Letter to Myself

Dear Chloe,

From the reading and writing in this class, I’ve learned a lot and grown as a person. While the readings and more importantly the essays I wrote had specific topics, they were jumping off points for me to reflect later on much broader topics. I thought a lot about morality and how I want to live my life, and I think these ponderings have lead to some useful conclusions. Additionally, as a writer I’ve learned to give myself freedom and time during my process and not to worry so much about the way things sound when it gets in the way of my ideas.

Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn really has made me think about the way I live. Usually I’m a very relaxed person and I try not to let things bother me. It’s usually easier to just not get annoyed at people or try to change their actions. For example, my dad can be very difficult sometimes, especially while travelling. He’s very slow, and takes forever to get ready to go anywhere. This means that my family spends a lot of time waiting for him. He’s also selfish and always wants to get his own way. Sometimes I get annoyed and start yelling at him and try to get him to change his ways. But this never works and I always end up angry and stressed. So I decided to not let it bother me and just try to have a good time despite being held up by him. This resulted in a lot less stress for me and made me happier.  This example represents how I generally try to live my life.

At least that was before I read Culture Jam.   This book challenged me to stop being complacent and fight against injustices. Maybe Lasn didn’t have stubborn fathers in mind when he wrote this book, but his words really struck a nerve, because sometimes I worry that I can be too easy going. It’s so much easier to be complacent. And it doesn’t make me unhappy to let others get what they want over me. However one night while deep in thought, I examined what the difference between “going with the flow” and being complacent.  One is like you're floating in a river and there's a fork in the river which both look appealing and the wind gives you a little push to the left fork. The other is like someone shoving something gross into your mouth, which by instinct you swallow. Every day someone shoves something disgusting into your mouth until you feel so full of crap that you want to burst and yet you're so weighed down you can barely move. I’m still not sure what every situation falls into or how to approach the problem with my dad but it’s definitely made me realize that I can’t always  be complacent.

Culture Jam has also made me want to distance myself from advertising. I’ve always disliked advertising, but this book strengthened my contempt and also made me realize that I don’t have to be resigned to being bombarded by advertisements. Before this class I thought that advertisements were annoying, but a necessary evil. I even saw ads as a way for great companies to make money that otherwise wouldn’t be able to. For example, I used to love Spotify a company that you can stream whatever music you like for free, in exchange for listening to advertisements. It seemed like a great answer to the problems facing the music industry because of piracy. I’d always downloaded my music for free online and felt bad about it. Now here was a way for artists to make money, even when I got to listen for free. However soon the ads became extremely obnoxious. They were loud, fake, manipulative and advertised for terrible companies like Walmart. One particularly bad ad advertised tampons by saying they were one less thing to worry about for a woman and projected the inner thoughts of an incredibly annoying woman with extremely stereotypical worries like “Why won’t Brad text me back?” and “Do these pants make my butt look fat?” Anyways, it has started to become almost unbearable and the feeling is reminiscent to how I discussed complacency being like someone stuffing disgusting things down your throat. So I’ve realized I needed to stop using Spotify and find other ways to get my music from now on.

I’ve also learned a lot about my writing process, although what I’ve learned is easier said than done.  I’m pretty sure that I am capable of writing a good essay, but I just need to give myself more time. I get frustrated easily while writing and when I get frustrated, I usually give up. But if I have more time, then I can come back to the essay later with a fresh mind and perhaps new ideas. Once you’re done with a rough draft, the last thing you want to do is go back and change things around. Unfortunately you often realize as you finish writing an essay that you didn’t focus on the right things and that the structure is all wrong. So you need that extra time to come back and change it. I also need to realize that even when I don’t feel like writing, often when I start putting things down on paper it will start flowing, and I might even be excited to try to express my ideas.

Lastly, I’ve learned that I need to always be open to new ideas, but I also have to cut out the irrelevant ideas and it’s important to know when to do what. I like to think of an essay as a balloon that I’m blowing up. I put air into it making it bigger, and then when I catch my breath some of the air comes out and the balloon shrinks. I keep doing this; the balloon expands and then contracts, expands and then contracts, until the balloon is a fully sized balloon. This is what I have to do with my essay, expand and contract until it is a complete essay. In the beginning you have to expand all your ideas onto the page. And then you might find something to focus on, so the essay contracts. But as you focus on that idea, complications will arise. Does this idea hold in all cases? What are the counter arguments? Or maybe I’ll find a completely different topic. So I have to write more and expand. Then I realize that my thesis is good but it doesn’t fully capture my ideas or it’s not specific enough, but what I wrote in the second to last paragraph was a better thesis, so I have to go back and rewrite so that my essay follows the new thesis. I might have to do this ten times, but only then will I end up with a great essay (if I’m not too tired to proofread). This shows why it’s essential to give myself enough time to write the essay.

