Colombia, Tolu. We were white and everyone else was black. We didn’t have any of the toys that all the other kids in America had; we didn’t eat frosted flakes or played with Nintendo’s. We caught crabs and played with rocks and bottle caps. And to say the less it was and will always be the happiest I ever was. I felt free. These kids didn’t have subcultures to follow, there was not radio to listen to music, no style of clothes to pick from in fact they didn’t even care. So, when I moved back to America I began to mold into my own person, I wasn’t afraid to tell my friends NO, I didn’t care what people thought if I wore old clothes to school and I didn’t care that I didn’t have the latest Barbie. Through the years I have to say that I have lost a lot of my characteristics and it’s sad because though swimming against the stream got me where I am today, instead of staying at a community college where all my other friends are, I still feel that I have stings holding me back.
So to conclude this journal that I have made a story I think that people are afraid of what other people might say and even though you try to be different there are so many subcultures that if you think you’re different and you stand out, you’re bound to find someone like you or trying to be like you.
That was a very interesting blog I think. Very thought provoking especially because of your comment in Tuesdays class. Of course its easy for everyone to just go along with mainstream thoughts and ideas, and its very difficult to get yourself out of that flow. I feel like I for one have attempted to break away from being anything mainstream but the only thing I found in my own life experience so far is that you must still retain some sort of normalcy. Thinking back on my teenage years, I was always morphing and changing to my surroundings but only because I live in a small town with a population of 2000 people in total. I wasn’t changing to fit the normal, I was being intentionally abnormal. Seventh grade in particular strikes a memory for me when I found that I was a very pessimistic and depressed person at the time. I became a “Goth kid” and entered a completely different mindset from the rest of my classmates. I lost countless amounts of friends and I didn’t even care until later on in my middle school career so to speak. Haha. I did it all, black lipstick, black hair, dressed like a funeral director, wore more makeup than half of the girls and had dog collars wrapped around my neck. Their reaction I feel would be the reaction of most people in society when anyone breaks away from anything ”normal” but I guess that’s ok really. The point here that im trying to make I guess, is that in order to create change in a culture or subculture even, I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to say “think outside the box” I would say…why create a box? Why is there this box anyway that we have to think outside of? Just eradicate the object from your life and I think that you will find that its much easier to create change in a society that way. Ignorance? Maybe…but they always say that ignorance is bliss. Live your life the way that you want to live it, and never take the detours. Follow the straightest path to your destination in life because only through the detours will you find pain and heartache. So, the fact that the Chinese music wasn’t really pleasing to you is completely fine and “normal” in our society and nobody should ever have to force themselves to listen to something that they don’t necessarily enjoy. Could it be a masterpiece? Sure. I honestly don’t think that anything you didn’t find enjoyable should be something worth your time. Give it a chance and if it doesn’t work out, oh well I guess right? I think the real issue here…is how are we going to get rid of this box?
This has depressed me. I have always prided myself on staying true to whom I am and being an individual no matter how much I may look or act like everyone else. My family has always supported how I am different I am from others because I have never been afraid to step out of the box and do something different. But now I have to think, maybe the things I thought were so different and new were really not. Maybe other people like me all around the nation or the world thought they were doing something so unique like me or standing up for something when in reality so many other people were too.
I always thought I had my own sense of style. I like certain designers or brands but would mix things together because I wore what I liked while others just wore what they thought other people would like on them or respect on them. I realize I didn’t wear anything too crazy or obscene but I thought I was being an individual. Now I realize I probably thought I was swimming the opposite direction when I could have gone a town over and found a girl, or maybe multiple girls who were dressed like me.
I’ve always tried to think differently, and most importantly think on the bright side. Many people say they do this, but act differently. They say they always are optimistic but when it comes down to the wire they aren’t. I’ve always felt unique in the way that I somehow, no matter what happens to me, am optimistic. Maybe the small populous of people I know just can’t be all the time and I am the exception in that small group. Compared to the nation I’m one of many. Our culture, the media, tells us to be positive all the time to be happy there is so much to live for. Our government, despite the war and the economic crisis, tell us to look for hope, something I find so easy to do. But do I find this easy because there are influences all around me telling me to without even realizing? Am I just one of the gullible people who believe that I really can see the best in things all on my own when really I am being told to do so for the best of the nation and the world?
If I was a different race or ethnicity or a minority I wonder if I would be the same person. Would I consider myself an individual by dressing what I deem differently and thinking by what I consider my own standards? This is true that I may not notice that because I am what I am I don’t realize my own culture affecting me as much as it does, but does it mean it is too late for me to completely break off and become the next Einstein?
After watching that video I could not help but feel a sense of dissatisfaction. It’s hard to deny how much I am part of the mainstream when it is put so bluntly. But the choice to step away from everything you know and everything you’ve grown up with is frankly terrifying to me. I was the last born of four children and I have looked up to them from day one. I played the same sports they played, joined the same clubs, and strived for the same grades. I always believe that if I had been an only child I would be a totally different person, and in turn maybe even more unique. However, I don’t for a second regret having them to look up to. Yes, I could have been more unique, but having them as role models and the pressure of following in their footsteps has pressured me in some ways to make the right decision. I know not everyone would agree, but in this way I’m proud I was able to conform to the norms of my family’s expectations.
Nonetheless, I fully realize that to think outside the box and step away from the crowd can produce amazing results. In fact being part of the female subculture, I see it happen each season with the new and wild fashions that come out. Any girl who has ever read an Elle, Vogue, or Harper’s Bazzar magazine would know just how out of the box the designers must be thinking to come out with the whacky fashions that they think up. I admire all those individuals who are able to make such amazing creations or dream up seemingly impossible theories like Einstein, but to put myself out there for criticism is a huge leap that would take a lot of courage to make. As I am writing this blog I have been trying to ask my self if it is wrong that I am happy to continue on as part of the pack. I know that if I could snap my fingers and become that person who is always thinking outside the box I would, but it isn’t that simple. So as awful as it may be to say, I am content to stay where I am and watch for those individuals who will come out with the next great idea and hope that I will be fortunate enough to be one of the first to recognize it. So maybe this means that I just don’t have that spark as Sam would call it, or hopefully it’s just that I haven’t experienced the spark yet. There are obviously some people who are born with it and are taking the other path from the time they are babies, but maybe there are some of us who after experiencing life and seeing what happens when we don’t leave the mainstream find the spark we never knew we had. Since I know I am not the former, I can only hope to be the latter.
Things that tend to change the worlds socially or artistically aren’t necessarily people getting hit by thunder thoughts, but rather getting hit at the right time. In the world we live today, it requires perfect timing rather than having a special ideas or thoughts that would separate you from the norm. Thoughts that comes from thinking outside the box aren’t new or different, they’ve already been thought before ten years ago, fifty years ago, or even from 100 years ago. Take for example, women’s rights to vote. That idea certainly wouldn’t have been a radical movement in history if it was done in the 17th century. No, it needed to be done in the 1920s because everything during that time was making wave for the movement. It was the perfect time for such a movement.
