Renaming

I have spent the past week realizing that you can apply the ideas of manipulation and choice to just about everything that you encounter, from something as obviously manipulatory as a commercial to something as simple as the letter a (my mind is still scrambled from our discussion of why the letter a has to be the first in our alphabet).

All of this thinking has led me to two conclusions. The first of which is that you can use the ideas of manipulation to follow chains of manipulation to eternity. A is the first letter of our alphabet because we were manipulated by our Roman ancestors to think A came first. The Romans were manipulated by their Greek ancestors with alpha, and so on. There is no point, in my opinion to try to follow manipulation back to its source because I do not think that there is one. The value, to me, of seeing through layers of manipulation comes from seeing how the manipulation is effecting you.

This leads me to my second conclusion: that this class should not be called “Truth, Lies and Literature,” but rather “How to See Through the Bullshit and Make More Educated Choices.” An example of this that came to me this week was the idea of Turning Stone and gambling. I had to pick a friend up from the airport Sunday night (although a weather delay made Sunday night turn into 2:30 AM Monday morning),  and as I was driving to the airport I saw the giant lit sign on the top of the huge building. As I drove, partially to keep myself awake, I found myself thinking about all the manipulation that surrounded gambling, from lottery ads to casino ads to social pressure one way or another to anti-gambling addiction agencies. I realized that even though people have a lot of different opinions on the subject, and that seeing through their manipulations did not change that, seeing how they were manipulating their audience gave me a better base of knowledge. That means that the next time someone asks “Hey, wanna go to Turning Stone tonight?” I will be able to make a much firmer decision one way or the other.

Originality? Is it possible?

After our discussion of media(TED) artiFacts, I thought a bit about how I respond to different manipulations in daily life. For example, makeup. I use makeup on a daily basis, but do not feel that I use it to live up to a standard of beauty. When I use it, I am using it for myself. I like how I look better with it. It is even, if I may extend it a little, a form of expression. I do not feel as though I am conforming to society when I use it. In this way, I feel that some manipulations are layered. We are manipulated to use makeup, but we are also manipulated to think that if we use makeup we are doing it to please someone or something else. We are manipulated to think that we are being manipulated by society, when it does not necessarily need to be that way.
But this reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend back in 8th grade. I remember we were talking about clothes and I said something along the lines of "but I don't want to wear high waisted pants because I am trying to be hipster I just like those pants!" But really, the reason I got it into my head that high wasted pants looked more appealing was because of the countless advertisements and styles of other people I saw walking down the street everyday. I was in no way being original, although I was convinced that my decision to wear high waisted pants was an independent, personal choice.
This made me think about how hard it is to be purely original and not manipulated. If you are being original, someone can make the argument that you are being manipulated to not be like everyone else. Even famous stories are derivatives of previous stories. (How many movies are just Cinderella with different names, time periods, and costumes?) It is easy to get lost in what is really original and what you have unconsciously copied from someone else.

earth lollipop

While hanging out earlier tonight in my friend's dorm room I mentioned I was hungry. Immediately, my friend whipped out a bag of lollipops that she had just recently been sent by her parents exclaiming about their deliciousness along with how healthy and natural they were compared to "all other candy". In examining the bag, I saw that the brand was labeled "Yummy Earth" with the term "ORGANIC" blazoned all over the wrapping along with images of luscious trees and flowers. This is deceptive both visually and linguistically, tricking shoppers to view these fruity lollipops as equivalent to the actual fruit that their wrappers display instead of just flavored candies, alike to any others. We are manipulated by all of the distractions presented by the manufacturers to see these candies and now matter how smart and grounded we are, subconsciously believe they are somehow superior to other candies and furthermore somewhat linked to the earth (natural) when this is by no means the case.  

"Momma knows best"

There are four girls in my circle of friends that have talked about living together in a quad next year since the middle of first semester. That has always been their plan—they didn’t feel the need to consider other options even though their lottery numbers and how quickly the dorms fill up are totally out of their control. Anyway, two of them got amazing numbers (sure to get a quad) and two of them got relatively shitty numbers. So although there doesn’t seem to be a problem, the girl with the highest number recently started to change her mind about whether or not she really sees herself living in a quad. The reason she’s starting to change her mind is because her parents are manipulating her into thinking that having three roommates would be detrimental to her education and college experience, saying that she would have all these distractions, wouldn’t feel the need to branch out socially, etc. These were never her concerns before; she is involved in various extracurriculars and has more than enough friends. However, the concept that “momma knows best” and that advice from parents should always be taken is starting to affect both her housing situation and everyone else’s, because now they’re left struggling to find other options in case the quad that they’ve dreamed about for months doesn’t end up working out.

