Forever huh?

Forever huh?

 

            One thing I noticed with my social imagination is that there is no such thing as “forever” when it comes to popular themes or hit TV shows. Like Twilight for example. During high school (for me) it was like the biggest thing in the world for a lot of people. Bigger then Obama even. Most teenage girls were going goo goo gaga over Edward and Jacob and would think of them as either the guy I wanna date or the guy that will turn me into something else. For example, teenage girls that think life is too hard and want an escape tend to want to go vampire, while teenage girls that just want to be free and live the way they want tend to go towards werewolves. Or they just go with whoever they think looks better and even try to do both werewolves and vampires if at all possible. Guys did not seem to care one way or the other and if they did they were sick of all the crap they get from their girlfriends about want them to be more like Edward, James, Jacob, etc. Would not be suprised if there were some break ups due to it.  Vampires are a thing and will always be a thing right with werewolves and Frankenstein. However the “Twilight Series” died painfully.

            Now a days people are going crazy for stuff like the “Hunger Games” and “Vikings”.  I asked some people around Tech if they were still big fans of “Twilight” (Including some people I actually knew) Most would say they are over it or they still like it, but not so much as something else. In other words Twilight was just a fad that people got over with. Just like with a bunch of other stuff throughout time. Its sad, like really sad, but true. I miss "The Sopranos"!

(Please note that this post is from my personal experiences and research, its not ment to offend anyone and if it does I am sorry in advance. Hope you have a nice day!) 

Bargain Shopping

Something that I found very interesting while using my sociological imagination is that in the high school that I went to the cool thing was to have really nice and expensive clothes. Where as in college I have found out that the majority of college kids that don’t have a ton of money, which let’s face it that is a lot of college kids, think it’s cool to be a bargain shopper. When I talked to college students around campus the average answer was that they would at least go once a month to the goodwill or pawn shops to try and find some cool clothes for cheap. They all said that it felt like a treasure hunt and when they found something it made them feel like they found gold. The most interesting thing about this is that all kinds of people from deferent social classes thought the same thing about bargain shopping.    

American Dream?

For many years American’s have believed they are the greatest nation on the face of the Earth and continue to believe this to this day. This belief is also shared by many others as people continue to come to America in pursuit of the American Dream. These beliefs have been rooted strongly in our non-material culture for many years and can also be considered culture universals. However the great nation of the United Sates of America my not be as great as many of us have been taught to believe. In fact there is hardly any evidence that says we are the greatest nation anymore. The USA racks 115th in Linguistic Diversity, 14th in Education, 44th in Health Care Efficiency, 66th in Religious Diversity, 26th in Child Well Being, 23 in Gender Equality and 101st in Peace. Some of these statistics are hard to believe but even harder to believe is that the USA ranks in the top 2 in only two categories, these include Ignorance and Number of Incarcerations. With the numbers stacked so strongly against us how can we possible believe we are still the greatest nation? I guess we’ll just stick to what we’re good at, which is ignorance, and continue to stick to our cultural beliefs.

                                                                  racism and cities 

When looking for a pattern to talk about I thought about life in and around large cities. Generally white people get the good jobs in the cities however most of them decide not to live there instead they live in the suburbs outside the city leaving the inner cities for the minority’s this would be okay except for the fact that because the people that have the high paying jobs don’t live in the city the city gets none of the taxes from this work. This leads to a fall in the quality of education and several other things within the city. The people outside the city are leaching of its jobs and resources. Using my sociological imagination I came to the conclusion that this is an example of structural racism. The system is set up against minorities. Some communities have even gotten in legal trouble because they were discouraging and making it harder for minority’s to live in these suburbs 

Community Style Living

Over my past three years at Tech I have come to notice some unfair stereotypes placed on the community style housing that tie in with the social class system. A majority of people, students and parents alike, believe the community style housing is just flat out gross. I too was one of those people until I started to work in one of the “old school dorms”. Like a majority of the students and parents, I used to think community housing was filthy, inside and out. They are all old, nasty buildings, where the space is very confined and you have to share personal space including the restrooms and showers. Of course because the bathrooms are shared with other students there is no telling what kind of filthy diseases are growing in these places. These stereotypes were also associated with lower class people who live in these buildings. These beliefs were not only reinforced by people I talked to but by social medias and society as well. These negative stereotypes not only ruin the reputation of community style living but it also carries on the unjust treatment of the lower class people that live there. Unbeknownst to most, community style housing is actually super clean. Each building has it’s own cleaning crew that cleans the facility daily. There also is so much more to community style housing than most give it credit for. The community style buildings have a very strong sense of community and unity, and in tern there seem to be more personal, life long relationships produced in these types of buildings than other types of housing. Community style buildings also seem to have more activities and student interaction the the lobby or common areas of the buildings. These positive qualities of community style housing make it very “homey” and really makes the experience of staying there enjoyable. This too is true of lower class people. As we saw in the video presented in class, People Like Us, many times there is so much more to a person than we give them credit for. We as a society get so caught up in the outside appearance, social classification, and what we have been told that we don’t treat one another as an equal and actually find out what is true for ourselves. 

Different Styles

Recently I have noticed how simple it is to spot the difference of a sorority girl and a non sorority girl just by the way they dress. Sorority girls typically dress up as often as they can, they hardly ever take a day off. Other girls don't usually have a problem throwing their hair up and wearing whatever they wore to bed to class.
I feel like the average girl doesn't have a care in the world. She is usually very confident in her natural beauty. She doesn't have to wear all of the make up or have all of the fancy clothes. Its admirable how they can wear whatever they want and just go about their day. No worries.
Sorority girls, on the other hand, have the pressure of representing their sorority well all of the time. They are highly encouraged to always look their best due to the fact that they are always representing their sorority chapter. After dressing nice for a while when they go out without all of the make up and nice clothing they look rough. Then dressing nice not only is a representative thing but also confidence thing.

Society's Opinion on Domestic Abuse

D. T. was in an abusive relationship. On February 5 of 2013, her boyfriend at the time broke her ankle while her daughter watched. D said, “I mouthed off and he started to hit me. I ended up like this.” [Gets on her knees and covers her head] “He grabbed my ponytail and began to pull me across the floor. My ankle snapped when he threw me across the room.” D.T. had to have 13 screws and a metal plate put into her leg to fix her ankle.

Our society makes it difficult for both men and women to leave an abusive relationship. One of many reasons that men find it difficult to leave is that men who are abused are wrongfully seen as weak and pathetic for not standing up for themselves.  Men who leave the relationship because of abuse are shamed by society for not being able to control ‘his woman’. Women have a difficult time leaving abusive relationships for several reasons as well. One of these reasons is not being able to support themselves financially. Society views women who are abused as deserving of the abuse. 

 People also treat domestic abuse as a joke. “I saw a waitress with a black eye. I told her my order slowly because she obviously doesn't listen.” -overheard from a passing stranger