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CyberHamster

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Typecasting - the Generic Individual @ juicy mood     Apr 17 2003, 07:29 (UTC+0) CyberHamster writes: For hundreds of years, humans have asked the question "Who am I? What makes me, me?" The result of this questioning is that we create definite, logical groups into which we place both ourselves and others. It is this separation that causes such things as predjudice, conflict and ultimately, strife. Instead of advertising to the individual, companies aim commercials at a group of people who are known to buy the product Whether we like it or not, every time a person sees another person, or interacts with them in any way, they make a judgement on that person. Instantly, the other person is placed in a category, a category that carries its own baggage and may not be a fair approximation of that person's character. In order to make these approximations more accurate, we have developed methods that are supposed to be able to pinpoint certain character traits. The reasoning behind this ideology is that once we can successfully categorise large populations of people, we shall never have to deal with individuals; rather, we can pronounce judgements that will fairly affect every person within the predefined group. Every day, a new headline- "Teen Hacker Destroys Server!" or "Violence Erupts in the Middle East!" The media encourages this blind, fatalistic judgement in order to earn money. Instead of advertising to the individual, companies aim commercials at a group of people who are known to buy the product. If market research shows that rich people eat more pistachio nuts than the poor, then the television industry will push that image, trying to make people feel inadequate, to feel that they need to conform to their categorical standard. Needless to say, for the person to do so requires them to undertake an activity that is likely to increase the profits of the advertiser. This type of economic rationalisation depends upon the typecasting of the individual into a group of the similar, a collective whole. The boy shakes his head in disbelief, but is powerless to change the world "Don't play with that boy, Michael!" said his mother. "Muslims are not nice people!" The boy shakes his head in disbelief, but is powerless to change the world. Even in the home, predjudice resulting from mass categorisation can affect peoples' lives dramatically. From the country boy who thinks that the city must be boring, to the urban kid who hates "bogans" and "hoons" and "surfies" and "chinks", every person is being force fed government propaganda and media generalisations. His hair is spiked? Then he is a "punk", a "druggo", a "street rat" and a delinquent. He wears a suit and a tie, and sports a comb-over? He's a typical "work the grind, day-in day-out" kind of guy, spending his whole life trying to get promoted. Likes computers and electronics, you say? Must be a terrorist. Or maybe he's just another geek. Hey, those clothes aren't bad! You're one of us. What will he do now? What does he want? What makes him tick? Well, obviously, he will do the obvious thing, the rational thing, the normal thing; he will do what he was taught. Free will, you say? What's that? No-one believes in that any more, its all biological, or haven't you heard? He will do what the rest of the people like him do- he will be a generic individual, dancing like a marrionette when the master of puppets starts pulling the strings. -------------------------------------------------------------- hope you liked the drivel. read comments (6) / write comment recent comments: yeah...so what? tek 19.Apr:19:48 cool x 19.Apr:10:34 views: 1466   printer-friendly version score: 5.00 \ votes: 1     vote: : 1 - worst23 - average45 - best