Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Life makes people

I've heard many people say that people make life, and I agree somewhat in that people create their own life with what they want, but I disagree with some of that statement because I believe that the life surrounding us makes us who we are. That is, who we grow up around, our family dynamics, where we grow up/live, and of course, the media. Someone who lives in a certain area is most likely going to act and dress the way their peers do simply because those peers are the people who surround them. There is a constant need for people, especially teens, to feel as though they fit in. In high school, this pressure seems to be the greatest. I've brought up before that teens don't quite have a true grasp on who they really are, which creates that immense amount of pressure. I've witnessed people change how they act and how they dress throughout their younger years of high school til now. One girl I know change from being extremely gossipy and "ghetto", which caused that typical high school drama to acting differently and dressing more preppy. As I watched her change I thought to myself it must be that she's realized the kind of person she wants to be. What causes that realization? Experiences. What you experience often time creates a change in someone. It can be an experience that you encounter that makes you realize “oh my gosh I don’t want to be this kind of person and I don’t want to come off like someone who I’m not”, or it can be an experience where you realize the reason why you are the person you are. The amazing thing about looking around and watching people as they walk by or as they sit and talk to other people or sit alone, is that each person has gone through there own experiences and troubles in life, and are still going to be encountering difficult times. I truly believe its how people deal with certain situations that shows there true colors.
Just a thought that popped into my head while writing this: I know someone who is famous and I knew her before and I know her now, and in becoming someone that the paparazzi preys on and the media hounds on, she hasn’t changed. She is still one of the most generous people I know. Her personality was the same before she got famous and now after she is famous. To me, this shows that she was secure in who she was before any of her stardom arrived, which I truly admire.

Monday, October 20, 2008

People, Attitudes, Insecurities.

Thursday, October 16th: You can find so many different kinds of people in Starbucks and it makes me question where they're going with their lives. One man has a grande iced tea and is reading a book while two other guys are in a full fledged conversation about hummers and then there's a couple kissing. It makes me think about their lives and how they came to be the person/people they are now. My sister brought up a great point when she said that if you ever really pay attention to people when they are in a conversation, you can realize that they share similar qualities and seem as though they can relate, whether it be that they both have kids, both have the same job, or share similar interests.
Friday, October 18th: Do you ever notice the way girls sometimes look at other girls? I was at Nubi with my sister tonight and we were just sitting and eating and there were two girls sitting outside and a blonde girl who was dressed really cute with a Ed Hardy hat on walked in and when she walked out the two girls snickered and started talking about her. Meanwhile my sister and I were watching. How naïve of them. My sister turned to me and said 'you should blog about THAT!" And I said okay but what does that say about who people are. Well, she said, that it shows their insecurities...
This got me thinking. That’s SO true! When people gossip about other people it seems as though they either want to fit (because they are insecure) or they, in their mind, want to dress or be like them, but cant. No matter what people say, EVERY one is insecure in their own way. Guys tend to think they aren’t insecure at all, but they are. They may not show it, but the world today has the uncanning ability to fill us with insecurity, consciously or not.
Monday, October 20th: I was talking today with my coworkers about people and their thoughts on how they act. One told me that she notices the difference in people’s apparent personalities when they walk into a store or café and they are talking on their phone while ordering or buying something. When she said that, the other woman added that one of her pet peeves when she was working in a retail store was when she would be ringing someone up and they would be talking on their phone. It was like she was suppose to serve her client or something. Some people can act as though the entire world revolves around that. Why is that? Does that have something to do with insecurity? Dp they feel as though they need to act like they’re better than someone else because they are insecure with who they are?