As if all of that isn’t enough, this same girl’s dad keeps telling her to take two 300-level math classes and two lab science classes IN ONE SEMESTER. Now I know that there are some people that can do this, but she knows that she won’t be able to handle it, yet she is still finding herself leaning towards that route only because her parents are manipulating her into thinking that this is what is best for her. This is frustrating for everyone because as if it isn’t bad enough that three others are left stressing out about housing, now our friend is starting to accept that she might not know what’s best for her even though that is definitely not the case. A little bit of a weird way to look at manipulation, but this is an on-going issue so I figured it’s relevant.

A lil bit of Me

         I was reading through the blog posts and I noticed that tonight's common theme was manipulation. I realized that that's probably what I should be writing on then too, but then I realized that I am letting myself be manipulated by assignments about manipulation (meta much?). I especially enjoyed Kylie's post on manipulation in women's fitness and how being "fit" is in itself a manipulative tool used to categorize people by health and beauty. On Saturday, I got my haircut--trivial, I know--but it wasn't trivial to me. This is about to get a little deep and personal, but I have come to terms with my past problems and am very much okay with sharing them (obviously, hello internet).
           During my senior year, I suffered from an eating disorder. It wasn't a very obvious one and although I did lose weight, it wasn't as noticeable as some eating disorders. I looked like a healthy 18-year-old who wasn't super skinny, but also not overweight. But I was binge eating and bulimic. When I finally decided to tell a close friend of mine about my problems, her response was: "But you don't look any different, otherwise I would have noticed." (She also showed concern and was very supportive, don't worry). Looking back, this is a very odd response. Society has manipulated us to think that if you have an eating disorder, you will look very thin. In some cases this is true, but not in all of them. I was sick, but no one would have guessed it was an eating disorder because I had not dropped three pant sizes. How does the hair tie into this? Well, I used my hair as a shield of sorts to hide my body. It wasn't so much that I was ashamed of how I looked, more that food and my weight were two things that I could control during a time when I felt like I had very little control over everything else.
        I am now healthy. On Saturday, I got my haircut because I no longer feel the need to hide. I miss my long hair, but the loss of 12 inches means I will not be wasting my money on shampoo and conditioner!

Manipulative Tunes

Today, while trying to figure out what I would write my blogpost about, I listened to the album “Hospice” by The Antlers. The entire album tells the story of a hospice worker who falls in love with one of the patients he is taking care of, and goes on to tell the tragedy that was their relationship. The entire album is designed in a way to be emotionally draining, forcing the listener to experience the same hardship that the hospice worker experienced. The saddest lyrics are accompanied with glum melodies that bring the reader into the world presented in the songs. Moments of frustration occur in high-energy portions of songs, while moments of dejection and depression occur during lulls. While this lyric-tune matching is a characteristic of most songs, the expansion of a singular story across an album can be seen as similar to the difference between short stories and novels. The emotional impact is greater felt as a result of the larger time investment. I wonder if the album would be as impactful if it was about many, similar stories of sadness, rejection, abuse and loss rather than one continuous story.

The ability of songs to influence the mood of the listener is well-known. People listen to pump-up songs before working out, mellow songs to calm down, and so on. What is even more interesting is songs whose subject matter differ greatly from their tone. For instance, the song Hey Ya by Outkast sounds like a typical, upbeat song to dance along to. However, the song is actually about the failure of the singer’s current relationship. In fact, Andre 3000 even brings in a metatextual aspect to the song by quietly stating during one part, “Ya’ll don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance”. This admittal that even his fans do not care about his life or his troubles, they just want the catchy beat, has always struck me. One other song whose upbeat melody disguises a much darker topic is Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind. The beat never alludes to the fact that the song is about a drug-user trying to get away from his habits, which he no longer sees as a good thing but rather only bring about a “semi-charmed kind of life”. I wonder what the literary equivalent of these songs are? Satire? Love poems that actually criticize their subjects?

Good and Bad Manipulation

            After our discussion last week on our mediated artifacts, I started to think a lot about how I am manipulated by the cosmetic industry. As mentioned in class, we are manipulated to conform to an ideal beauty that society projects on to us. Through commercials, ads in magazines, fashion shows, etc. we are constantly bombarded with people who are physically “covered” or “masked” in make up. Rarely do we see famous people without make up on. Not only are we manipulated to believe that we need make up to look prettier, we are manipulated to believe we are not good enough.