However, just a note, fashion half counts in this theory of the perfect timing. The fashion change from dresses to pants for women was a perfect timing movement but the trend of plaid patterns rather than circle patterns wouldn’t count as a perfect timing movement because those elements of fashion will always repeat itself. I’m sure Victorians had plaid dresses back in the days. So it all depends on what we’re specifically talking. Einstein certainly had perfect timing with his theories. Certainly if he lived in the 16th century his ideas would certainly be called blasphemy where as in the 20th century, the world was changing in that direction. If he didn’t propose his theories then I would bet my life savings (not a lot actually lol) that someone else would have within the same decade. It’s the way it works. The world was paving the way for it. Someone just needed to have the courage to say that they believe in and stick with it.
A more recent example would have to be with the vampire phenomenon. When bestselling author Anne Rice wrote her first three vampire books, the supernatural theme enchanted the world and opened doors for new authors and artists who enjoy creating with that theme. Certainly one of those new authors would have to be Stephanie Meyers and her Twilight Saga. Now Twilight became a cultural phenomenon. To some people it’s the new slice bread. Everyone has heard of it; many have read the books, and millions have certainly fell in love with the fictional character Edward (you can rest assure that I’m not one of them). Having perfect timing makes the world go round . . . along with money.
Well, I was having a pretty productive day and feeling pretty good about all my accomplishments until I sat down and watched Sam’s blog. After sitting and listen to what he had to say about cultures and how very few of us in the world are actually “swimming up stream,” I came to the sickening conclusion that I am just one of the millions of fish in the sea following suit. For quite some time I thought I was living outside the cultural norm, when in reality I follow the societal norms so closely I might not even know what my own identity is? We live in a world that is so heavily influenced by the media and people constantly telling us what to like, wear, read, listen to, eat, and how to live. For example this day in age it’s expected that once one must get a higher education. Undergraduate degrees, masters, Ph.D’s all looked highly upon. So that is what a large percent of the world’s young kids do. Do we really want to go to college? Well, I’m here at Penn State now and a Senior so it’s a little late to decide otherwise, but I remember when I was in high school, and the question was “where are you going to college,?” Not “are you going to college?” It’s expected that after high school comes college. So I’ve played into that norm, I also follow suit in so many other areas, from the music I listen to right down to the clothes I wear. I have never really once stopped to think about what I’m listening to or what I’m wearing. I have unfortunately always just gone with the latest fashions and trends. It is rather unfortunate to think that in my twenty-two years of existence I have been living the life of a so called “plane Jane.” Even the activities I am involved in on campus, like THON although this is a cause that I am very passionate about, I have to ask why am I involved? Is it because everyone I knew when I first came to Penn State was involved in THON? I’m sure you can guess, but of course that was the reason. I knew nothing about THON when I first came here, but all the friends I made did, they went to THON spent every waking minute there, and took me along. Naturally I fell in love with THON, but it is not like I made the cause or generated the idea, I became apart of something that most of the Penn State culture was involved in. So a big shout out to Sam, from your blog I’ve come to the conclusion that I am pretty much a mindless robot living day to day by the guiding light of the mainstream media boob tube……….However, it’s never too late to change…there’s still hope!
Justin Kambic
Journal 2
I think that it is important to have some mainstream association. It is necessary for all people to have an identity of their own and it’s going to be difficult to relate to other people and develop relationships if you are not at all defined by the place in which you live. The cultural system that surrounds you is going to affect you in some way shape or form; and I think it’s healthy that this happens.
That said, I can’t think of anything more boring than a girl walking down the street wearing Uggs, spandex pants, and a Northface jacket. People that adhere to mainstream culture and have no desire to learn from others’ habits and likes tend to lack direction in other facets of their lives. If everyone adhered to each other then our mainstream culture would become more driveled and boring than it already is.
I agree that in order to be truly innovative one must stay on the fringe of social culture. The reasoning for this is obvious. If one does not possess qualities different from the ones already in existence then this person cannot add anything to the culture. This can be traced throughout history. When the Beatles came to America they added something that Americans had never seen, and in doing so changed pop culture forever. When spices were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages from India, people could never eat the same way again.
Different does not always equal better, but perhaps one could say that different almost always equal interesting. We may not have the ability to fully appreciate or understand it, especially in the beginning exposures to new cultures. It is as Sam said in his blog post; those that look for something bigger than themselves find it difficult to obtain. But if, I’m sure, someone does succeed in finding what they’re looking for I’m sure it is very well worth while.
So why are those of us who do innovate things do so infrequently? It requires a bit of courage and desire to innovate. We need to be willing to have everyone look at what we do and be okay with the fact that on the inside they don’t like it. We need to be willing to be looked at the way that the old ladies in church look at the girl wearing the short skirt and the low-cut t-shirt instead of the more traditional long dress with shoulders covered. We need to be willing to be thought about like every parent in America thought of Jimi Hendrix in 1967. If we have the courage to stand up and say I don’t give a damn, then we are most of the way there. All you need after that is an original idea.
By looking at me, anyone would think that I am a typical white girl from the suburbs who doesn’t have a care in the world. However, as soon as you look a little closer, or get to know me at all, you realize that this is not the case. While my group of friends seems pretty cookie-cutter to the outside world, we are all extremely different, and that is the only way I would have it. We may look similar but our interests and backgrounds are very different, and personally, I would choose our mix to a standard group any day.
I like to think that I am, in some ways, blazing my own path through life. I know that some aspects of my life follow suit with those around me; however, I have created a unique mix of likes and dislikes that I have collected from various groups of friends. For instance, a lot of my friends comment on my music preferences, saying that they are strange because I listen to virtually every different type of music in a single playlist. But I enjoy having variety in my life. I get bored easily, and therefore I choose to keep myself interested by never doing, or listening, to one thing for too long. Some people call it “music ADD,” I call it normal.
Aside from my personal tastes in certain activities and preferences, I think that I have always been different from the majority of society. Not only am I Jewish, which sets me apart from the greater part of society, in and of itself, but I am also Israeli, which further separates me from the masses. While I was born in America, I associate myself with my family’s ancestry because it has been a key factor in my life. My heritage has always been a huge part of who I am and how I live my life. While this does not make me a cultural trendsetter, or a “person living on the fringe,” I think it does allow me to look at our society through an atypical lens.
All in all, I definitely agree that society has been and will be moved forward by people who do not conform to “the man.” As my mother would say, “Do not be a sheep.” AKA, do not blindly follow those around you. In order to be successful in life you have to be able to think outside the box and be creative without worrying about what other people think of you. Personally, I have struggled with the later part of that notion, in that I do care how others view my work and me. However, I have no problem thinking outside the box, and many people would consider me weird, but I embrace that. My sense of creative comes from a mix of my heritage and the environment I grew up in. I have always been encouraged to take my own path through life, and not follow other people around me. Because of this encouragement I have been comfortable pursuing my own interests and passions.