Overall, I learned a lot more than I expected to from this class. I’ve always really hated writing, because it’s very hard for me. But it’s hard because it makes you think, and there’s not always a clear-cut answer. With a math problem I know what process I have to take to get the answer, and I can always get someone to explain to me how to do it if I can’t figure it out. But writing is ultimately a personal thing.  You can brainstorm with other people, but in the end it’s your own ideas that go down on that page, and learning how to express yourself is a very important skill to have.  The harder it is to write the essay, the more I’ll ultimately learn from writing the essay. I know that I have lots more to learn, and that I will probably misstep in the future when applying these lessons, but I’ve come a long way.

Great job!

Culture Jam Essay Reflection

Writing this essay was really hard for me because Culture Jam touched a lot of nerves for me. It made me angry because I am complacent and it made me annoyed that I don't fight back against injustices. It's just so much easier to roll over and let others get their way. I think there's a lot to be said for going with the flow because if you always try to make things go exactly as you want you'll never be happy. It's important to recognize the difference between letting things happen that will make you happy and just bending to other people's will because it's easier.
One is like you're floating in a river and there's a fork in the river which both look appealing and the wind gives you a little push to the left fork. The other is like someone shoving something gross into your mouth, which by instinct you swallow. Every day someone shoves something disgusting into your mouth until you feel so full of crap that you want to burst and yet you're so weighed down you can barely move.

From writing this essay I learned that sometimes you feel like you have a writers block so you're too scared to write, but sometime once you start reading over what you already have and start with small changes that something will start to flow. So again it's good to start early so that you have time to let yourself flow. Also sometimes I'm afraid to edit because I know I'll hae to make major changes and some times delete most of what I have, so instead of deleting first (because that's scary to see a blank page again) add what you think you need and then when you have way too much writing you can delete what you don't need. It's pretty much the same thing but much less scary.

Culture Jam Response

Culture Jam Response

Swimming pools represent key failings of American culture. They symbolize the American dream, along with the family, the house, the white picket fence and the golden retriever. When we picture our future swimming pools we see summer afternoons barbecuing with the family and relaxing with floaties in the pool. We tell ourselves to work hard so we can achieve this level of comfort and happiness. Some of us will fail and lament the life we never got to live, while others will achieve this dream, only to be too busy to actually enjoy the swimming pool. Several of my family friends have spent tens of thousands of dollars building swimming pools and maintaining them, only to have the pool sit empty day after day, its obnoxiously blue water glinting at them as they sit inside working -- a reminder of the excess of wealth they possess and the lack of time to enjoy it.

In Culture Jam, Kalle Lasn heavily criticizes American culture and consumerism. He believes that consumerism is at the heart of what’s wrong with America today, and it ultimately causes unhappiness in most people, because advertising brainwashes people into wanting things they can’t have or things that won’t actually make them happy. He believes corporations are the ones to blame and that individuals must take back power from corporations by .

    While commercials and corporations are annoying and often despicable, free speech is a right and don’t think we can stop advertisers from making whatever ads they want, and we can’t force TV stations to play Lasn’s radical messages. Lasn’s criticism are accurate, but some of his solutions are too radical. Additionally he’s very passionate about this cause, but it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to take it up as their own cause, because it’s not the only issue in the world or the US. The most important thing is that people are educated about these problems so they can decide how to live for themselves rather than let corporations dictate their desires. Additionally there are some concrete things we can do, some at a government and legislative level and some at a more private individual level.

The first things we should do  is continue to educate people about the dangers of over consumption and the different ways that advertisers try to brainwash us. After we are educated, individuals have the responsibility to make sure they live responsibly in this increasingly commercial world. We might not be able to act radically, but we can make sure that we do use our commercial interests to support ethically sound companies and ones that don’t use brainwashing advertising techniques. We also have to cut down on energy consumption and try to reuse rather than constantly buying new things and contributing to waste. We can also cut down on TV watching and make an effort to connect to nature.

The second is related to Lasn’s idea to make corporations more responsible for the laws they break. We could make shareholders personally responsible but this might be hard because they could claim to not have known anything about the transgressions. What I suggest is actually holding the corporation responsible. If a corporation is found to be breaking laws or violating human rights then it should not be allowed to operate. Existing as a corporation should not be a right but a privilege. But maybe this will be hard to pass in our free market loving society. Instead the government can  give tax breaks to corporations who meet certain human rights and environmental standards and heavily tax the ones that don’t. Also if we create a world wide organization that will impose heavy tariffs on corporations who don’t meet the standards it will make it in the corporations economic interests to act humanely.