            This conversation also reminded me of the Eurocentric beauty ideal that we talked about in my women studies class. All around the world, European and white models are being used in ads, commercials and campaigns. It is impossible to compare oneself to this Eurocentric beauty ideal: the white, heterosexual, thin, blonde. Another conversation we had in women studies was on the harmful effects of cosmetics. There is a website called SkinDeep which is a database of many products we use daily such as shampoos, conditioners, moisturizers, toothpastes etc. We saw that the boys in the class had less daily “products”. However, almost everyone had products that were very harmful. Many of the products we use daily that market to be for “sensitive skin” and “gentle to the touch” are very carcinogenic or dangerous in other ways. It was shocking to see that what I use daily was so toxic. This is due to the extremely loose regulations of the cosmetic industry. They do not have to test everything and chemical names are not well known by consumers.

            The cosmetic industry basically makes money off of our insecurities and easily manipulates our identities. At the same time, putting on make up is fun for many people and a form of art. It is definitely a choice whether to use makeup or not. I think there is both good and bad manipulation and make up can be both depending on the individual. I think the message that the cosmetic industry employs to manipulate us is faulty but we don’t have to give into this manipulation. Like most forms of manipulation, we do have a choice whether to be manipulated or not we just have to be conscious of our surroundings.

Who's in Control?

I question the Boston Bruins decision to fire their ex-general manager Peter Chiarelli.  Chiarelli has made some questionable moves in the past few years like trading one of the NHL’s top goal-scorers Tyler Seguin and the dominating defenseman Johnny Boychuck, but he also established one of the most successful hockey teams in the past decade.  I feel as though the Bruins management team were manipulated into firing Chiarelli because fans tend put the blame of missing the playoffs on Chiarelli for these questionable trades.  People overlook the success Chiarelli organized including a stanley cup win and only associate him with trades.  This could be a result of people feeling the need to point a finger at someone after missing the playoffs.  In any case the Bruins still fired Chiarelli.  How can the management also be so ignorant to fire a man who built the foundations of this hockey empire?  I guess the fans possess all the power and all management cares about is the money in the fans wallets that purchase the tickets.  Management was manipulated into firing a successful GM because they want the fans to spend their money on tickets.  Now the management’s decision is manipulating me to write this blog.  This seems to be a chain reaction manipulation.

There could be behind the scenes things that Chiarelli did that I do not know about.  He could have been the biggest asshole known to mankind and the management just refused to put up with it any longer.  The Bruins never provided any explanation to this move so I am left assuming it was because the social hysteria Chiarelli incited after the trades he made.  The fans are left judging the moves he made after they didn’t end up working out in the Bruins favor.  Anyone can make perfect decision ex post facto.  I am frustrated by both the Bruins and the Bruins fans, yet I agree with their decision to fire Chiarelli.

Manipulation Everywhere

As I was planning my mediaTED artifact, I began to really think about how prevalent manipulation techniques were outside of the writer's power. The first thing that came into my mind was, brand names. As a consumer of many different brand names, I find it really absurd at how over price some things are. For example, when I went to Target several years back, I walked by the shoe section and noticed that there were shoes that looked just like Converse. When I looked carefully at the shoe, I noticed that everything looked almost the same, except that the logo was different and placed in a different place. Along with that, the name of the Target brand shoe was Converse ONE STAR instead of Converse ALL STAR. However, the Converse All Star was retailed at $50 and the Converse One star was retailed at $35. Recollecting that moment and relating it to the course, I found it very amusing that two almost same shoes were priced so differently just for the name brand. However, by saying so I am a hypo crypt because if were to choose between the two, I would choose the Converse All Star. Due to the consumer manipulation, i think of the Converse All Star as the "real" thing, and the Converse One Star is the "fake" version. However, in reality they are just two different brands with very similar products and designs. This occurs not only in shoe brands, but also the fashion industry as a whole! Without these manipulation techniques of making people think one thing is better because its "original" brands would not be able to skyrocket their prices to form a monopoly. However, at this point this form of thinking has been basically implanted into our brains as a subconscious thought on what is "good" and what is "bad".