Where do these certain individuals get their creative spark to break away from the norm is an interesting question because if I knew I would be receiving an award for my individuality and wouldn’t be at Penn State now. I feel that life experiences give the explanation of where this creativity comes from. Look at Jay-z when you think of hip hop you automatically think Jay-z. Who was he a drug dealer but with his experiences having to grow up with little money and dealing with a harsh life he used what he got. What he had was street smarts, wit, and his voice. He used these qualities to his advantage which allowed him to express himself and adding basic beats just topped it off. I feel experiences cause this spark. Walt Disney is another great example of this creative spark. Whoever would have thought that after surviving the Great Depression and being fired from his job at Warner Brothers Studio. On train he would create one of the most recognized faces in the world, Mickey Mouse.
I would never compare Miley Cyrus of having this creative spark that separated her from the norm. Because she never left the Mickey mouse club. The only thing separating her from her peers are her millions of dollars, but her personality is exactly that of a young American teenager. Teenagers that changed music and created a culture phenomena making chain necklaces, spiked hair, and black lips the new norm was the infamous underground British punk band the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols brought attention for the first time to teenagers, giving them a voice in the media. They showed that they weren’t going to wear cardigans and go to club scouts. They didn’t act that their life was perfect. They grew up once again in an environment that caused them to use what they had which was anger and attitude. The world met the Beatles a band that were very diplomatic when they first came out internationally, but the Sex Pistols were the complete opposite. No one had ever seen brazen and ignorant musicians, for many teens they were a refreshing sound when compared to everything else that was on the radio.
Also, another quality that I believed that creates this spark defeating the norm is the desire to not conform. Coco Chanel became famous not because of her excellent sewing skills, but she didn’t accept the shapes and norms women had to follow for beauty. She knew that elaborate fussy dresses weren’t things that women really wanted to wear, but it was what men wanted to see women wearing. Her designs broke the norms for women’s fashion, designing pant suits and androgynous clothing gave women more options.
I too have found myself at times “conforming” to such thoughts and actions as those who surround my everyday life. As you said, it’s inevitable. I believe we all WANT to think out the box, but are merely scared to do so because of what those who are apart of our everyday lives may think. I was always told by my grandmother, “You came in this world alone, and that’s exactly how you’re leaving it. Forget what the world thinks or feels, march to the beat of your own drum and always follow your heart.” For years I didn’t take heed to this priceless information. As I came into my early years of adulthood, I was quite rebellious. Not in a juvenile delinquent sort of way; more so, I challenged all that I was told and all that I read. This allowed me to think more outside the box. Sure we look at the scholars that write our texts as some of the greatest “genius’” of the world, but honestly what makes them any different from me? I too have experienced a lot of things in life that I can share with the world, and I’m certain someone will be able to take something out of my experiences and apply it to their daily lives. The greatest God giving gift we have is our freedom of thought and freedom of will. If we all lived, spoke, talked, and acted the same this world would be much more tedious than it is now. I strongly feel that we must all begin to take charge of our own lives. There are so many different characteristics the occupants of our world possess. If we all walked to the beat of our own drum and followed our hearts, our world would be an utopia. Being able to be exposed to the diverse and complex teachings from one another would foster determination to be supporters, educators, and most importantly innovators. There is so much we can learn from other cultures; such things ranging from foods, religion, education, traditional dress, and dialect. That’s simply to name a few. My motto is, “Every day one should try to learn something new from a culture other than their own, and try to apply it to their everyday lives.” I see it as a sign of respect to the various cultures that this world encompasses and a means of stimulation to mental growth. It’s a stretch to believe that in the near future this would happen; however, I’m an optimist and an extreme extrovert. If we could accomplish this task by using a method similar to that of the movie Pay it Forward, we will be well on our way to a utopian society.
My friends and I are a dynamic group. All of us represent different cultures, and all of us have a natural love for learning and experiencing different cultures. I suppose in some way I gravitate to these people- people who are equally similar and different from myself. I love learning about different cultures (especially when it comes to cuisine because I have to say that I love a lot of diverse types of food), including language and religion-wise. My closest group of friends consists of a Honduran/El Salvadorian, a Filipino/Romanian, Chinese, Nepali, Dominican, East Indians, Syrians- my group of friends in general is even more diverse. We all bring something to the table, whether it’s music, food, religion, or general thought. Often, we’ll sit around and have discussions about our families and how our cultures differ or is similar to American culture. I suppose to some extent, even though I consider myself to be very culturally open, I stick to what I know. My friends are mostly first generation American, so we do retain quite a bit of American culture as well as our families, and often laugh at the disparities between our parents and ourselves. I watch the travel channel religiously, but some of the foreign foods consumed in some countries completely turn me off. I’m open, I suppose. I’ll eat eel, goat (a favorite in my country), sushi- I’ll eat things that I haven’t ever heard of, but I won’t ever try fried ants. Never say never, but still. I highly doubt I’ll ever touch those things. Nor will I ever feel compelled to eat a huge rat. I don’t care how supple and delicious you say they are. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. I’ve seen my fair share of those gutter rats (and I’ve probably eaten them without knowing, come to think of it- New York, much as I love it, can be pretty shady) and they are pretty damn gangster. When it comes to my musical tastes, I like to listen to everything from American Rock to Italian Rock, Hip Hop to Bhangra, Reggae to Chutney, Salsa to Bachata. I listen Merengue, Soca, Dancehall, Arabic, Reggaeton, French music, but that’s as far as I’ve ventured in terms of world music. I would be completely up for other types of music though because that’s just something ingrained within me. During the summer, I had my grandpa teach me bits of Hindustani, a derivative of Hindi and Urdu, which originated and is spoken in North India and widely spoken in various parts of the West Indies. My family is a huge mix of cultures and I try to learn everything I possibly can about each and every one.
For me, who is always analyzing life and always trying to be the best person, friend, son, brother, and lover, we need to step outside of our boundaries. So here I am now at Penn State taking a class just like the one I took at my high school, besides the obvious difference that my high school was way more diverse than Penn State. Of course that makes sense especially when I am coming from a huge city like LA, but you grew as an individual when you listened and kept an open mind. I learned many things that you never thought could happen in your city let alone to your friends. I think everyone is different in their own way, but we are all the same yet society tries to say otherwise. I think the biggest thing in society is trying to always fit in. By design our world is always about how we ought to fit in and if you do not then you are out of place. But in reality I think differently, when you follow the herd, you do not have that much say in society; your opinion is not always valid or heard. I consider myself a person that’s constantly avoiding a pack, but in essence always wanting to be a part of the herd thanks to society, yet I am happy just outside. Now we ask where that creative spark comes from to motivate you to open up in a unique way that people around us are not charting. I believe this creative spark is within us. It is the ability to be open minded and not always thinking about trying to be accepted. I believe it is going about things your own way, the way you think is right. As a kid from across the country and with parents as immigrants you value those that do not judge and accept you for who you are. You become more welcoming and more willing to meet new cultures and accept people from different walks of life. I believe there are many things that form us, like our family, the city we grow up in, the friends we have, the cultures we are immersed in, and our own idea of life, goals and happiness. I think all these things add to who we are, for me I have a family that fought tremendous hardships to get to the place of where we are, living in a nice community and putting 3 children through college. For me this made me understand that any person can come from nothing and still be a decent person. And then by me going to a high school where I was a minority, being white, in a school with a majority of blacks and Hispanics, you try to fit in. You learn that those that are like you tend to keep to themselves and are not always welcoming as others. For me, I branched out; I played sports, so I met people of different types of backgrounds. This type of life has led me to respect every human being that I come across. I find a need to unite all types of people; I have best friends that are Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and many other different ethnicities and religions. Instead of looking at the conflicts and differences we have, I learn how much more we have in common than those that are our very own religion or race. I think we as a society should only try to look at the good sides of each other and try to impact each other’s days. I think us as a society like the feeling of being comfortable and just sticking to those that we know instead of trying new things, when in reality the new things may spice up our world and teach us something we never knew and broaden our horizon. I truly think being different does not always mean a good thing, but it does not always mean a bad thing either. We all should have our standards and we all should live the lives we want. I do not think there is a need to force people to live outside their box, but it does not hurt to teach people about other cultures so if they ever come across someone “different” they are not thinking how weird that person is or that their ignorance plays a role on their thought about other cultures. I think being open minded is a key to being creative, when you are open you allow yourself to be exposed to new ideas and cultures and in the end you find yourself outside the box with ultimately learning new things about our world.