However, the existence of corporations at all poses a problem. As soon as a corporation exists, the goal is to make profit. The leaders of the company are incentivised to make money by the shareholders and the shareholders don’t feel the same sense of responsibility. So maybe we should make shareholders more responsible. Maybe the whole problem is with the stock system, which is where citizens gamble with large companies that have huge effects on our world, rather than thinking about how these corporations act. If we can’t get rid of the stock system all together we should definitely completely restructure it. Right now the disadvantage to going public is that you have to release financial information so theres even more pressure to make profits every quarter. In addition to this companies should have to release information about all their decisions and exactly how they are making their products and where they are being made as well as the benefits and salary they offer to all their workers. They should release information about who they are giving money to for advertising and product placement as well. The more transparent companies have to be, the more ethically they will act.

The third thing that will help to combat consumerism and advertising is something that Lasn is already doing -- ad busting. We need every ad to be analyzed and shown for what it really is. The facts need to be checked and the truth needs to be shown. And not just the hard facts that the ad gives because ads tend to be very vague. Ad busting needs to show how the subtle connections that ads try to draw are not true. A good example of this is the Inhumane energy campaign that was a response the Chevon’s human energy campaign that attempted to show how ethically and environmentally sound Chevron was. Inhumane energy disputed all of Chevron’s claims with specific events that showed how Chevron had messed up. If ad’s facts are checked and manipulative ads are exposed, then advertisers will be pressured into making truthful and helpful ads.

We can also approach the problem from another angle. Advertising tries to plant ideas inside our heads so that we will buy products, but it does this by exploiting our already existing weaknesses and desires. In Discipline and Push-up: Female Bodies, Femininity,  and Sexuality in Popular Representations of Sports Bras Jaime Schultz examines the problem of over sexualization of females in relation to sports bras, and how this has shaped the image of female sexuality. From reading this article, one can see how advertising and the issue of female sexualization have influenced each other. This article talks about the response Brandi Chastain taking off her shirt to reveal her sports bra when her team won the World cup in 1999. Even though this was common in men's soccer the media oversexualized this event and cheapened her athletic victory. Schultz uses this as a jumping off point to talk about how sports bras marketing has developed from about function to being about a woman's sexual attractiveness. However even before the age of consumerism, women’s undergarment were used to control women and try to mold them to an image of ideal femininity. Schultz give a history of women’s undergarments and at one point describes the corset: “Corsets reached the pinnacle of their populrity in the Victorian Era, when they served to discipline the entirety of women’s torso’s including the hips, abdomen, and the breasts” (Schultz 6). Before advertising had taken over o completely, the corset was used to confine women and make their bodies look as men wnted the to. This was because sexism already pervaded the culture before advertising took over. Sexism and the over sexualization of women has always pervaded our culture so perhaps it would be wise to dig deeper than just advertising when examining and looking for solutions to these types of problems.

        In response to Culture Jam this shows another way in which consumerism changes the way we view ourselves and can create unhealthy ideas about body image. However what this showed me is that the problem is not created by consumerism but rather accentuated by consumerism. Sexism has existed for thousands of years before this age of consumerism. Consumerism only gives a new outlet for the sexism. Targeting marketing is a good way to combat sexsim, but it’s also important to educate individuals so that we don’t perpetuate sexism ourselves.

    One of the most important things that needs to change in our culture is transparency. In Salespeak, Roy Fox tells a fictional story about a world where consumerism has completely taken over daily life and education. Immediately we can tell this is a strange world because the main character is named Pepsi. Then Fox goes on to say that “most of what happens to Pepsi in this scenario is fact” (Fox 7). The creepy world he described already exists, and Fox gives examples to show this is true and although it’s  not as apparent, consumerism affects us just as much as it does Pepsi.

Its scary to realize that consumerism has seeped into our culture without our realizing. In some ways this hidden consumerism is almost more scary than the blatant consumerism within the fictional story. At least when you know what ads are being used on you, you can try to differentiate your own thoughts from the ones that they are trying to force on you. But when it’s so hidden and subconscious you start to not know why you want certain things and whether they are really things you should aim for or just desires placed in your head by corporations. That’s why we need things like adbusting and forcing corporations to be transparent so we know how they are trying to influence us. If we’re aware of the methods they’re using, it’s easier for us to sort out our own desires from the ones they try to force onto us.

