PART 1
Today it’s okay to stand for just about anything on the positive side of the common moral code our world abides by. For the most part, in North America especially, we get to choose what we want to believe in, who we want to be as individuals, and how we want to live and the really enabling part is that no one will stand in your way because of the societal development of equality among people. Today everyone has a right to be right. “You do what you want and I get to do what I want.” “You believe what you believe and that’s cool, that’s your thing, thats what works for you and this works for me.” The obvious unchangeable thing throughout our entire history of the human race is that we have always had the freedom of choice. The other obvious yet fascinating thing is how we all come to understand and obey a common code of conduct all across the world. The not so obvious truth is that this widely shared code is in a constant state of change and adaptation to a culture that is also constantly changing. Those who don’t obey it we call rebels. Those who do we call an upright citizen of planet earth. So due to this constant change and adaptation, we have this ongoing transformation of things controversial to things acceptable. Ex. coarse language on TV, homosexuality, abortion. So how do things like these that were at one point so set in stone completely gain a turn around? How does what’s common get replaced with what’s uncommon only to have the uncommon become the new common? Could it be the fight for equality? Perhaps freedom of choice and any specific grouping of influentials. Or maybe it’s Medias understanding of what people naturally desire but would never admit without enough support. You’re probably thinking well they all have their role. They all seem to be adding to and feeding this constant cultural change. I mean you look at McDonald’s and you know they understand our desire for cost and time efficient gorging. Or even the internet and how it’s made a way to “connect with friends” through MSN, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. That’s why immediately after signing up we all begin to create the page the way it best represents ME. We have a slight anticipation for who’s gonna leave a comment on MY page about MY latest photo ME. Let’s face it, the biggest reason for the success of these sites is a little more to do with ourselves then good marketing by the media. It’s nothing that was forced on to us by some influentials who we were too afraid to displease. And it’s definitely not an attempt at equality when there is endless competition for who has the most friends, most comments, most watched video, most individualism. More than anything they all seem like opportunities to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. In fact current statistics are showing us there is a massive increase self esteem levels among anyone 30 years and younger. It’s working. There is a massive influx of higher self esteem among people born anywhere from the 70s to the 90s as things like the internet, credit cards and big bank loans have paved a way for conjuring more and more attention to oneself. In our own little but “BIG” worlds we’ve managed to really start admiring ourselves for the life we “have”. We’ve rapidly started making more choices based on what makes us feel good versus what might be best for us. All in all we make it obvious everyday that our ME trend is derived from our own feelings. The things we want. How we want to be perceived. Known. Identified.