Appearance differs, colors change

Jennifer from “Confessions of an Insomniac” wrote an intriguing post on the differences of people.
She wrote:”We look funny. We are massive structures with balloon-like heads decorated with features yanked at random from the gene pool. We are like snowflakes. no two look the same. We come in a rainbow of colors, much like a new summer wardrobe. red, yellow, black, white. Some of us are skinny, fat, tall…”
Jennifer’s post made me think of how remarkably different people are. The majority of us are guilty of realizing this, but not really thinking in depth about it. It seems as though the thought enters our minds as fast as it departs. Honestly, it’s amazing and mind boggling to me to sit back and think about. Even twins have differences in appearance. If we think about how many people are in this world and then think of the things that made up someone’s appearance, it’s amazing how not one person looks exactly identical to another. Someone’s nose, lips, ears, eyes, eyebrows, cheek bones. Even though someone can have the exact same nose as someone else, their other features differ, even if it’s by the slightest bit, which alters their entire appearance.
Jennifer’s post was extremely interesting to me because it forced me to think, which when anything does that, I find it fascinating. I feel like the world that we live in today is so fast paced and revolved around success and getting things done on our “to do” list, that we feel as though we don’t have time to think about the obvious aspects of life like people’s appearances. We walk by hundreds, even sometimes thousands of people everyday who are different from ourselves and each other. This post made me question, Even though influences might be similar, people aren’t exactly the same, but can personalities be?
In my mind, no they can’t. One beauty in this world is that we are all different. We can go through the same experiences in life and the same disappointments, but we all have our own ways of dealing with those. People can have the same level of “outgoingness” or humor, but I believe that the little things, like what irritates someone and their reason(s) for it, differ. This is one reason why this world is so unique.
I love that Jennifer wrote “we come in a rainbow of colors, much like a new summer wardrobe…” because it makes me think she is saying that our colors change as seasons change. And those colors are our labels for the time being. I find her sentence to be metaphorical, in that she is comparing colors to style and style to people. Style is one thing that makes people appear differently to others, and has a huge impact on first impressions. Someone’s style can change over time, no doubt. For example, I know this guy who use to dress “ghetto” in that he wore baggy pants with XXL white-T’s and sideways hats. That was from about 7th grade, when he came to my middle school, until sophomore year in high school. Now he dresses in tighter pants that don’t sag and fitted t-shirts with his hats either backwards or regular. This guy just so happens to me my boyfriend. I remember asking him what made him want to dress like that and he told me the area he grew up in, the music had a huge influence on him. So there you have it, his colors changed. I believe people’s style changes once they find who they really are, and until then colors will keep changing, much like new summer styles.

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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

You are what you listen to?

So today I was driving in my car and there were so many cars passing that were blaring there music, one, for example, with hip hop, and another with rock. I thought to myself, music most defiantly has a powerful influence on these people. Not only the people driving their cars, but everyone. I realize that music is a huge determiner of style, and sometimes the way you act, or even talk. For example, the guy who was blaring his rap music happened to be wearing a big sweatshirt and a do-rag with a hat over it, whereas the guy who was listening to alternative/rock music was driving a lifted truck, wearing a more form fitting t-shirt, and a “Fox” hat and spy optic sunglasses. When I saw that and listened to the music that was coming from his car, I thought, music influences media and media influences the way people dress. Someone was telling me tonight, actually, that the world bases everything on how successful you are, and basis success on looks and first impressions and status. Clothes can be a status symbol as well as the kind of car you drive or the house you live in, but it makes me think, do the clothes people wear or the music people listen to show others who they want to be, rather than who they really are?
When I think of myself, I contradict what I said above, because I listen to all kinds of music, but that doesn’t mean one day I dress like the genre I’m listening to and the next I dress like another. Maybe by looking at me people can have an idea of what I look like, but in my mind, I am who I am. Maybe younger people, like the freshmen in Starbucks, for example, music has a greater impact on them because they don’t know who they are or who they want to be. I mean, they might have an idea, but they might not be sure, which is one major reason why media aims at younger teens.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Mags, Music and Style