Kalle Lasn, the author of culture jam, started the occupy movement and by examining the death of that movement, it helps explain where Lasn goes wrong in his thinking. In “What Happened to  Occupy?”  Doug Rossinow examines why  the occupy movement ultimately failed. Rossinow says the occupy movement failed because it didn’t have any concrete goals and was more about celebrating activism than achieving anything. But the article also gives another view point, that protesters ultimately can’t do anything more than spark a movement towards change. It has to be the government and politicians who do the real work. This feeds into Lasn’s idea that people are complacent and think that whatever they do won’t really have an effect. Most people don’t bother protesting or getting angry because the system of corporations and the government have all the power. He suggests that we act radically and fight the system. This contradicts with what Rossinow seems to be saying -- that we work with the system to influence our government. Both advocate for progressive change, but that we get them in different ways.

Both Rossinow and Lasn have good points and by compromising they can work together to achieve real progress. It’s never a good idea to give up and say that by protesting we can’t achieve anything. Protesters can make really positive changes, and often leaders of cultural movements can become politicians themselves. Being a politician is ideally about speaking for the people and leading them in the right direction so in some ways protesters are the ultimate politicians. However, it’s best to work within the system, rather than to try to “jam” the system as Lasn wants to do. There are many legislative changes and legal things that we can do to change the culture rather than just mindless and directionless anger. Each of us needs to work to become active and engaged citizens who are mindful of their own power and corporations power within culture, and people who are especially bothered by the problem can try to achieve some of the solutions detailed in this essay. Consumerism is an entrenched part of our culture but if people are able to step free of the ideas that advertising has placed within their head, they can direct culture in which ever way they desire.                                                     

Works Cited

Fox, Roy. “Salespeak” Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture. 6th ed. ED. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper-Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. 155-167. Print.

Lasn, Kale. Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge-and Why We Must. New York: Quill, 2000.

Rossinow, Doug. What Happened to Occupy. Christian Century. 7/10/2013, Vol. 130 Issue 14, p22-27. 4p.

Schultz, Jaime. “Discipline and Push-up: Female Bodies, Femininity,  and Sexuality in Popular Representations of Sports Bras” Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture. 6th ed. ED. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper-Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. 155-167. Print.

Advertising Essay Reflection

Ad essay reflection
From writing this essay I've started to think about the hypocrisy of myself and almost everyone else. We talk about how terrible corporations are because they destroy the environment and use sweatshop labor and commit other human rights violations but we still continue day after day to buy their products and support their acts with our money. Buying their products is equivalent to casting a vote for a politician. In this capitalist society perhaps it's even more important. I wish I could say that I will stop doing this, but what corporations is so much easier and convenient than bucking the norm.

Time after time, I learn the same lesson from writing an essay and then promptly ignore it the next time I write it. I need to give myself more time to edit. I feel like I was really approaching something good with this essay(the ideas above), but I didn't have time to turn it into a coherent essay.  It ended up that I explained my best ideas briefly in the end of the essay when they should have been the essay. And I knew this as I submitted, but I was too frustrated with it to go back and start again. But if I'd given myself more time, then I would have been able to look back at it with fresh eyes and make it really good.

An Analysis of the Emotional Appeals in a Cheron Advertisement

    An Analysis of the Emotional Appeals in a Chevron Advertisement

When people talk about “big oil” they generally aren’t speaking favorably. However, in one of its ads, Chevron draws attention to its status as big oil with the statement, “Big oil should support small business,“ and then “We agree” written below. This appears to be a transparent advertisement that is trying to acknowledge Chevron’s role as a big oil company, but in fact the ad has deeper underlying motives. Chevron is trying to step away from its own image of a big evil corporation and give its customers the illusion a partnership exists between them, and that individual’s criticisms can affect Chevron’s actions.

At the surface, this ad portrays honesty and forthrightness.The ad’s overt message is to debunk the criticism that Chevron doesn’t support small businesses. The ad is a two page spread. The right has a criticism of “big oil” and the left attempts to debunk it. On the right is the statement, “Big oil should support small business. We agree.” It is written in large, capital, black letters and it is underlined in red. We agree is also written in red. The intense contrast of red and black with the large,  bold letters gives the ad a sense of abruptness as though Chevron is not shying away from the issue. Chevron instead directly addresses a criticism that people have of Chevron. When talking about the campaign Chevron Vice Chairman George L. Kirkland said “We want the world to know that we're just like you and me. We've got problems and challenges, and we too make mistakes, but we're telling truths no one usually tells, and looking wide-eyed into the future." Clearly the attitude they’re trying to convey is truthfulness.

    On the left page of the ad is dominated by a picture of an African woman in traditional clothes who represents small businesses. In the bottom left corner it says:

Every day, Chevron relies on small business around the world.

Electricians. Mechanics. Manufacturers.

We’ve spent billions on local goods and

services last year.

               And helped thousands of entrepreneurs get ahead with microloans.

              We’re helping small businesses thrive.

              Because we need them.

             Just as much as they need us.

             Learn more at chevron.com/weagree.

