HW #35 - Cool Rough Draft

Everybody is always trying to perform a character that they like and in return, that people might like. Even though we don’t notice, we are always on our feet thinking about the next movement so as to not mess up and embarrass ourselves. Many of us, especially teens nowadays are trying to become cool, to follow the trends of coolness so to receive the attention and value we want. We always change or shift our characters by adding more “spices” to shine ourselves out more. And sometimes, we create a totally new character that can bring us more value but we always have a part of our real selves in character. Thus, this puts us in a process that our inner self becomes the observer, gathering information from others as our outer self presents the representation of both our real selves and the “faces” we’ve created.

Impact

All of us are aware that we are trying to make an impact on others whether or not we are acting cool. The way we choose our style of clothing and how we dress in it affect our appearances. During the interview to find about coolness, the way people are dressed are associated with what type of person they are. For example, one of the interviewee had a beard/goatee and was dressed in dark wash jeans, hoodie, with buttons on the jacket and wearing plug earrings. He told us that he is in a band, playing rock and roll music and he thinks that people think of him as “cool”. I find that being in the entertainment world, besides their talent, the entertainers need to look cool in front of others. However, just like everyone else, the way we dressed affect how people confront with us. Depending on the impact we made to others, we get different opinions from them and we become aware of what how we are coordinating our clothing. Our inner self tells us ideas that can shine ourselves better and our outer self presents what we have produced.

Besides clothing, tattoos have been and are still popular. Since there is a large significance that what we put on our skin changes how we are looked at, we are conscious of what kind of “image” we want to put. When Mr. Fanning came to our class to talk about his tattoos, he shows a huge amount of importance in how his tattoos show who he is. During his youth, there have been a lot of scary events that happened so in order for him to protect himself, he decided to cast an armor onto his arms with tattoos. For him, the tattoos are like a signifier to maps out the events of his life and tell others and himself his identity. The tattoos also symbolize his rites of passages that he himself created rather than waiting for it. He told us that when he is on the street with his tattoos, people would come up to look at it and asked about it. This shows how the tattoos on Mr. Fanning gave him a way to give wonder to others. The impact that people make to others can be as significant as how Mr. Fanning had show his with his tattoos. Tattoo is like a “face” that we can create, that it does not matter where it is; we just want to tell it to others. The effect that we give out to others affect back to how our representational self would shift.

Observer

As we grow up, the observer in ourselves change how we affect others. The information that is gathered within gives our inner selves’ ideas on what we should change on and what should not be changed. Because we don’t want to go too off on our original roles, we have to stay on the line of the “real self” as much as possible. Many of us are able to notice if a large change has happened to others who we see a lot of the times. The way their appearances are shown and how their personalities are projected changes our thinking and the memories of their past self. We either become suspicious of whether who is their real self or that we would believe that their selves that are revealed now is the real one. Therefore, it is important within many of us of how we present ourselves to the society.

Role Modeling

We take what we seek from the role model and place it in ourselves, turning ourselves to a different self than what we originally are. Heroes are seen as a huge role model for people, especially kids and heroes can be categorized as anyone including cartoons/figures. We see the heroes as someone we want to be so we try to act like them. Sometimes they are “God-like” to us because we listen to them (Andy S.). For example, older siblings are modeled as heroes for the younger siblings because the older siblings are able to do more things than the younger siblings so the younger ones would want to do what the older ones are doing. The younger siblings want to be like the older ones because they see the older ones as cool. Young kids try to act like an adult by following what the heroes are showing to them. Everybody is always observing what others are doing in order to change themselves, even if it is little to feel good for themselves. Thus, their exterior self can be played.

Celebrities and artists are role models to the popular groups. Dressing the way the celebrities are with the designer clothing changes the way the people view each other. I see on shows how the people who want to become popular change their whole appearance to suit the “in” group. To be in the group, they have to be like the group in order to get the group members’ approval. But if they have the power to control the group, then the group would follow the powerful person’s taste. When we want to be popular, we begin the phrase of making masks for others to see, to make them and ourselves believe that this is who we are. Like how geeks turned popular if they are able to get rid of the geekiness in them and able to dress and style their personality well to become popular. The personality to become popular is the mask that they are wearing, rather than the old one. However, within the mask, there is always a small fragment of our own selves because we are the ones that create the mask like how it is. By making the masks, we are the masters so we have a sense of control over the masks we played.

Emptiness? Value? Complete?

