Haven't posted in a while! heres my latest thought

The Faux-ization of culture OR Construction by means of blunt trauma.

We live in a time of constant change. The IBM law states that every 4 years technology will double itself. Computing power will be twice as strong, graphics twice as realistic, and, I suppose, people half as competent with the new material. But separate from this change in technology comes a change in culture. Culture is not something that doubles or triples. It isn’t something that can be quantified and can rarely be accurately qualified. Its an ethereal something that both strangles and frees our society. America is a place of myriad subcultures.
I, for whatever reason, think too much. See, I see people and I see construction. The guy walking down the street with the saggy pants, large hoodie and the ‘gangsta’ face; the girl decked out in her American apparel, taking a drag on her cig before class; the ‘my new haircut’ guy; you know these people as well as I do. I see these things, the shells that people wear, as construction.
(Parenthetically, I do not consider myself exempt from this self construction.)
“But Dan” You might say, “Whatever do you mean by construction?” Simply answered is this: The conscious decisions we make to portray ourselves to the world. We understand the connotations behind certain ways of dressing, what they mean for our profile to the word. “Dan, but its part of who we are!” Correct, but it is only so based on what you want it to be.
Style originates somewhere. Each one has its origins. Oversized pants being ‘ghetto’ comes from hand-me-downs not fitting the younger brother. Tight clothes (in the jock polo sense) come, originally, from lifting a lot and then having the shirts that you currently own not fit anymore. However both of these instances have been, in their own sense (and not to say that they were platonically pure or ideal) bastardized. Guys buy their jeans too big or their polo’s too tight. A tightly bought polo now says ‘look here, I’m in shape.’ And a pair of baggy jeans says ‘I’m straight thuggin,’ as it were.
The most obvious example I can summon is the classic worn and torn jean. The image I got when the first started marketing these patched-up-pre-washed jeans was the idea of a guy on the road, wearing the one pair of jeans that he had and the one white tee shirt. Hitch hiking across the country to California for no better reason than because his restless soul called him that way. Through a series of stories, hilarious, tragic, dramatic and romantic, he earned these shredded jeans, a memento to a summer of youth and memories. But now as I sit here in my 70+ dollar express jeans with small torn up areas built in I can say that they were not earned through sneaking to that beautiful girls window, losing a shoe while running from her fathers dog or even from getting thrown to the ground in a epic brawl over her honor.
As mentioned before, each of these styles has its roots, however, the meaning of these roots gets lost in the imitation, the Faux-ization of a culture. It is something quite similar to watching a foreigner trying to act American, it is the very act of trying to be the thing that they are trying to be that sells them out.
Have you ever met someone who wanted you to believe they knew all about European culture and that they themselves were a paradigm of it? You spot them out right away. Maybe you play along with the charade for niceties sake but you leave with an awkward taste in your mouth and your ears sting with a ringing sensation from their badly accented pronunciations of espresso and cappuccino and latte. These, I posit, are the ultimate artifice architects. Building up images of self, rife with implications about personality, interests and ambitions. A one dimensional portrait of who they are. no matter how ‘deep’ that portrait might try to be, it cannot release itself from the bonds of being a flat image.
That brings me, circuitously, to my point: People tend to use these easy monikers of appearance as ways of stereotyping. However, they do not use them primarily to stereotype others. I see the primary function of these facades as a method of stereo typing themselves. However it is done in such a way that it is painfully obvious.
This is called “Construction by means of Blunt Trauma.” These individuals pound you over the head with the sledge-hammer of the translucent self-definitions. That hipster you know with the rolled up pant leg, the ironic mustache, the plaid ugly shirt. They are saying something, associating themselves with the culture that they wear.
I don’t think the problem is that we as humans do this. I see the problem being that we as humans deny that it is happening. People try to deflect accusations along these lines, that they are conforming to a culture to attain a certain image, instead insisting that it is part of who they are. I say that we must break free of that denial, and instead we have to insist upon consciously arranging our appearances to create the culture we choose. I own a variety of clothes, tees, oxfords, polos, jackets etc, so that I can present the needed face. Some see this as disingenuous, I see it as more real than the people who deny the conscious choices made when dressing.