They are ostensibly being clear about their message -- that Chevron supports small businesses. On the right they show a criticism and on the left they show how the criticism isn’t true or how Chevron has changed to address the criticism, whichever way we choose to interpret.

    However, Chevron also exploits our subconscious desires for autonomy and domination and gives us the illusion that we are in a partnership with big oil, but we really aren’t. In “Advertising’s 15 basic Appeals” Jib Fowles details the different emotional appeals advertisers use to sell products. Two of these are powerful in Chevron’s ad -- autonomy and dominance. Although autonomy is typically associated with someone who is more isolated from society, Fowles says, “The focus here is upon the independence and integrity of the individual” (24). People want to feel that they aren’t a slave to society and large corporations such as big oil companies. In the Chevron ad this want is combined with the desire for dominance: “the the craving to be powerful” (Fowles 23). People also want to feel like the decisions they make matter, and that they can make a difference in the world.  This ad appeared in the New Yorker so these values are probably especially important to the viewers of the ad who are probably  intellectual adults who consider themselves socially conscious and would like to make ethically sound decisions.

Chevron wants to make it appear that their customers have more power than they actually have so they downplay their own dominance. Ironically, despite their unsubtle association of themselves with big oil, Chevron actually attempts to distance themselves from big oil in this ad. They try to appear less powerful than the giant corporation that they are. The right side of the ad is very simple with block lettering on a plain background. It looks like this ad could be a poster that someone prints at home and posts on their local bulletin board. At the bottom of the ad Steve Tomkovics, the president of S&S Supplies and Solutions and Maria Lindenberg, the chief procurement officer of Chevron signed their names. This gives a human feel to Chevron, like they are a business controlled by two moral individuals rather than a large corporation that operates on the whims of the market and its shareholders.

Chevron also wants to show that individuals outside of the company also have power to affect the company. The image they convey is of a partnership between Chevron and small businesses, as well as between Chevron and its customers. In the ad it says, “We’re helping small businesses thrive.  Because we need them. Just as much as they need us.” The words “just as much” convey a sense of equality. This creates the sense that Chevron and small businesses are working together, rather than that Chevron is the big evil corporation controlling everything. More subtle though is the idea of the partnership that Chevron has with it’s customers. Together, Chevron and it’s customers decide how to act ethically and contribute to the world in the best way.

However, the ad doesn’t give concrete evidence that Chevron is actually responding to its customer’s criticisms and  contributing to local businesses like they say they are. They claim that they “rely on small businesses around the world” but this could easily mean extract cheap labor from developing countries rather than actually enrich a vibrant local economy like the image they present to us. The text isn’t specific, and the image of the woman on the left misleads us by vaguely representing a set of values that Chevron might not actually hold.

Chevron's human energy campaign shows how advertisements can use images to link ideas to products even if a logical connection doesn't exist. One of the ad's from the campaign shows an African woman smiling confidently into the camera. The message that Chevron is trying to convey is that they support small businesses. Ostensibly the woman pictured looks like an artisan who represents the small businesses that Chevron supports. However, in small letters in the bottom left corner, the ad details that Chevron supports electricians, mechanics, and manufacturers. While this woman could be a member of one of these professions, that's not the link that the image is trying to create. But even if the connection doesn't make sense, the image still makes an impact on the viewer. In "Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals", Jib Fowles says, "there is no real need for the linkage to have  a bit of reason behind it" (2). Fowles shows how successful advertisements can create a connection between an idea and a product that aren't necessarily related, with just an image. This is being done here in Chevron's human energy advertisement.

    This ad offers a source of appeasement to purchasers of Chevron oil. Even if they don’t completely believe Chevron’s message, they can believe they are making a positive change or at least not hurting the world by buying Chevron oil. Perhaps the next time they have to get gas they will pick Chevron as the best of a bad bunch and feel a little bit less bad about themselves for wasting gas and supporting unethical companies.  

    Despite this, the small individuals really have no effect on the big companies. The big oil company hasn’t actually changed but is just manipulating images and vague statements to make it seem like they have. This is a bold campaign that ostensibly directly addresses the problems that exist within Chevron, but instead it just serves to cover up Chevrons mistakes and cloak their unethical decisions with seemingly ethical decisions. What these advertisements really offer is a cop out to Chevron’s customers that they will be very willing to take. Because even though we know that big oil companies like Chevron commit human rights violations and destroy the environment, we still continue to fill up our cars at gas stations without fail. We may read an article that will make us shake our heads in despair about the evils of the world, but we won’t even change our daily habits because cars are convenient and easy. So even though Chevron has been under a lot of heat recently, we are very happy to accept the illusions that they shove at us in this advertising campaign, so we can continue on about our lives contentedly believing that we are doing what’s right.

