Sun, 27 Sep 2009

Cookie Cutter People

As I came out of a coffee shop, I was struck by two ladies in their workout clothes sitting on the patio. It wasn't so much that they were good looking or anything. It was the fact that they fit a type. Here they were in their work out look, looking like every other young woman who had just come from the gym or was going to the gym, or just wanted to look like they went to the gym on a regular basis. You get the idea, the point is that they looked the same, down to their body types, hair styles, accessories, even their movements and the way that they sat.

Our consumer society has created cookie cutter people. Because we see the same television shows, read the same magazines, follow the same celebrities, we tend to fall into looks. The girls with the gym look, the boys with their pants down around their knees, the business people with their suits and ties . . . As much as we try to be unique, we are following the herd in our choices. It's probably driven by the mass marketing of our society. Some may be driven by those successful people we see on the Internet, television, mass media magazines. "Hey, they are successful with that look! I want to be successful. Maybe if I adopt that look, I, too, can be rich and famous."

Marketers are driving us to their products. After all, a good portion of the U.S. economy is dependent on consumerism. Look at some trends like paying celebrities to appear at your event. See the numbers of reality TV shows which follow people just because they are rich. Check out product placement in everything from movies to TV shows, to . . . We look like, act like, and, so hope the marketers, purchase like these cookie cutters, in the hopes that we, too will become famous and, by extension, rich. We are stamped out to become one of the mass of whatever group we find appealing.

Break the mold, become one of the hand-made people. Make your choices not because someone else does it, but because it's who you are. You'll still have to work with the basic ingredients that the media and marketers give us. After all, unless you make your own clothes, cars, homes, it's all you have. But become hand-made by blending and forming the ingredients into something uniquely you.

posted 09:02 [/Thoughts] permanent link