Hw 31

When I asked a friend do you ever pretend to be someone your not?
They replied :I don't care about being cool. Don't feel pressure by people to act to different. I choose what I want to follow and what click to be in. Everything that i am is just natural to me. I am me and that's it. I do things not because I'm striving to to be different it's because I like it. I set my own standards.


You have a tattoo, isn't that costuming/ adorning the self?
I guess I do adorn... but my tattoo explains apart of my upbringing and culture. It has personal significance to me. It's very personal not in a place that it is shown off. It's not in any "sexy" place. It's on my back and if I want someone to see it then that's sharing a part of me to that someone.


I think we are all guilty of trying to aggrandize and costume/mask ourselves because we want to feel like we matter even though some claim not to. We are guilty in some way or another. I sometimes feel like I need too dress to impress to get the approval of others or change my personality up a bit in order to fit in with a certain group.

HW 30

Where does the emptiness that so many people feel inside come from? This emptiness inside of people that makes us feel incomplete or insignificant. We all have the desire to fill or cover up our hole of emptiness but why?

Maybe this sense of meaninglessness and emptiness comes from knowing that we are all inevitably going to DIE. "There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow." Ecclesiastes 1:11 . Knowing that you are going to die in my opinion is very strong motivation to want to make one’s life meaningful. Knowing that we are “temporary” beings pushes us to want to make something out of our lives. We then turn to playing certain main character roles in our lives/stories to substitute for the emptiness and the fact that we are going to die. William Shakespeare said “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Meaning that we go through life playing a character that either pretends to be cool to fill the hole of emptiness inside of us or worries about how to live life but in none of that will matter because we’ll just end up dying. It will all be over but for the time being we are focused on satisfying the emptiness and meaninglessness by creating self importance and getting others to make and think that we are important so that we feel significant.

Some philosophers believe that the stem of our loneliness comes from God. Religion adds meaning to some people's lives and they believe that having a relationship with God can and will cure the loneliness and emptiness they feel inside. German philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich argues that "Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life." To have meaning and a purpose in life is about being connected to God. Without this connection some feel like they are meaningless and don't have a purpose in life. I think that people just want to feel like their living for a reason and feel significant in any way possible.

Philosopher Fraud believed that our emptiness comes from "the separation from the mother" . The separation we as children experience from our mothers when we realize that we have to compete for her love and attention when all of it is directed onto the father. We then begin to feel a disconnection from our mother. Which in return makes us feel all alone and like we don't matter to her. The mother is separate from us whose attention is not only fixed on us. I think that we long to be nurtured, we want to be loved , cared for and taken care of. When we feel like were missing those things in our lives we feel incomplete. Then we start looking for methods to cover up / hide it from ourselves and the world.

HW 29

Making young people feel like they are being understood is one of the techniques that marketers use to sell their products. Young people want to feel understood and special and if marketers are able to do so then teens will be more receptive and more willing to buy their products. Making it easier to sell to them. These corporations are selling an identity to young people. Thinking how young people think today is a way for these companies to reach them and therefore have their products reach them as well.

Young people are marketed what is cool or hot through the things they watch, read and listen to. Young people are being sold "youth culture" any way the corporate companies can reach them. Having a famous person wear their products or endorse it, speaks to teens. " A marketing ploy that puts specific products into the hands of actors that will be shown using them in movies and TV shows". Young people want to be cool and if their favorite artist or actor has it then that will sell the product.

Companies are becoming "cool" to better relate their merchandise to young people. By knowing what they want and giving it to them. Understanding the youth culture allows them to figure out what to sell to them but making the youth think they are trying to understand them and what they want. But it's just a ploy to sell the youth what they want to sell to them.

HW 28

C., Krystle. "How to Be Cool at School." WikiHow 1. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

This article was a list of tips on how to be cool at school. How you can achieve coolness in school if you follow the list of 13 tips which suggest you "have your own sense of style" and "be fit, clean, and smell good" because this is what people in school will be looking for in order to define you as cool or not.

I thought that the list of tips was funny like " if you're a girl, always wear a bit of jewelry" because wearing jewelry will be the key factor in determining if I'm cool or not. I also liked that the list included "respecting others" and "keeping an open mind" because it reminded me of what some of the people I interviewed said made a person cool. I thought it was interesting that this article mentioned nothing about being yourself but rather it was a list of how to fit in and put a mask on when your at school.

Rice, Jeff. "What is Cool? Notes on Intellectualism, Popular Culture, and Writing ." CTheory 1. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

This article was about what is cool? and marketing coolness to people. As stated in a wired magazine article titled "The Phenomenon of Cool" , there definition of cool is the advertisement's audience, purpose, and product for sale. How everyone is so occupied with becoming cool or having the coolest latest stuff.

This article made me realize that advertisers try to market products as cool or as the hottest new trend in order to get us to buy, buy ,buy , which we end up doing. But the coolest item or the latest trend is not long lasting since there are constantly new "cool" products coming out and the coolest trends end up becoming last season's trends. What's cool today might not be cool tomorrow.

Fenichel,Michael. "What is "Cool"? (What's Hot? What's Not?)." Michael Fenichel Teaching Tools 1. (Copyright ©1997-2008): n. pag. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

This article was about the obstacles that adolescence face, one being achieving ultimate coolness. It talked about teens using other teens to define themselves.

I thought that it was interesting that all teens at some point want to be cool or liked by the group of people they are trying to fit in with and they do so by changing their appearance or altering themselves in order to be accepted by their peers. A lot of this fitting in and being accepted has to do with self esteem. Instead one should start accepting themselves instead of pleasing others which they might find is better than being cool.



Other sites visited:

Who, Alan. "How To Be Cool." Alan Who? 1. 1. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

Buehler, doyle. "You're not cool - I am. What is cool & finding the cool factor.." Fast Company 1. (2008): 1. Web. 7 Dec 2009. .

HW 27

Interviews with strangers, family and friends....

Who do you think is cooler Beyonce or Rihanna?

Katy: "Beyonce, because she grew up with all these influences around her music wise but still does her own thing. I don't know about Rihanna..."

Missy: "Rihanna, because Beyonce seems more superficial. All that Rihanna's been through makes her stronger and adds to her personality."

Where you cool in high school?

Katy: "I wasn't cool because I didn't care about anyone but sports but if you needed me to do your math homework then I was cool."

Missy: "I don't think I was cool in high school... I mean I wasn't cool or uncool I kind of just stood in the middle."

India: "I was kinda cool because I hung out with the cool kids."

What is cool ?

Katy: "Someone who is down to earth, doesn't care what anyone thinks. Someone who is honest. If you ain't honest then you ain't cool."

Missy: "It sounds cliche but originality. If you can be original and pull it off then cool."

Audrey: "Being yourself and not what others want you to be."

Who is the coolest person you know?

Katy: "My mom because who can raise children and still be calm and have it all together."

Missy: " All of my friends, they are each cool in their own way."

Do you have any tips on how to be cool?

Katy: " Be open minded to anything. Anything your open to and not what other people are."

Any last thoughts on Cool?

Missy: " I think that people are trying to redefine cool based on what the media is putting out there."

Are you cool?

Bro: "My friends seem to think so and the ladies."

Why?

Bro: " What do you mean why? Isn't it obvious ? (laughs). People tell me they like my style, they find me attractive and think I'm hilarious. They call it the "whole package"."