Technology and Culture Reflection

While writing this essay I thought a lot about how technology benefits us. I've always been of the opinion that technology and progress are always good, but the criticisms of technology really made me think. Technology almost always makes things more convenient but does it improve our lives? I remember talking once about how food now days has become all about convenience and the slow food movement wants to combat that. Now we can make our meals really fast but maybe it just makes us feel busier, because we don't take that time to unwind and slow down while making a meal.

In the future I need to keep an open mind before forming my thesis for my essay. If you start an essay with a thesis in mind you might lose complexity and creativity. For an in class essay you need to write quickly but if I had more time for this essay I would have liked to start out just with a reflection on various examples from real life and the reading and slowly build my way towards a thesis.

Technology and Culture

Shaping Technology

    Kalle Lasn, Neil Postman and Robert Samuels all write about the effects of technology on our society and the possible dangers they present. While it is important to recognize the dangers of technology, we should instead focus on how to use technology effectively and in a beneficial way, which many critics fail to do.

    Critics of technology tend to not acknowledge that people are able to control their use of technology. In Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn, the chapter titled Posthuman tells the stories of a few people whose personalities are severely affected by the use of the internet, and ultimately their addiction to the internet. Lasn suggests that these stories, “mark the end of authentic experience” (Lasn 45). However, these stories are extreme examples which Lasn should not generalize from. Not everyone who uses the internet becomes addicted and goes crazy. For example, more people have been able to get education because of the internet. Courses at MIT which used to be only offered to the very smartest people for expensive tuition, can now be done by anyone throughout the world who has access to internet It’s important to acknowledge the danger of some uses of the internet, but I don’t think it affects the fact that people can use the internet to create communities, find information or do many other useful things like getting an education. If someone starts using the internet, it won’t automatically lead to a personality disorder. They as an individual have the power to decide how technology will affect their life.  

    The way people use technology is important. Lasn cites a statistic which says that “Internet use itself appeared to cause a decline in psychological well-being” (Lasn 46). While this statistic is worrisome, it’s important to examine how the internet is being used. For example, a study was done that showed that people who used facebook passively, “lurking” anonymously and not posting or commenting, were less happy, while people who were actively commenting and posting on facebook were more happy. This shows that if we learn how to use technology in a healthy and beneficial way we can extract its benefits rather than its dangers. In the debate about and study of technology we should focus more energy on how we can use technology so that it doesn’t damage us, rather than only point out the negative aspects of it.  

    Individuals have control of their use of technology, but it’s up to the creators of modern technology to ensure that their products are beneficial and can be used in a healthy way. Neil Postman writes about the winners and losers of technology, saying that “those who cultivate competence in the use of a new technology become an elite group that are granted undeserved authority and prestige by those who have no such competence” (Postman 367).  It is true that some will become more powerful if they control modern technology, but they will not necessarily use this power for evil. Producers of computer programs and internet sites should create things that will benefit us and bring us happiness rather than creating useless or damaging products. However, we live in a capitalist society and the consumers have the power to decide what achieves dominance. It is up to us to decide what products are beneficial and which are time wasters that alter us negatively.

    The critic who seems to understand the situation the best is Robert Samuels. Samuels has the right approach when he says that society is evolving to accommodate technology, but more than that we can evolve to get the full potential out of technology and minimize harm caused by it.  In his article titled “Breaking Down Borders: How Technology Transforms the Private and Public Realms”, Samuels talks about some of the negative effects of technology on community and the private and public realm, however he ends by saying, “We adapt to our new technologies and to the new spaces these technologies create;” (Samuels 4). Our society is capable of evolving, and just because the internet has changed some aspects of community, this doesn’t mean that people will stop interacting. Humans are social animals. If we have a need, we will fulfill it despite obstacles such as technology. In fact we’ll evolve so that we can exploit the new technology and environment created by that technology to meet the need. For example, while maybe the internet has hindered people from making friends that live in close proximity to them, people have to learned to form communities online. In Digital Nation  a documentary about the effects of the internet, the story of online gamers is told. World of Warcraft players who have never seen each other spend up to 40 hours a week together, playing in a virtual world and develop intense friendships and even romances. While this might not be the traditional method of social interaction it still fulfills the need for connection with another human being. This shows how society can evolve because of a new technology into something different, but not necessarily better or worse. This doesn’t mean that we don’t need to worry about the dangers of technology or that we shouldn’t still talk and debate about them. What it means is that people are capable of adapting and changing, and that the discourse about technology should attempt to guide the use of technology to an optimal state.

