Thanksgiving

It's that time of year again where we all gather with our loved ones, tell stories, eat until we are sick to our stomachs, and most importantly be thankful for what we have in life. Every thanksgiving dinner is different; none are exactly the same, due to our culture and our social norms as a family. But I didn't find any extreme social behaviors during my thanksgiving dinner. What I did find extremely interesting was black Friday. I didn’t go to the midnight sales but I did go to the morning ones and it was still pretty chaotic. I got to the mall and I sat at the food court area to at least eat some breakfast and while I was sitting there people in their pajamas carrying so many shopping bags still searching for more stuff to buy. In my mind I was like oh man I am going to find so many sales and stuff, but it turned out that there weren’t any extremely good sales as I was expecting. Of course there were sales but they weren’t sales that blew your mind. I think people are just so physiologically “programed” in a way to believe that the sales on black friday are sales that are never going to be found throughout the year until the next black Friday due to how our media and society portrays this day. Now with the pajamas, I think it’s symbolizing what black Friday is about, people who wake up early in the morning just to get some good deals. There are plenty of other holidays throughout the year, especially Christmas, where store deals are very good, however, society only decides to pick out black Friday as the more extreme one and for this reason so many people go shopping.

Social Class

One characteristic of class that I think defines social classes is food. It is similar to clothing because food has different types of brands just like clothing has different styles and logos. Therefore, it’s easy to see what food brand is more expensive which shows that the person eating that brand product has money. Also, what restaurant you decide to eat at also reflects your social class. Not only does the food brand and restaurant define social class but also the amount of food that you eat. However, this isn’t a definite factor because it might just be that you aren’t eating because you aren’t that hungry.



Gender & Media

 

 

 

Our society's perspective on how a girl and boy should act, what to wear, and how to feel about something are all, in my opinion, affected by the media. Even though our parents and friends so affect how we see things as well, I feel that the media has a greater impact. Boys are protrayed to be tough, a gentleman, and sexy where as girls are portrayed to be sweet, innocent, and neat. The only trait that is the same between guys and girls is to be sexy and this is because the media enforces that you must be sexy, no matter if you're are male or female.

 

 

In class, we had a discussion on whether or not the government should regulate or make a law to protect the false media being put out to public. The majority was on "it's the person's choice" side but I chose to be on the government regulation side. I feel that the media and advertisements now a days send such a strong message to our society on who we should be and what we must look like in order to be attractive. Photos from advertisements are not the regular shot, it's an extremely photo shopped photo that creates such a false image. This false image is looked at by millions of people and in fact they compare this perfect person to themselves, which leads to a desire of becoming this nonexistent figure. For this reason, eating disorders and other disorders as well have increased year round. The opposition stated that the people should choose whether or not they decide to believe this and that people should know that it's fake and not compare themselves to it. This I believe is not being socially mindful of your surroundings because you believe that what you think, others must think as well which is a bad assumption. Not everyone is intelligent enough to look at these images and know that they are false and that they should not believe what they see. I know that before high school I thought everything in the media was real. I never knew the models were so photo shopped to such an extreme. I would look at a magazine and see the model posing and I would think that that was really her and in a way i would be jealous because she was so pretty. This is why the government should regulate media to eliminate false advertising because kids look at these magazines and compare themselves to the models and develop a desire to become them, therefore, eating disorders start to increase and other habits as well to what is being shown in the magazine and how the models  look like. I think that this is such a huge problem because media is sending a false message. Many years ago we were not even able to Photoshop pictures and now that technology has improved we are able to make miracles with this program. Technology is going to keep improving and to top it off media is everywhere, where ever you look there is a poster, a TV, or a billboard. Will this problem worsen as a result of technological improvement? I think that the government and people should take a stand now instead of later when it will be too late.

 

 



 

 

Halloween Costumes

Halloween is around the corner and your friends and you try to plan a group costume theme. What should you be? A crayon, a lumberjack, a nerd, a nurse, a pirate, or a bee?  So many things to choose from. You guys decide on a nurse, a sexy nurse; a very short and tight low cut dress with a small nurse hat. Is this really how nurses dress? of course not.

 Media and society and all the other factors around us affect our view towards what we think is socially correct to wear. In class, we took a look at guy cotumes compared to girl costumes. The girl costumes were more fitted and short, meant to be provacative, where as guy costumes were full body covered costumes. I never realized how different men and women costumes were until I actually looked for the difference.  Even though some girl costumes are over the top and above sexy, the reason I thnk that I have never realized the difference between costumes is because it's part of our norm or society and we are used to seeing all these types of costumes.

However, the observation that surpised me the most was how little kid costumes are changing as well, slowly reflecting the women costumes. This shows how our culture and society are urging kids to grow up fast and puts them in a mind set that they should dress like an adult. After all, adults are role models to kids, they are the people whom they look up to and want to be. Not only do adults affect children drastically, media is the biggest factor that i think causes this reaction from kids. The feeling of being cool and attractive by wearing a costume are reasons why the way a costume should look is changing.