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clothes and society
american materialism and consumerism
american materialism and consumerism
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America has become a consumer culture. The American people tend to find themselves buying consumer products for no particular reason. I personally believe, we are what we buy. Americans have a habit of showing themselves threw their products. The products they buy say a lot about the person’s identity. People have separated themselves apart by the merchandise they consumed. A Person’s clothes can quickly label a person and put them in a distinctive group, for example if a person wears all black and has long hair that person would likely be considered a metal-head (a person who enjoys metal music) by society. People find themselves socializing within the same group of individuals. This is just something that we all have been conditioned to. We are more comfortable talking to a person with similar interest, such as music, fashion and food as appose to a person with nothing in common. It is not just clothing that defines a person. Gadgets, such as IPods, cars, phones and computers can also identify a person. For example, a person driving around in a Mercedes this automatically means he or she is wealthy. The Mercedes Benz is the top of the line luxury car that screams out wealth to society. The same could be said about a person driving around in a beat up Volkswagen. The person will be automatically being seen as someone with little money, struggling to make it in the world. This is just how society is the more you have the better you are than anybody else. My cousin, Steven does not socialize with people outside his world. He constantly tries to find people who have some of the same interest has he does. One of the first things he tends to look at is how the person is dressed and quickly judges them on their appearance. This is one of the ways he usually makes his friend somebody with similarities to him he would most likely approach. I personally asked him how you could be so shallow. Steven replied, “it makes me feel a lot more comfortable knowing we have similar interest”.
The industry rapidly establishes consumerism in Americans. For instance, Disney since the age of three drives children to own collections of films and merchandise in order to fulfill satisfaction in the idealistic fairytale living. Americans do not realize these material goods are not necessarily important, instead, it becomes a routine of material objects to have a sense of completeness; these buying habits are perpetual. America is now defined as materialistic rather than over-consumption. People deliberately purchase material goods constantly and frequently without needing it. Shopping has become a lifestyle, there is no appreciation or sense of value to what we own, and instead it is depicted and seen as a “retail therapy.” The consumption of materialistic goods is what makes America feel happy and complete.
The massive amount of consumerism and materalistic ideology came from the decade of the 1980s and proved to be the time of wanting to have luxrious items throughout the daily routine of being an American citizen. The American culture of massive consumerism of the 1980s was influenced by the elements of the American Dream, the iconic pop stars and events, the deep recession troubling the lives of many, and the nationalistic pride that was shown through the actions of recreations and sports. Not only was the 1980s influenced by the culture of consumerism, but it impacted the future generations to only want to become a bigger and better version of the 1980s.
Whether it be the new “in” clothes, or the hottest music. People want to seem cool or do things everyone else loves doing. In Brave New World everyone is conforming to their peers and their government. There is a quote from the government saying “The more stitches less riches”. Which indicates that if you wear something that is worn or has a few tears in the fabric the citizen would be identified as not wealthy.
In Don Delilo’s, White Noise different themes are displayed throughout the novel. Some themes are the fear of death, loss of identity, technology as the enemy, and American consumerism. The society represented in the novel views people as objects and emotionally detached from many things. Death is always in the air and trapped in peoples mind. The culture that’s represented in the novel adds to the loss of individualism, but also adds to the figurative death of the characters introduced in the novel.
Almost all of our decisions are based off of society. When you go to school what do you wear? Is it okay to wear a tuxedo coat with a pair of bright neon green pajamas? Most likely, people would give you weird looks and it would make other people uncomfortable. That’s because we have social norms. If we break them, then it is considered awkward and makes people feel uneasy. You wouldn’t walk into a five star restaurant with jeans and a t-shirt. I do not fully understand why certain norms are in place but I know if you break them you are looked at as different. One of the first videos we watched
I started wearing what I wanted and not just what was popular. I didn’t have close connections with my friends at the time either. Most of them gossiped all the time, and that’s just not me. I had been stuck in my shell for way too long in fears of being an outcast. The first day of trying to come out of my shell I was made fun of, but I didn’t care near as much as I thought I would. These people are making jokes about me but don’t have any clue who I am, what I’ve been through, or what my future holds. So why even give them the time of day? I kept on wearing what I wanted and actually made life-long friends who were into the same things as I was. It does not matter what you wear or how you look honestly. The only thing that should matter is what’s inside of you, and you shouldn’t be discouraged to express that in fears of someone not liking you. “Those who matter don’t mind, those that mind don’t matter” (Theodore Suess Geisel.)