    Instead of only talking about the downsides to technology we should focus on how to improve the use of technology and minimizes the harm caused by it. It’s not feasible that people stop taking advantage of modern technology. Instead we just have to learn how to best harness it’s power. I would like to leave off with a hopeful anecdote. As I was riding the train today, I was observing preteens also on the train who were coming home from school chatting and having fun. At the Palo Alto stop, all but one boy got off the train. After saying bye the young boy pulled out his touch screen laptop and started checking his email. This surprised me greatly because until then I hadn’t understood that this was the generation that everyone was so worried about losing touch with their peers because they were so immersed in their computers. This boy however, skillfully maneuvered face to face social interaction and the computer world, and he did it with more social grace than many of my peers who are often checking their text messages while talking to me. This shows that the generation growing up with computers and the internet are more immersed in technology, but because of that they also know computer etiquette. better. As we discover more about the appropriate use of technology, we will pass it on through the generations until our society has fully adapted to the new technology.

Sub-culture Essay Reflection

For this essay I thought a lot about the motives behind dumpster diving, and heard stories about the personalities of dumpster divers. I didn't realize the in some ways dumpster divers were "posers". I also learned about waste and why it is a problem.

I learned that as a writer I need time to edit. If I have to edit a lot at one time I get overwhelmed. For this essay I spent two days editing, and each day gave myself to a goal to accomplish. Having a concrete goal to accomplish for each day made the process feel a lot more controlled and less scary. The first day I added a quote because that was lacking. The second day I copy edited. I think it's always good to have a day reserved for copy editing because after you finish writing you are tired and don't feel like reading your essay looking for grammmar mistakes.

Analyzing a Sub-culture: Dumpster Divers

One might think that someone who digs through dumpsters to find their dinner for the night has fallen on hard luck. But in fact, there exists a sub-culture which chooses to live off the waste of others even though they can afford to buy food. These people are called dumpster divers. They choose to buck the societal norm of buying food because of their disgust with the abundance of waste it causes. Despite their annoyance with the current system, instead of trying to effect a change, they reject the system completely. The essence of this subculture is the contradiction between their political activism and their anarchistic approach.

This subculture can be represented by a stale loaf of bread. At one point soft and flaky, it now sits hard and crusty, still wrapped in bright plastic packaging at the bottom of the bin. Many people who can’t afford food, dream about getting their hands on this bread, but in our culture it sits unwanted, waiting for the dumpster truck. This bread represents the waste that dumpster divers are disgusted by.

However, it’s ironic that the dumpster divers are living off of something that they’re disgusted by. Without other people wasting food, dumpster divers wouldn’t have food to survive. The bread as an artifact represents this. Even a food as simple as bread has gone through many levels of production to become waste for them to eat. The grain is grown on a farm, and then ground into flour at a mill, and baked into bread and then wrapped in plastic that was processed from oil into plastic. The point being that a lot of work from many different parts of society has gone into producing this bread. So despite rejecting societal norms dumpster divers live off the production of society. And perhaps, this is exactly their point. Because without dumpster divers, a loaf of bread which has taken so many resources and so much labor to produce would go to waste.

But the fact that they’re living off of society’s excess despite rejecting societal norm indicates a contradiction. The reason they choose to dumpster dive is because our current modes of production, and love of commercialism produce an extreme amount of waste. This isn’t sustainable. The dumpster divers protest this unsustainable way of living but what their lifestyles are not sustainable either. Perhaps if we achieved the perfect ratio of dumpster divers to regular people we could eliminate waste. But that would only be within our country. There are many countries that don’t waste food and desperately need more food. Dumpster diving has a very narrow view. Maybe the problem should be approached from a global standpoint. What if the people who were concerned with waste, tried to effect a change that would make food distribution more even throughout the world?

In some ways the exclusive nature of dumpster diving is a characteristic of many subcultures. It wouldn’t feel special to be a part of the subculture if everyone could do it. If everyone dumpster dived there would be no waste to consume. Additionally it takes a certain type of person to eat food from a trash. Dumpster divers are usually brave and not at all squeamish. These could be unifying characteristics of the subculture, but theres more to it than that.

Joining a subculture is a way to differentiate yourself from the masses, but when it becomes more about just being different than the actual subculture, it can lose the original values that unified the subculture in the first place. My friend Claire used to be part of the dumpster diving subculture, but she eventually grew tired of their pretentious and contradictory philosophy. When she was working on a farm, many of the other people there were dumpster divers and she became one as well. But she realized that the people there were dumpster divers more as a way to be different and rebellious, rather than because they actually cared about waste. This particular segment of the subculture had separated from the values that started dumpster diving.