I really enjoy all kinds of music Asian, African,English, and Arabic. Well not all of them but the good once. Maybe I enjoy it because my parents are mixed African Arab, or because I lived in a diverse country, or maybe because we had Asian housemaids. I used to hear a lot from my father about African culture and how do they live. Actually we have some of the African culture. We do have the mix gender gathering which is unusual in the Arab culture, but its fine in the African. Another thing, my mother used to work in a French company which is really a shame in the arab culture. Even though we have some non Arab culture, we do respect the Arabic side of our history. Beside my parents mixed culture, we used to have Asian housemaids. They always come to our house with their music and dancing techniques, so I got to learn some of it. In the United Arab Emirates we do have a bunch of different culture, and i used to live in a British comunity. the comunity I lived in really effected on me in many ways. I used to act exactly the same as they do and listen to what they listen to. Now I am in the USA studying like any American student lived his whole life in the USA, but with a knowledge of different kind of culture. It is really nice to be able to know and enjoy others culture music and dancing.
I could argue that I resisted my subculture because I am one of the few girls I know my age that does not have their ears pierced. In our American subculture, while it is not in any ways a formal right of passing, it is very much the norm for girls to have their ears pierced. Does this mean that I am resisting against the subculture in which I was raised? Often I feel that people associate resisting the subculture with the need to rebel. While I agree that many times that is the case, I think that more often or not an individuals motives for speaking out against the norm are on a greater level. I didn’t choose to keep my ears non-pierced because I wanted to rebel but rather it was simply something I did not want to do. I would sacrifice the chance of “seeming different” than conform to society’s behaviors and do something I didn’t want to do. Now I recognize that weather or not I have my ears pierced is a silly little example but I do think it speaks on a greater theme.
I think the act of coming out as gay is a strong and common instance of when an individual is driven to stand out against the norm and express their own individuality. I think it can give you a deeper looks against the difficulty individuals face when they resist the norm of society in order to stand up for their beliefs and feelings. It is evident that we live in a world where “innocent until proven guilty” can translate to “straight until proven gay”. It is assumed (though not expected) that when you are born that you will grow up to marry someone of the opposite sex, and have kids and live as one big happy all American family. However, more often than not, an individual feels that that life style is not for them. Even though we are moving towards a more gay-accepting world, individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or anything else, are still forced to outwardly resist the cultural traditions of the world we live in. Which for most all individuals is particularly difficult. I recently had a conversation with a friend who is struggling to come out. She came to the realization a few months ago that she was also interested in women. While she is out to a few close friends, she is not out publicly. Even telling herself that she was gay was perhaps the biggest struggle. In the second week of class, Sam talked about how they are pretty sure (but of course you can’t always conclude) that the leading group for suicide comes from gay adolescents. This is because they realize that their personal beliefs and are different than what is normal of society. It’s CRAZY to think that people feel so trapped in the world that they were born into that they would rather die than act against it. Although that is not normally the case, it is at times a sad truth. When you put things in that point of view, it almost makes you respect the individuals who speak out against societal norms.
I think we are all, for the most part, fish comfortable in the well-traveled waters of our society. We are comfortable doing our own thing and surrounding ourselves with certain types of people. However, I agree with Sam in the sense that it is hard for us to adjust to new environments.
I have always tried to be original and be myself, but when you think about it, who are we really? Are we really individuals, or just another version of the person next to us? As we grow up, we model our behaviors and style around our environment and the people in it. No one has a true, unique, unlike-any-other persona out there. If you think you’re an individual, take a moment to question how different are you really?
We are all part of some group or culture out there. When we are taken out of the “safety” of our environment, we tend to retreat because we are afraid of something a little different then the norm. Maybe if we took a step back and truly tried to experience and open ourselves up to the endless realm of possibilities and differences out there, we may all be surprised by the outcome.
Personally, I don’t adjust to change very well. I’m not one to go out of my way to try new things (like Indian cuisine when I’m so used to American or Italian style dishes). For all I know, these new things could be amazing! But I am missing out due to my fear of the unknown.
I think no matter what we say or what little white lie we may tell ourselves, we are all a little like myself. How often do we go out of our way to try new things in anticipation of finding something that may excite us and open our minds to a whole other world? We really don’t go out of our way.
Everyone is comfortable in the safe zone they have created for themselves. Whether that safe zone be the culture you are a part of, or the way you dress, where you live, or who your friends are, we all have one. This safe zone hinders us from transforming our culture as a society. We all need to break out of our mold a little.
In doing so, we may be pleasantly surprised by the stereotypes that we at one time or another thought was so accurate, no longer hold true. Besides stereotypes, we may find that there are things outside our own belief systems that fit who we are better.
Sam said in class that we don’t really pick our religion, for example, it’s picked for us. Well, maybe if we transformed our society into one that was willing to seek new things outside their personal lives, then maybe we would see that our parents and environment aren’t always right and there is more to life then fitting the mold and never experiencing something new.
Honestly, I’ve never truly given thought to any subcultures that I may experience in my day to day life. Since a very young age, I always saw myself as one, not following the crowd, not conforming because it created a sort of heavy pit in my stomach that churned up all the bile bringing it all the way up to my mouth, leaving me with a quite dissatisfying taste. Not conforming was something that was instilled upon me the second I was able to comprehend the concept of conformity in itself. My parents always inspired me to be different, to be unique in my own way whereas I influence others to follow me. This is the only way you can be sure that you are not conforming; it is when you inspire others to conform to your ideals. In my efforts of being unique, I never sought out ways in which I took being unique to an extreme where it would look as though I was crying out for help or some sort of attention for satisfaction that would fill a void. I had no such thing, I never longed to be accepted, or longed to be rejected. In my efforts of discovering my uniqueness I found myself to be quite unconventional in my demeanor, my way of thinking, and even people I associate myself with. For example in high school I befriended every single clique there was in school, yet having none of my own. And with this I was quite satisfied. I think this satisfaction that I gained came from me defying the odds where people all my life told me that cliques were inevitable. To those people I say nonsense.