Hook: Two men walk into a store. One is dressed in a three-quarter black business suit; his hair is gelled back and he stands in a confident pose as he stares ahead. While the other man looks downward, his hands in his baggy gray sweatshirt and he smells of alcohol. How people portray themselves can cause stereotypes and judgments to be formed within a blink of an eye. A person may read in the newspaper the next day on how a store was robbed and instantly think it was the suspicious looking man, the one with the baggy clothes. Why is this? Humans and people, in general, have always based their perceptions on people for what they look like. This all has to do with the media and social influences on how an image is made to be relevant.
Fashion is one of those things that people can claim they don't care about. They can defend again and again that it doesn't matter what one wears, it's the person who wears it. But in all likelihood they will continue to be judged, as we all are, for the clothes on our body, the shoes on our feet and the hairstyle we are sporting.
One 's outward appearance isn’t all that is affected by what you wear; the clothing someone wears also shows how they view themselves or how others perceive them to be. Style shows confidence; it shows that humans are able to care about how people look and where someone wants their life to go. While shopping a person is barraged with what is socially acceptable to wear and how someone should look. It is a difficult task to remain unique when it comes style. A fashionistas job is to keep an individual style and persona. Just like dress codes, billboard and posters create a false image of what people really want. It causes people to believe that just because Kim Kardashian is wearing it that they should like it to. Most people are induced to become no different in clothing choice than other shoppers and
Many people feel that you can tell a lot about a person by observing what they wear and what they eat. This is not the case. Choice of clothing and eating habits, in no way, allow you to pass judgment on a person. Judging people based on these factors is extremely shallow. What one wears and eats in no way depicts character, behavior, or even intelligence. One simply cannot know a person by looking at them and observing what they eat. Such a thought is ridiculous.
For example, if people saw me wear Concords, they would categorize me as being into basketball or hip hop. It is also mostly guys who are wearing basketball shoes that notice my shoes. Therefore, it makes me feel masculine and makes me feel like I belong to the basketball or hip hop culture, but at the same time, I feel like I do not belong to a certain group. Thus, fashion is different in ethnics group, gender, and class because it serves to unite people or to establish a separation from other groups. It originated from women in order to make up for their disadvantage status, middle class in order to increase their social status and marginal social groups for their lack of social importance and cities for social density and wealth (Fashion, 310). Therefore, fashion play an important role in our lives back then and
In a nutshell, the people living in modern society today are judged by a host of factors. What one wears, drives, or stays in can instantly change how other people perceive them. Image remains to be an undeniable fact of a great importance in the modern world today.
There have been many instances where I am stopped and commented on what I’m wearing. Depending on a single item of clothing, I am either a “certified hippie”, “lesbian”, or “law student”. This has brought me to raise an important social question: How have fashion and advertising built identity stereotypes? Stereotyping can have a strong and negative impact on a person, especially younger generations that are now at an influential stage in their mental development. By subjecting them to these stereotypes based on what they wear, they may begin to think of and see themselves as society claims, rather than who they are or aspire to be. By conducting further research on stereotyping in fashion designs through their advertisements, the aim of this research is to understand the history and social ideas behind fashion. By thoroughly understanding the problem, a solution would be easier to reach. In order to gain further insight on the matter, two practitioners have been selected: Dr. Rebecca Arnold and Dr. Roman Meinhold.
In conclusion, fashion will speak out a person’s social signal, people dress on designs that blend with their social class. Just as population, social activities and fashion are changing with time. Fashion has made clothing to be convinient, everything needs to be done with the least effort and spend the least time.
Clothing is something that defines a person, and allows society to have an outlook on an individual’s lifestyle and beliefs. Unlike criticizing other material things like a car, a home or even something as simple as a television set, criticism of clothing is very personal. This suggests that there is a high correlation between clothing and personal identity and values. (Breward, pg.1) Clothing in a sense has the ability to communicate thought. However, similarly to art interpretations, this does not mean that any two people will perceive these visual aesthetics similarly.