Dumpster divers reject consumer culture, but do they challenge it? Column writer Amelia Taylor-Hochberg writes: “Known as the willful reclaiming of disposed objects, dumpster diving is a conservationist and creative practice of reuse — a direct challenge to consumer material culture”. Some might disagree. Dumpster diver’s radical actions emphasize the amount of waste our society produces, but dumpster divers are on the fringes of society. Many people probably aren’t even aware that they exist. Additionally, their actions don’t do anything to change the current consumer culture. Dumpster divers reduce waste, but they don’t challenge the system. Instead they feed off of it.

Perhaps dumpster divers will become a necessary part of our world? Maybe they are like the decomposers from the food chain, but of the human world. Every system, whether natural or man made will produce waste and different mechanisms develop to deal with the waste. Using the natural world as a metaphor again, the dumpster divers have evolved because of the current environment. After mass production was invented in the 20th century, the US has become a society of rampant commercialism. This has increased waste greatly, and created an environment where dumpster divers evolved because they are disgusted by the waste. One could choose to see dumpster divers as necessary, now that we produce so much waste, and as a solution to the problem of waste.

Or waste could be addressed on a global level. Dumpster divers have identified a problem, but it’s not clear that dumpster diving is the solution. Its more of an act of protest and an extreme way to voice an opinion. It brings attention to an issue within our society, but is it a sustainable lifestyle? The essence of the dumpster diving subculture is being outspoken about the problem of waste in our society, but dumpster diving has started to lose that essence.

An American Artifact Reflection

From writing this essay I really started to think about how American culture is different from other cultures. It's hard for me to define American culture because I've been so immersed in it my entire life, I don't know what's normal. In my essay I talked about the values of individualism, and freedom of choice and expression which are prevalant in America. But I'm not sure how much that's an American thing or just a human thing. I know that the US was founded on these values but are those foundations still embedded into our culture or have we become melded with the rest of the Western world? I did think about the difference between our culture and eastern cultures like China which are more focused on cooperation and where there isn't as much freedom, but still I'm not sure if thats a sign of America's culture being unusually free or China's culture being unusually strict.
After receiving feedback on this essay, I learned that I need to work on focusing my thoughts. I tend to spew out a lot of ideas as I'm writing, but then I need to spend the rest of my time reviewing what I've written and whittling down the different ideas to create a focused essay. I tend to get frustrated and tired once I've finished an essay so I don't spend much time proof reading or editing, but if I just spend a bit more time I can greatly improve my writing,

An American Artifact

To discover what a culture values, we can look at the best-selling products of the time.  From the start of the 21^st century, the iPod has been extremely popular.  What appeals so much about the iPod that earns it a permanent place in our pockets and backpacks. The iPod is a living American artifact, because it exemplifies freedom of choice, freedom of expression, convenience and creating our own identity which we value in America.
                The iPod represents a shift in the way we listened to music. Before people listened to records or CDs. People created mix CD’s but for the most part you would listen to a whole album at a time. But the iPod gave you the freedom to mix and match which ever songs you liked. The value of choice is prevalent throughout our culture. The popular restaurant chain The Cheesecake Factory shows this with its novel length menu, with everything from Chinese food to hamburgers. Our higher education system also demonstrates this. Many university students in the US don’t choose their major until their junior years, while in other countries such as the UK students have to decide well before they enter university what they will study. In America we want the option to always change our minds and choose something different. The iPod gave us more choice in music.
                The iPod also helps us shape our identities. Looking through someone’s iPod not only informs you of their music taste but it also shapes the impression we have of them. The music we listen to has become a common way to shape our identities and connect us to others. In the US we value uniqueness. A common piece of advice given is “Be yourself”. Most people don’t just listen to top 40 hits. They find a way to differentiate themselves from the masses through the different musical niches they explore. Every song someone adds to their iPod adds complexity to their music identity. When people get in the car, instead of listening to the radio to what’s broadcasted to everyone, people can create their own mood.
                Lastly, the iPod is a simple matter of convenience. In our busy lives today we might not have time to sit down, relax and listen to music. Instead we have the music attached to us everywhere we go.  So while we’re working out, or buying groceries, in the car, or walking to class we might be listening to music. As people get busier, convenience has become very important in the American lifestyle. Microwaveable meals and fast food eliminate the need to spend time cooking. The internet offers many options in the comfort of our own home such as online shopping, directions, Facebook which is a quick way to stay in touch with friends, a huge amount of knowledge and more. The iPod is a great example of this easy convenience which we value today.
                Overall, the iPod indicates a growing self-involvement and emphasis on the individual in American culture.  We want complete control of our music – to decide what we listen to , what order it will play in and when we’ll listen to it. Compared to other cultures like China where people think in terms of group and family, we think in terms of ourselves. We’re looking to create identities for ourselves, or “find ourselves”. And the iPod while it only controls a small part of our lives it represents a larger culture of self-entitlement and individualism which dominates American culture.