Keeping up with Pop Culture
If you stumbled on this post, it might interest you to know that I typically have random thoughts pop into my head at the oddest times although not as much in the shower as one would typically expect. One of those random thoughts popped into my head today and I got to thinking about barriers, boundaries, the morality of our always-online world.
I started by thinking about Willow and Jaden Smith and some news stories I had read about Jaden's wardrobe choices. The object of this post is not to judge or lend commentary, it is more to wonder at how terrifying my life would have been for me as a teenager if my every thought, personality shift and struggle had an ever-present worldwide audience giving me constant, instant unsolicited feedback. Like most people, I did not make smart choices as a teenager, I had a crush on a self-acclaimed bad boy who was a compulsive liar, I wore my pencils and pens in my hair, I was known to dance on the street and had very questionable fashion choices.
With this perspective, looking at celebrities both young and old, I do feel like we place way too much demand for perfection and infallibility on them, the scrutiny has to be painful at best and prompts the pervasiveness of false images, Photoshop and an unattainable ideal which our younger generation drinks up like cold Coca-Cola on a hot summer afternoon.
More and more, we are encouraged subtly to make decisions based more on social media with its filters and my question in all of this is where should we draw the line between what really goes on in my life and what my social media image is because intentionally or not there is usually a line of demarcation between the two worlds.
How does what I ate, wore, where I went, who I am dating, or just dumped, my hair cut, hair color, braids or lack of or hair extensions define who I really am as a person or to what extent should it?
My lovely sister Kay says "Social media is cruel". It took me a while to understand why and now I wonder if the pseudo-safety of anonymity in a virtual world slowly sucks away our morality and humanity? How do we monitor the dopamine effect released from social media interactions which fuel the addiction to social media and its demand for constant perfection, positivity and a "fab" life?
How do parents who are equally addicted to social media educate their pre-teens and teens on what is real and what is not?
Pop culture is great. All culture is great actually, on some level because culture shows us our oneness and diversity all at once and I am a fan but you see, the idea that we all need to keep up with some virtually defined set of norms while not paying enough attention to the very real life interactions taking place right above our noses has me concerned.
I guess what I am trying to say is, we can keep up with the Jones, Wests, Norths or Smiths but we need to remember that we can still pick and choose what is truly important in our world and what really truly defines us.
*Post edited Jan, 2018*
I started by thinking about Willow and Jaden Smith and some news stories I had read about Jaden's wardrobe choices. The object of this post is not to judge or lend commentary, it is more to wonder at how terrifying my life would have been for me as a teenager if my every thought, personality shift and struggle had an ever-present worldwide audience giving me constant, instant unsolicited feedback. Like most people, I did not make smart choices as a teenager, I had a crush on a self-acclaimed bad boy who was a compulsive liar, I wore my pencils and pens in my hair, I was known to dance on the street and had very questionable fashion choices.
With this perspective, looking at celebrities both young and old, I do feel like we place way too much demand for perfection and infallibility on them, the scrutiny has to be painful at best and prompts the pervasiveness of false images, Photoshop and an unattainable ideal which our younger generation drinks up like cold Coca-Cola on a hot summer afternoon.
More and more, we are encouraged subtly to make decisions based more on social media with its filters and my question in all of this is where should we draw the line between what really goes on in my life and what my social media image is because intentionally or not there is usually a line of demarcation between the two worlds.
How does what I ate, wore, where I went, who I am dating, or just dumped, my hair cut, hair color, braids or lack of or hair extensions define who I really am as a person or to what extent should it?
My lovely sister Kay says "Social media is cruel". It took me a while to understand why and now I wonder if the pseudo-safety of anonymity in a virtual world slowly sucks away our morality and humanity? How do we monitor the dopamine effect released from social media interactions which fuel the addiction to social media and its demand for constant perfection, positivity and a "fab" life?
How do parents who are equally addicted to social media educate their pre-teens and teens on what is real and what is not?
Pop culture is great. All culture is great actually, on some level because culture shows us our oneness and diversity all at once and I am a fan but you see, the idea that we all need to keep up with some virtually defined set of norms while not paying enough attention to the very real life interactions taking place right above our noses has me concerned.
I guess what I am trying to say is, we can keep up with the Jones, Wests, Norths or Smiths but we need to remember that we can still pick and choose what is truly important in our world and what really truly defines us.
*Post edited Jan, 2018*
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