Sadly though, I think high school, might be a poor example of un-conventionalism. Now that I am in college, the fact that everyone is trying to stand out from each other to make their mark on the path to success defies my ideals of trying to be unconventional. In my journey to become unique I find myself conforming in ways that most college students conform to in the roles that employers see fit. Employers want to see someone that displays leadership qualities, someone that is involved in a plethora of activities, someone that stands out from the rest. But the truth of this issue is that when a room is filled with a group of people that try to stand out, no one stands out. In a sense, it is a sort of paradox that stresses the average college student out to the max, where students resort to binge drinking, pot smoking, or other forms of substance abuse to cope. Some may even attempt suicide with all the pressures that build up from these ideals that employers impose upon students. These ideals aren’t limited to the classroom or college environment. But they reach home and our families as well. There the pressure continues to build where families are worried about their children therefore they see that they must apply pressure just as employers do just so that employers can come to recognize a student’s efforts. And very frequently these efforts are in vain, in that a sizable group of students do not pursue their dreams, they only pursure what society deems honorable. This is the reason for depression, anger, resentment, and many other feelings that plague our society in that it breaks apart relationships on any level.
I find people who think outside the box very interesting. For centuries, people have shunned those who act outside the box. They label them as being weird just because they don’t share the same way of thinking as the majority of the society does. People who think outside the box are forced to change their way of thinking to fit in with the rest of humanity. Those who choose not are doomed to face bullying, ridiculing, and torturing by those who want them to be as they are. Those who do not think like the societies majority are considered to be abnormal. In attempts to fit in and not to be labeled as abnormal, people tend to follow the ways of the society around them. They soon are intertwined in the new society that they unable to view the world as they use to. Now they see the world as the majorities do. I have found myself as a person who always follows the crowd. I listen to the same music that they are listing to, dress as they dress, talk as they talk, and eat what they eat. After a while I began to realize that in a way everyone around me was just alike. So I tried to switch up the way I do things. I began to see why people who think outside the box think as they do. After seeing everyone around you, doing the same thing, dressing the same way, you began to get fed up with it. As Sam said in the video, everyone thinks they are the fish who swims upstream, while everyone else is swimming down. For awhile I thought that I was a fish who swam upstream, but then I realized that I was too comfortable with the habits that I had already picked up on from my surrounding society. The society that I had been exposed to for so long has affected me in a way that sort of makes me afraid of venturing outside the normal. It has created a barrel that keeps me trapped inside of it, but curiosity drives me to find a way out. Curiosity of what I can accomplish if only I could find a way out of this barrel and view the world from outside the box. I could achieve my true potential if I could only open my eyes and see the world as it truly is, but the weight of society keeps my eyes shut and only allows me to view the world as they live it. What I’m basically trying to say here is people who think outside the box, will eventually conform to the lifestyle of the society around them. Although certain aspects of them will remain the same due to the fact they want to be considered different but also be considered as normal.
I find people who think outside the box very interesting. For centuries, people have shunned those who act outside the box. They label them as being weird just because they don’t share the same way of thinking as the majority of the society does. People who think outside the box are forced to change their way of thinking to fit in with the rest of humanity. Those who choose not are doomed to face bullying, ridiculing, and torturing by those who want them to be as they are. Those who do not think like the societies majority are considered to be abnormal. In attempts to fit in and not to be labeled as abnormal, people tend to follow the ways of the society around them. They soon are intertwined in the new society that they unable to view the world as they use to. Now they see the world as the majorities do. I have found myself as a person who always follows the crowd. I listen to the same music that they are listing to, dress as they dress, talk as they talk, and eat what they eat. After a while I began to realize that in a way everyone around me was just alike. So I tried to switch up the way I do things. I began to see why people who think outside the box think as they do. After seeing everyone around you, doing the same thing, dressing the same way, you began to get fed up with it. As Sam said in the video, everyone thinks they are the fish who swims upstream, while everyone else is swimming down. For awhile I thought that I was a fish who swam upstream, but then I realized that I was too comfortable with the habits that I had already picked up on from my surrounding society. The society that I had been exposed to for so long has affected me in a way that sort of makes me afraid of venturing outside the normal. It has created a barrel that keeps me trapped inside of it, but curiosity drives me to find a way out. Curiosity of what I can accomplish if only I could find a way out of this barrel and view the world from outside the box. I could achieve my true potential if I could only open my eyes and see the world as it truly is, but the weight of society keeps my eyes shut and only allows me to view the world as they live it. What I’m basically trying to say here is people who think outside the box, will eventually conform to the lifestyle of the society around them. Although certain aspects of them will remain the same due to the fact they want to be considered different but also be considered as normal.
I normally don’t like to follow people around or do the exact same thing they do, so I typically don’t. Yes there are many times when I conform to what’s around me, from the way I dress, to how I wear my hair, and so on….but how different and thinking outside of the box can a person be? I feel is someone tries to do their “own thing” like make up their own style of dressing, then I think some people just think that that person is trying to be unique…saying it as he/she is trying to follow some other unique people by acting or dressing like that. Anyways, yeah I like to do my own thing, I have no problem doing things by myself or doing something that other people wouldn’t normally do. But is that really being innovated or is it that I just have an independent mind. I remember in middle school my girlfriends would always go everywhere together, like to the vending machines and not what, but I wouldn’t normally go with all of them or if I wanted something I would go by myself to get it. But like you said in the video, some people think they’re being unique and innovated, yet they really aren’t. So actually I think I’m more better described as an independent person rather than innovated with my daily or usually routine. I think for someone to be completely innovated and thinking and doing things that are out of the norm, they would completely have to basically not follow anything in which the “norm” is. That person would have to do things and be in places that were completely unfamiliar to them for the start, and of course would have to be completely unfamiliar to the general public. For me, I wouldn’t stop or remove myself from the things I love doing because those make up the person I am today. What I would do is to immerse myself in different cultures, be open-minded about everything, try different things, and not be hesitant to do something that I really want to do if it was seem to be out of the norm. Who really decides whether a person is being innovated or not? Like I stated earlier, a person can be doing their completely own thing in which may not be seen usually by others, but one can probably always point out that some other person, character, or whatever has been doing that already. A person has to be really creative and out of the box to I guess be seen as acting out of the norm. Observing different places, I think NY would have the most innovated and unique people when comparing it to the rest of the country, especially coming is to Penn State. I feel that many New Yorkers do whatever the heck they feel like doing and wearing, unlike people here at any college. It’s probably easier to be more innovated when you’re already a grown adult, and I mean have already graduated from college. Going to school and living amongst other college students can really limit the innovation that some people may have. When people leave college, their met with a whole new diverse group (depending where they go). But let au that after college people probably feel less concern about what other people think of them and feel more comfortable doing their own thing.