Women's Fitness (the manipulation you had no idea was happening)

I went to a talk on self-objectification given by Dr. Jennifer Stevens last night, and it was so eye opening. One of the fascinating things I found that came out of her research was the mass manipulation that health magazines carry out. If you look at a health magazine, for example women’s fitness, just take a moment and look at the cover.  Notice how every thing on the cover transforms health into appearance. It says how to loose fat, to get skinny and look beautiful. They manipulate us into buying into the fact that heath is determined by how much we weigh, which I am sorry is utter bullshit. Individuals are being victimized and they have no idea. I find it so frustrating that these magazines, as well as other popular magazines such as Cosmo, are presenting these horrible messages and it is having alarming effects. People begin to associate eating a certain way, and doing certain exercise not for their well-being, but in order to fit into a certain jean size. I can’t emphasize enough how health DOES NOT = weight, but the media tells us it does. Even if we don’t by one of these magazines these messages are all around us. Merely glimpsing at a slogan really quick that says “ 10 ways to fit into a bikini” resonates with us. I am all for health magazines, only if they report health in the right way. Magazines need to start captioning their main pages with slogan such as 10 foods that make you stronger, and are the ultimate fuel. Next time you buy a magazine that has a fitness section, count how many slogans and articles titles that equate health to physical appearance. You might just be surprised.

West Egg

There was a kid peeing in the middle of the street. He looked like one of those naked angel statue people have in the lawn in front of their million dollar vacation home in East Egg. I don’t know if people actually do that, but for the sake of analogy, let’s assume people actually hire architects who are too suspiciously excited to carve sculptures of a naked child out of marbles to carve sculptures of a naked child out of marbles.

In all honesty the incident would have been completely trivial. I mean the traffic was a mess per usual. And there he was in the middle of the road peeing. But I was in a rush for cram school so I didn’t give it much thought. But for the following reasons for which I have spent a long enough time on the toilet today thinking of, the image stuck with me longer than my previous ex. Damn.

Anyway, the kid wasn’t exposed to social taboos. It could just be that his parents didn’t feel the need to teach him about the potential lack of sanitation should one proceed to attend nature’s call in the presence of incoming traffic, which looks something like this.

And maybe, just maybe precisely because of this artificial perception of innocence that enables architects of ancient time to fulfill their desire to carve sculptures of a naked child out of marbles. I mean they do carve adult sculptures too. But if you are allowed to carve naked men and women why stop there right? Go go artistic freedom.

Just to go along with that (and run with it), imagine a scenario where instead of a child, we have a man or a woman peeing in the middle of the street. In this day and age, were that to happen, cyber-backlash and cyber-backlashing backlash woudn’t stop for a while. I mean it wouldn’t be as serious as Ferguson, but you get the idea. It’s like an unsuspecting group of people walking into the theater to see a Stan Brakhage's film. Next thing you know people start to wonder why there are toilets in the first place since natural bodily functions are just that: natural and thus require no censor.

Now that I’ve finished this brain dump (and the other dump), I realized I never actually have this deep of a conversation with my ex. Funny how life works. And yes I just took probably one of the better shit of my life this semester. It feels so good to let go. [Insert jokes about ex here]

A rant about Accepted Students Day

Accepted Students Day leaves much to talk about when it comes to manipulation. The entire day is an act to try and convince/manipulate a bunch of High School seniors to attend Hamilton. The food in Commons and McEwen is way better than it ever is, some Professors try to be on their A game, all the best tour guides are on duty, and all the important administrators come out of the woodwork to act like they actually have relationships with the students. Typically President Stewart pays off Mother Nature to make the weather nice but I guess that didn’t work out this year. Although I believe the spirit of the day accurately represents the Hamilton experience (a small, close, and friendly community), the entire show is so overblown.

Then midday there’s an event that blows it all up. The streakers come out to play and show Hamilton’s true colors. As all the accepted students walk across campus after the President’s opening remarks, the streakers come running the opposite way. It is glorious. What I find encouraging is that the school could very easily stop this. They could have the opening remarks in the field house, thus removing the need to walk across campus or station Campo on Martin’s Way to catch streakers (That would probably be way over the top actually). My point is that they don’t change anything. I like to think they secretly like it. They know they’re playing this elaborate game to woo potential students, but like that the parents get a little shock value and the students get a little taste of the real Hamilton.