Blog Post #2
I look around me and I see older girls, more like young adults in high heels or flat boots and skinny jeans with long shirts and long sweaters, with necklaces and bangles and it makes me think of the pictures I saw in magazines of celebrities. It always seems as though there’s a certain “look” that most of the celebrities have, that can change from month to month.
As I sit in Starbucks, a group of young boys and girls walk in, freshmen, I think to myself. Why do I think that? I think it’s mainly because of that “ just getting into high school” vibe I get where kids desperately try to get attention, mainly through the way the talk and their exaggerated actions.
Younger teens, like freshman for example, seem to be wearing more and more of the “rocker” look, with the concert T’s and the super skinny jeans. I love skinny jeans personally and wear them all the time, but something about the way these kids dress, whether it be boys or girls, reminds me of the Jonas Brothers. Don’t ask me why. But it makes sense. The Jonas Brothers are a huge commodity right now and are especially aimed at younger teenagers. This ties into the idea that young teens don’t quite have a grasp on who they are or who they want to be, so they look up to popular celebrities thinking they can be the same if t hey dress that way.
I personally have my own style, yet I get ideas from magazines, so I’m not trying to say that its wrong. I’m just trying to figure out what aspect of media and life has the greatest influence on who people are. Do they see someone they admire on t.v and watch how they act and then try to act the same? This makes me think of when Paris Hilton’s and Nicole Richie’s show, The Simple Life, was airing, the words and “That’s Hott” was flocking the streets.

I feel like when people get to a certain age, they figure out who they are and young teens are not at that stage in their lives yet, which is why they are most affected by the “hip” new way of saying things or of dressing. What they aren’t aware of, and what I’ve noticed, is that styles constantly change, and so do sayings.

I looked at other blogs that were posted online and were aimed at celebrity fashion and style, and it was interesting to see similar pictures on the blogs as were in the magazines I had read the day before, like People and Ok. The “Make up” blog on couturecandy.com talked about star from the new remake of Beverly Hills “90210”, named Anna Lynne McCord and her outfit when she hosted Plant Funk’s fashion week. This one is interesting because I’ve noticed the straight-legged jeans coming back into style (skinny jeans took over for a while, and still are). Vests are also really popular right now and it makes me wonder if teenagers look at these new stars for fashion ideas. The “Lindsay Lohan wears the boyfriend jeans trend” blog on fashionising.com was interesting because I also saw her and Jennifer Aniston photographed in a magazine a couple of days ago and the article was talking about the same thing. The last blog I read was titled “pop News: we care so you don’t have to” on popeater.com. This blog interested me because it simply stated three things, being skinny, getting pregnant and not getting married. The couturecandy.com bog was the most intriguing to me because it talked about the most recent styles, like hair and fashion, which deals with my topic in trying to figure out what makes teenagers or people who they are-is it by looking at these celebrities and admiring them and wanting to be like them?

the journey begins...

So, since my first blog didn't work, here we go. Take two.

I don't know about you, but I can people watch for days.People fascinate me.There are so many different styles, personalities, appearances etc., that it makes me wonder, what makes people who they are?Is it the music they listen to?The shows/movies they watch?Or the constant pressures of media and what it is portraying?There has to be something that makes someone dress and act the way they do.Watching people can teach us so much about the pressures of media, simply through what people are wearing.Is their style comparable to a style in a magazine or television show?Teenagers and young adults seem to be the most affected by advertisements and the media because it seems as though they are constantly trying to discover who they really are. Maybe they want to feel like they fit in, or maybe it's just the opposite-maybe they're trying to not fit in and be noticed.I've also noticed that the way people dress can certainly have an impact on how they act toward others. For example, I've dealt with the kind of people who always have their hair, style and makeup perfect and huge rocks on their fingers and have noticed that they seem to think that they whole world revolves around them. Why is that?We have all heard that first impressions are everything, which can range from how they talk/interact to how they dress and therefore, present themselves. So even though I'm not meeting the people that walk by, I'm going to judge them, yes judge them on what my first impressions are and while doing that, desperately try to figure out what factors could influence them in what they wear and how they act and how they appear to be.