This is a very interesting question. I like to think that I am outside of the box and I do my own thing. It is a fact that most people follow mainstream culture. Why is it that we all dress alike, we all eat the same foods, we all like the same music. Why do we like what we like? Do we chose it or are we subconsciously sucked in by mainstream culture. For the most part I can say that I am a leader. I like things that some of my friends and family don’t like. I have always been told that I have this I don’t care attitude. I am sucked in through mainstream culture though because I do like the clothing most people wear and I like shoes. I can say that I do my own culture thing because my parents are not from this country and we eat different food and dress different. I only wear the clothing when my parents make me or when I know that my sisters and I are going to wear it. I admire people who step way outside of the box and are really different. They give you a different perspective on life. I meet this girl in high school and I use to think that something is really wrong with this girl until I got to know her. The only reason why I thought something was wrong with her is because of mainstream culture. I hate that we have words like normal and weird. Who is to say what is normal. If a 100,000 people decided today to jump off the golden state bridge would that be normal because a lot of people did it. I don’t think that mainstream culture is bad but if you are not careful you could get sucked in to deep. I think that the college mainstream culture is also a good but bad thing. Most people change when they get to college they start doing things that they would not normally do like drinking or smoking, and for girls having sex. I don’t know why we pick and choose what we do. In a way you think that you are in control but are we really? My parents also effect what I do but not as much as with my sister. My sister wanted to be a chef but my parents told her that she would not make enough money so she did not do it. I told her that she should do what she wants. What makes her happy because in the end she will resent them and be miserable. I do what makes me happy and most of the time I don’t do what my parents think is right. I live in two different cultures the American and African one. The rules are very different so when I do something that is ok in American standards it is not ok in African standards. I was born here so I battle with both cultures to make my parents happy and to make myself happy.
I was born and raised in a different country and migrated to the U.S. when I was seven years old. This may sounds pathetic but it’s the truth. When I’m at home, I think the way that my parents think and do the things that they want me to do. At school, I do the things that my friends do and try to fit in. My rationalization for this is that I’m caught in the middle. I’m caught between two cultures that are completely different but expect the best of me. I want to do the things that please my parents (i.e. be a hermit and antisocial), but also want to fit in with this society at the same time (i.e. have a life and actually go out). I feel like I’m too busy trying to catch up with the crowds to have time to be original. Don’t take me wrong, I do stand on my own grounds and do what’s right.
My parents experienced a lot of hardship coming to the U.S. We literally gave up everything that we have and started from scratch when we moved here. I was very much young and naïve when we first got to America so I didn’t really have an opportunity to help them out that much. Thus, I have been trying to do everything that they wanted me to. (i.e. pre-med major)because I feel obligated. As much as I wanted to please my parents (i.e. dress, talk, and act like the way that they want me to), I can’t helped but to be Americanize and act like my friends. If I act like I act at home when I’m at school, I wouldn’t fit in and vice versa. I feel like I’m stuck in the middle and unable to express my real personalities. Sometimes, I do feel like a shallow person. However, I think that a lot of us do this; we just don’t want to admit it.
Surprisingly, no matter how much I try to fit in, my parents still think that I’m too Americanized and my friends still think that I’m not like them. I guess if there’s anything that I have learn for the last nineteen years of my life is that you can’t really please everyone. I truly think that it’s very easy to say that you are going to not follow the crowds and set your own trends. The way I look at it is that some people don’t even know that they are following the crowds let alone trying to be original and take the road less traveled. I truly believe that until people recognize the fact that they are ignorantly following the norms, they will not be able to be completely free…
I find that it is extremely easy to slip into the subculture of being “in the norm” and doing as the people around us do. However, doesn’t this make the most sense? If everyone is a product of their environment, wouldn’t we all act, dress, eat, etc like the members of our family and the friends we grew up with? At my high school, there were very distinctive social groups that depended on religion, wealth, and style. Even though my high school was relatively small (800 total), this was a way for each student to feel like they were a part of a small subculture in a large group. But these subcultures, instead of merely acting as a means for everyone to feel like they belonged, acted as a way to not include others that were not “in the norm.” For example, if you looked around the cafeteria of my high school, you would see a table of all the pretty, rich, and mostly Jewish people (this was considered “the group to be in”), a table of black people, a table of the smart, geeky Asian and Indian people, a table with the theater kids, and everyone else in between. The worst part was that even the teachers and coaches recognized these social groups and gave special treatment to the students and athletes that they knew were the most wealthy and powerful in the community. All of these subcultures dressed alike, acted alike, ate (or didn’t eat) alike, and drove similar cars. When there are such clear, distinctive social groups and everyone is fighting to “fit in” and be a part of the “popular one,” we all tend to lose sight of who we truly are. Everyone is so worried about conforming, that they forget to be their own person. You might purchase a school bag that wouldn’t normally be your bag of choice just because it is the popular bag to have at your school. Or you might wear Ugg boots in the winter even though deep down you think they are really ugly just because they are considered in style and to be “the norm.” It is easy to lose track of our true likes and dislikes when we are surrounded by others. On the other hand, rebelling from conforming and being alternative or unique has also developed its own subculture. Sometimes I think people try so hard to be unique and not “the norm” that they end up fitting into their own stereotype. So what do we do? Do we lose ourselves in the mainstream culture of our environment or do we risk being different? I think once and a while we all need to take a step back and reevaluate our choices. Did I see that movie because I really wanted to see it or because I knew everyone else was going to be talking about it? Do I really like wearing leggings? That way, we can make sure that we are making choices based upon our true needs and desires, and not based upon the wants and desires of others.
In terms of being an innovative leader who lives life on the fringes of society, I have to say that I do neither of these things, and I am okay with that. Sometimes I think people are so concerned with being different and special in some way that they lose who they really are and end up being miserable. Although I do not want to be just a small fish swimming with the others, I don’t mind living my life in a normal sort of way because I am very happy with myself, my friends, my family, and my several subcultures that I belong to. The most important thing is to always make decisions based on what you want not what you think others expect of you. Although most of the time what we want has been thrust upon us by society, if it makes us happy than that is all that matters. So what if we like similar types of music or eat the same foods? If those things make us happy and make our life full than those are the things that we should do. There is only room for a few geniuses and brilliant thinkers who create new ideas, and those people are extremely special and they have a passion for what they do. Passion is what should guide our choices, so if you are passionate about inventing a new theory then you should pursue that, but if you are passionate about something “ordinary” like singing or dancing or playing sports, then that is the path you should take. If everyone tried to be extremely unique and ahead of his time, our world wouldn’t run as smoothly as it does now. If you are someone who read the blog that Sam wrote and felt moved to take action and start embedding yourself in ornate subcultures than that is amazing and you should follow your desire to do that, but when I read the blog I was extremely interested in the topic and the reasoning behind the sociological idea not so much actually taking part in moving to the fringes of society. I do not know if that makes me seem so normal and programmed by society, but I don’t really care. I am content in the subcultures I belong to now, and I love immersing myself in learning about different peoples and cultures, but I do not feel as though I have to transform myself and begin living on the outskirts in order to feel like I have purpose. We are all victims of conforming, and living our lives based on what we have been exposed to, and that is fine. Both conforming to a point of losing yourself and trying hard to be a nonconformist are extremes that are not healthy. Live how you want.
The concept of cultural change can be one of great debate. It’s obvious that societies progress and groups evolve over time but the root of the cause is quite mysterious. Everyone wants to make the claim that they’re creative or innovative but what particularly sparks culture shift is rather difficult to define.