Illusion of choice

Today I encountered an illusion of choice. For bio lab this week we went out into the glen to measure trees and collect leaves and dirt. We all met in front of the glen before we dispersed into two different sections of the glen. My professor said to us that there were going to be two groups, a shorter-walk group and a longer-walk group, and that we could choose which we would prefer. Then, he said that also there would be different professors leading each group, so we could also factor that into our decision. I was prepared to pick the group with the shorter walk because I wanted lab to last as short as possible. But then my professor told us that since the class was already basically split evenly, he would just split that into two groups. I got stuck on the longer walk group (#bummed) (…not really, it wasn’t actually a long walk). Sarah was in my group and we got a little bit excited because we realized that it related to our class and the illusion of choice. We then proceeded to spend the next two hours measuring and sticking nails into trees. The moral of this post is related to how in life, we are often given a choice or an illusion of choice but then it is taken away from us.

Manipulation Through Beauty

During class on Friday I related a lot of Kylies mediated artifact. There are so many influences on us to be pretty and skinny and perfect. There are so many manipulative things around us telling us to look a certain way, when we have no control over that. Recently in Bio we have been talking about the microbiome in our stomach. If you were born with a certain microbiome, you’re going to absorb more nutrients from you food than others, and therefore be fatter. Our bodies naturally want to look a certain way and we have no control over it. But people will starve themselves to look like how society wants them to.

            The thing that hits home the most for me when it comes to trying to be beautiful is hair. Interesting fact, curly hair is the dominant gene. You’d have no idea when you looked at girls today. I guess it’s just the way style trends go but someone out there said that right now, straight hair is in. So any girl who doesn’t have pin straight perfect hair, straightens it. Girls have been so manipulated to think that they’re not pretty and they have to change their hair to look prettier. It’s crazy how many people have said to me, you look better with straight hair. It’s the most back handed compliment I’ve ever received. It all comes back to what Kylie was saying, there is a definition of pretty and we’re supposed to change ourselves to fit that profile. Unless magazines, TV, movies, and almost everything around us drastically change, this is going to continue to be a problem for a long time.

Manipulation in the SCCT Fishbowl

During my now constant quest to notice and analyze manipulation around me, I found myself noticing manipulation in the use of signs in the science center fishbowl. Since most science theses are yearlong, most of the science majors are now writing/finishing their theses, and due to the nature of some projects, they need to use the computers in the fishbowl to accomplish this. Some of the senior projects require using the computers for long periods of time to crunch numbers to determine viability of protein folding patterns or binding sites. For these applications, students will often put a sign on the computer that says, "experiment in progress" in order to keep other people from using the computer and messing up their data acquisition. Others, however, just need to use the computers for typing their papers or for briefly sending data off to the local supercomputer for analysis.

I found out today from one of my friends that someone who is using the computers for the latter reason has been using an, "experiment in progress" sign despite the fact that it is not actually true. This manipulation was undergone simply because the student didn't want anyone else messing with their computer even though they weren't using it themselves. This made me think about the fact that personally, I often don't question the validity of signage. I think that this is probably because with a sign rather than a person, there is nothing to argue with. You can't carry on a conversation with a sign, and therefore I at least tend to trust them. In this case, a sign was telling me a blatant lie, but I had no grounds to disagree, and therefore took its truthfulness for granted.

escape

This class has allowed me recognize manipulations that face me every single day, from when I wake up and get dressed to when I floss before I go to bed. Now I am aware, but where do I go from there? Is there anywhere to avoid manipulations and live life simply for myself, and not be compressed by outside societal and familial factors? Would going to the wilderness and feeling the naked earth under my bare feet save me?

I have come to the realization that there is no way to escape the confines of societal manipulations. In fact, there are very few people who live free from manipulations. I guess you could argue that Timothy Treadwell, better known as Grizzly Man, defied expectations of society for his duration in Alaska. However, as seen in the documentary, it was highly likely that he had ulterior motives for his journeys, such as fame and approval. In Environment and the Society, we learned about “uncontacted tribes”. These groups of people live completely separate from the luxuries we have today. No cars, no oil, no electricity, no plumbing…the list goes on. These groups are not inhibited by the structure of modern society. They have not been contacted by the outside world. However, lately, oil and logging companies have started infringing on their communities in aim of exploiting their resources. However, were these people barren to manipulations before these companies started closing in?

It can be argued that in any society, there are manipulations. So, does that mean the only way to escape manipulation would be to be completely isolated? Well that sounds awfully lonely.

Here is a website with information about uncontacted tribes if anyone is interested…

http://www.uncontactedtribes.org