The problem of identifying this change becomes increasingly more challenging when you consider the individual. As a society, we collectively change our lifestyles and beliefs based on the infinite number of economic, political, and social factors of the times that affect our daily lives. But as individuals, it’s our personal experiences that shape the paths we follow. Our family life, friendships, level of education, the area in which we grow up, and our general exposure to global situations impact a person’s ability to think bigger than ourselves.
I once came across the saying, “If you always do, what you’ve always done, then you end up where you’ve always been.” The profound implications of living ones life this way are astonishing. People often live content, repetitive and routine lives in fear of the unknown. But even those who possess the ability to instill change are guilty of this. We like the foods we like, the music, people, movies, and activities that we do.
The large majority of people know NOTHING besides how to follow. My father once complained about finding an employee who could actually perform tasks as they were asked. My response essentially addressed the fact that if they knew how to complete projects without full direction, IF THEY POSSESSED THE ABILITY TO LEAVE THE MIDDLE OF A SCHOOL OF FISH, they wouldn’t be working for him; they would have their own business.
I personally find that activities in my life are largely derived from my immediate influences. My deep-rooted passion for automobiles and motorcycles stems from exposure I received from my dad, a love for Chinese food from Jewish gatherings (seriously), and an obsession with all Philadelphia sports teams from the region in which I grew up.
Changes in my surroundings, such as coming to Penn State have facilitated changes in my lifestyle that may not have happened otherwise. My new found love for Grey Goose vodka was discovered in Happy Valley, a knack for snowboarding, and the desire to learn Chinese after living with an Asian for two years.
The organization I am president of on campus, the Kairos Society, has been life changing for me based on the attitude adjustment it provoked. We are an entrepreneurial organization at 18 of the top universities around the country including UPenn, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, and we promote social responsibility through the concept of “doing well, while doing good.” Kairos is “uniting the brightest young minds to fuel the innovations for a better tomorrow” on the principles of inspire, experience, and innovate. This invitation only group has brought together students from around the world with business ideas ranging from schools in the Middle East, to phone applications for universities equivalent to eLion on a cell phone, to alternative energy shock absorbers for Hummers that absorb the vertical motion of the vehicle to increase fuel efficiency. THE ENTIRE SOCIETY IS PEOPLE WHO THINK OUT OF THE BOX. I’ve recently come to learn that the people who aren’t afraid to fail are the ones who truly enact change within our world.
For instance, the music genres don’t automatically appear full force. I believe that songs ease into a new genre. For instance, going from rock and roll to pop… one artist decided to turn a song a little different – more towards the pop genre. And society accepted it. Then they turned another song a little bit more ‘pop-py’ and then another song a little bit more. I don’t know if that’s a good example, but I think that
Cultural transformation is not the easiest of subjects to discuss. It’s like trying to figure out exactly how people think and why, just not an easy thing to ponder about. Cultural transformations usually occur on the fringes of society. It is this way probably because this is where people are more likely to branch out into other cultures or really just be themselves and express what they want how they want. These people create a change of pace in mainstream culture and drag the attention away from what was mainstream, to themselves. These kinds of events occur in cultures very often and are usually something quite noticeable. They think, more or less, outside the box and get people’s attention by their “untraditional” ways. Most people are not like these “change makers” and most people just stick to uniformity whether they realize it or not just go with the ways of society.
Thinking of subcultures that everyone belongs to, it’s hard to think of very many distinct or unique ones. Why are they so nonexistent? This is because when a subculture like this comes to be someone else joins it, then someone else, and someone else. Innovative people that trigger these effects are really special people. Thinking about myself, there is really no creativity. I look at my friends, peers, and family and I basically follow the same things that they do. These dynamic subcultures that are not connected to the mainstream are very hard to come by. The clothes I wear, slang I use, places I go, clubs I join are all in some way related to the people around me. I feel as though in order to create one of these innovative sparks that would set you apart from mainstream society, one would need a completely different mindset. Things are too easily done for us by following the leader, that now creativity is dead. This is not to say completely dead as in no one has good ideas anymore, just that they are much harder to come by because someone has already done it.
Culture has been embedded in you, just like it was embedded in me and everyone else around us. The lives we have lived thus far have taught us everything that we will do and should do. It seems as though we need more of these creative sparks to maybe set a subculture of its own, thinking on the fringe. If everyone would think like that, then no one would be the same, and follow the leader would mean virtually nothing. These out side the box thinkers are only so hard to come by because once they think outside the box, everyone jumps on their bandwagon and now what they have created is a social norm. All I’m saying is that I think these innovations come along more often than thought, they are just blurred out by people wanted to be cool with the new “trend.”
I find this topic really intriguing. It is something I have considered before and I have actually thought a lot about it. I think it’s hard for people to leave their “school of fish” and go on their own path because I feel like I today’s society we see those people as different or outcasts and the “school” tends to look down upon those people. We all have different views because we all have had different experiences that have shaped our opinion. The music reference for instance is a great example of this theory. I know I personally have a different taste of music than most of my friends, which in turn makes me stand out in my “school” so to speak. What I’m trying to say is that it’s easy to stay in the so called in crowd, but to be different can go one of two ways. One way is that your thoughts are radical and you are considered different but people will begin to follow you. An example Dr. Richards pointed out was Einstein or you could point out Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was considered a radical but he also led millions of people and changed American culture. The other way this could go would be the polar opposite way. You could start your own path and for lack of a better word, become a nobody. I think this is the reason many people “stay in the school.”
By no mean am I trying to understand the difficulty of trying to leave the mainstream. When things are instilled in you, they usually stay there. I am by no means an innovator or loner, but I do see difficulties in my personal life that requires me to jump from clique to clique. There are just certain groups of people that I am acquainted with that will not go near or do not mesh well with others. I find it to be a personal struggle to keep that balance. Right now I am at a crossroads in my life where as I grow older I am beginning to understand exactly what it is that we are discussing. At the age of 23, I have realized what true friends are, what real people as opposed to fake people are, and where I want to be. Sure I may be labialized as a jock or drunken Irishmen or whatever, but I make my own path. I choose who I want to be and what “school of fish” I want to be in; if one at all. This is not me trying to be different to answer the question. I might not be different at all. I am not saying that I am. I’m just stating how I feel and you can take it or leave it.
José Bell-Otero
Journal #3: Cultural Transformation and Our Personal Lives
Everyone likes to think that they are a beautiful and unique snowflake, but the fact of the matter is that there are an incredible amount of not-so-unique factors that shape the personalities of each and every person on this planet. These factors range from religion and traditions to musical preferences and even sexual orientation. Each of the things that shape a person originated with just one person who thought outside of the box, and they just so happened to catch on and spread like the plague. Granted, some of those things are more popular than others, but the fact that someone (possibly even a group of people) started them still remains. This leaves me with a burning question: what does it mean to be an individual?
Single; particular; a single human being – these are general definitions for the word “individual”. In other words, to be an individual, you just have to exist. What about “individuality”? That changes things up, slightly. Individuality is generally defined as the different qualities that distinguish one person from another. Every single person has quirks about them that will separate them from everyone else, and that’s what it’s all about. Every single person has their likes and dislikes. Every single person has unique qualities. When self-expression gets thrown into the mix, that’s when the idea of thinking outside of the box gets thrown out of the window.
Everyone has hobbies, musical preferences, and other things that they use to express themselves. A lot of people like to show these things off through clothing, posters, web sites, and social networking pages. Most of these people are using things that were already made by other people, companies, and/or bands, and that’s where the idea of thinking outside of the box dies. If you didn’t come up with it yourself, then how does that amplify your individuality? Do you like it because it’s popular? Do you like it because it’s not popular? Does it appeal to you? Is it “cool”? Why do you care? Why does anyone care? A lot of people express themselves in such ways because they want to make friends with common interests and/or just to feel that they belong to some kind of social group. This is where progressive thinking ultimately dies. It’s hard to be a progressive thinker when you’re surrounded by people that happen to be very similar to yourself.
Maybe each person really is a beautiful and unique snowflake. Two snowflakes can have similar patterns, but they will not look alike. We all are unique in our own ways, even if we adopt things from other cultures, subcultures, and progressive thinkers. Every person’s quirks, on top of the combination of ways they express themselves, makes them unique. We are all snowflakes that are beautiful and unique… but we are all still made of frozen water that falls from the sky.
I think that there are very few people who legitimately “swim upstream,” no matter how hard they may try. I know that I personally go with the crowd very often, but it’s not like that’s always a bad thing. A lot of people seem to be talking about being conformist as a truly horrible thing in these blog responses, but it’s those things that we all do collectively that give us cultural identity. It is just important to know when enough is enough. Sometimes people get so caught up in group thinking that they believe themselves to be unquestionably right and this is when conformity can be a bad thing. Look at 1930’s Germany. After World War One the Germans rallied together behind a leader with less than pleasant intentions. Many of them not only believed they were right, but also that they had some sort of divine mandate because they just ‘knew’ that their culture was somehow better than all others. That is when being conformist can go too far, when you stop thinking for yourself entirely and just roll with the herd completely blocking out everyone else. There is nothing wrong with being largely conformist as long as you remain open to outside ideas.
Even if someone goes out of their way to be the salmon (swimming upstream), there is only so much that can be done in today’s culture. With television, movies, and the internet we all get the same baseline inputs about what we should value. Sam’s example with the Chinese music is the perfect example of this; he has no control over his taste because he has been indoctrinated since childhood with music that our culture values.
I think that this all boils down to evolutionary biology. It was beneficial for humans to conform to their groups for survival. When you are living in a group of fewer than twenty people, the last thing you need is someone contradicting the norm. I truly believe that people are so ethnocentric because way back when, that was what kept you alive. This is a great time to cite Planet Earth. In one episode, the chimpanzees are shown to be a very closely knit group, all conforming to standard of behavior. They then talk about how the monkeys absolutely hate and will kill without mercy any other monkeys that are not in their group. They don’t do this because there all just culturally bland sheep, they think like this because that is what keeps them alive in a world of competition. While us humans may not be competing for who controls the largest fig tree anymore, these values of conformity and blinding devotion to ones cultural group have not gone anywhere.
Cultural change is something that remains a mystery for the most part. Fads come and go just as often and frequently as they ever have. They’ll continue to spark up out of nowhere and fade away seemingly without notice with no end in sight. It was just a few years ago with rap star Eminem’s superstardom that brought the fad among white males to bleach their hair. Everyone wanted to be like Eminem, and it was a socially acceptable hair style. Just a few short years later bleached hair has fallen off and you would be hard pressed to find someone who intentionally bleached their hair for that look. That one in however many people you find consequently would be going against the social norm of today, setting their own style. Where do these fads come from? Why do they fade away so fast?
Now with the case I discussed earlier about white kids with bleached hair, the fad was “created” by a public figure. It was his calling card, or mark that set him apart from everyone else (not that he really needed to stand out any more, Eminem being the first major white rapper since Vanilla Ice, that’s another story though). It was Eminem’s creativity and personal taste that lead him to bleach his own hair. That was his style, but in the early 2000’s when nobody was bigger on American hit lists, kids couldn’t get enough of the artificially blonde hair. After only a short while, probably the same amount of time it takes to grow their natural hair color back, the fad was over. Why did this happen? Who is in charge of the style changes in America?
It makes sense that someone with the notoriety and popularity Eminem had, specifically with white American youth, could start a fad like this. The bleach blonde hair wasn’t Eminem’s only trademark, if you remember he was on the main firing lines of politicians, his true trademark was that he got the youth to question authority. This is a message that could really create quite the following, what kid can’t relate with that? It only makes sense that some of this following will alter their appearance to be more like this public figure whose message makes sense to you, enter the bleach blonde hair fad.
When do fads end? That’s a simple question to answer, whenever the next one begins. The great thing is there are so many people, so there will always be somebody else with another fad to come about and take the American youth by storm. Look at the VMA’s, while watching I couldn’t believe Lady Gaga, she looked like a psychopath as far as I was concerned. Somebody else might look at her idea of fashion and think it was cool, enter the brillow pad over the face fad. Who knows?
I think that everyone has that creative "spark" inside of them. The only problem is that society tells everyone that their opinion doesn't matter. For example, I'm in a sorority and I'm not exactly allowed to choose much about myself. I'm not allowed to wear jeans to socials, I have to wear short dresses with heels. If i want to just go all natural one night, I can't. I have to do my hair, make-up, etc. Only because its not excepted. The sad part is it doesn't even bother me. I'm just used to it and they are my best friends so I'm okay with it. But then the people I see that are trying to be different usually don't even seem happy. So if you aren't happy and you are being yourself, whats the point anyways? Isn't it better just to fit in and make what everyone else likes what you like? According to psychology, we are just a collection of all of our experiences anyways. No matter who we "believe" we are, we change with everything that happens to us, for better or for worse. Its impossible to not be completely affected by things around you. Without the things around you, you wouldn't be who you are. You might think that this is just your personality, but no your personality is because of everything you've been through in your life. For example, maybe you had an ex-significant other really hurt you and now you can't trust any others. That isn't exactly your personality, that's because of an experience you've gone through. All of the people who try to say that they aren't a "victim" of their past - well it still changed you in some way. And the creativity, it is limited. You don't want someone to judge you so you suppress your creativity. I don't think society actually wants anyone to be creative. They just want us to be clones of one another that go through the steps of life, go to college, get a job, have a family, then the cycle starts all over again. "Creativity" could cause bad things (and really good things) so society doesn't really want it. If someone jumped out of the box too much, they could cause a riot or war or something ridiculous so its wrong to think differently- besides the fact that you don't want to be that kid that stands out. Everyone wants to be accepted, its in our nature. Even animals want to be accepted. No one is to blame, its just the way of life. And I think fitting in comes way before being yourself. Its not intentional and I'm not saying its right, just everyone wants to hang with the "in crowd" and be the "cool kid" so it just happens. All of the movies out there where all of the cool kids have the raging parties and hang out with coolest kids and have the best stories, everyone wants to be them so they will all conform to be just like that. You can't really blame them. Its just what we know and the way we are programed.
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