There are always differences with all of us and many of us “want” to believe that because we want to be unique with ourselves. As a result, we go search for “something” to fill in the emptiness that we felt; searching for what we are missing in our lives that can make our lives better. One of the interviewees who had the plug earrings said it is because we want “value”, “attention” and that we want to “fulfill something”. Similar to wanting to believe that we are special, we want what we are doing to be special and exceptional. With that feeling, the observer in our mind would go and search for the information necessary to fill this blank hole of ours. We might or might not be aware that we are doing that but once we undergo a change, we will know. Therefore, once the observer finds what we want, we would comply with it and mix it with our real selves to construct a new face.
But do we become complete with what the observer finds? Or does our heart tell us to go find more?

Performing Coolly on Stage is Hard or Easy?

Many of us want to become cool and by finding a role model, we would know what needs to be done to turn ourselves into a cool person. A cool person is like a mask that we’ve made to put it over ourselves for others to notice us. Or like performers but we’re not performing a character of the script written by somebody else; we are performing a script we wrote ourselves that has others influences on it. We hope to become what we want but also we are conscious of what other people’s opinions would be so we have to take account in both. By having an observer in ourselves, we are able to take on information to create a better self but we also have to be careful what ranks we are in. If we have power and control over others, our ranks would be the top but if not, we need to abide from others so to earn power and control for ourselves. For the high ranks, they are controlling the “bodies through other bodies” (Michel Foucault). If the observer can gather what we need to become powerful, we would be able to direct others to look at the outer shell of us.

I don’t think anybody likes to be embarrassed in front of others because we have pride and reputation balancing on our shoulders. When having our mechanical self performing the character, our inner selves begins to worried if the actions and impressions is good or not. We worried whether we will be “credited” or “discredited” with the piece we put out (The Production of Self – Goffman Raeader). Looking good in front of others and able to perform the cool character well would help them gain respect and reputation. Additionally, to become cool, we need to connect with Cool because Cool never stays in one period of time but moves on once we are giving too much attention to it (Merchants of Cool). Cool gives out signals that we need to catch in order to use it for ourselves. Once we received and able to manipulate the signals, we can sent out our own, leading ourselves to get on the stage, and becoming the main character of other people’s stages. Seizing these signals is what the observer does if we want to become cool and building upon these signals guides us to our transformation of a new character.

OPV- Are our masks helpful or breaking us?

When in a relationship, both parties want to act their best, their coolest in front of each other. Sometimes they would build a mask, make themselves into what the other person want them to look like to get approval from the other person. In the article, “A Better You”, it states that “approval gained in this manner often becomes the source of rejection when the mask comes off”. In a relationship, people always say trust must happen and revealing of each others selves can help the relationship deepened. But having the “mask” on to prevent yourself from letting your partner to know about your real one can lead the relationship unhealthy. To maintain a healthy relationship, one should be “devoid of the pretense that comes from wearing a mask”. Does that mean one should always be honest in a relationship but what if he/she wants to give happiness to his/her partner? Trust always question how we live our lives because it is hard for all of us to trust since trust is a sincere feeling. I think trust is like a vow in any relationship so we become careful of whom we trust. The observer in our mind is always questioning us whether we want to create a face depending on the situations. Though I think there is always a blend of our real selves in the face we’ve put on to at least give a bit of our trust in the other partner.

Having the observer in our mind to keep generating new masks would decrease our energy in showing our true selves. A lot of the times, we keep our true selves hidden because we think the masks that we’ve created are better than our true selves. So we use the masks to live our lives. However, “masks are cumbersome” as it takes away “the natural joy of life” because we have to constantly surveillance our masks’ movements (A Better You). Sometimes masks are a bundle of burden but we still carried them in front of us. We hide behind these masks and as the others think of our masks greatly, the confidence in showing our true selves lessens. It is because we are scared to reveal, and to be discredited and thinking how badly it would be if someone found out who they really are. Is our observer helping us or breaking our real selves apart? This process of taken in information and creating a blend of a little bit of our real selves with a new characteristics into this mask, is it worth it?

Connections/Significance: [under construction]

I find that we care a lot about our appearances and how we confront others of who we are. Society and cultural opinions affect the way we live our lives as we are surrounded by people; and those with power gives signals to the underlings to be careful with how they act towards them. Everybody wants to be valued and many of us are able to get the attention. But is it through our own effort of revealing who we think ourselves are really are or is it the "faces" and masks we created? We performed the character that we put effort in creating but does that character get the value that balances with the effort?

Conclusion: [under construction]

The way the observer that resides in our inner selves gathers the information to let us generate and blend our real selves with the faces to give the outer self a representation. We want to create a character that people will like because we don’t want to be disliked. Of course, we find people that like us and in return, help us to be able to accept ourselves better. The closer that we are to people, the more the real self would reveal but the observer is always alert in our mind, because the observer gives us opinions/decisions as to whether or not to believe/trust those people or not.

MLA Citations:

Fore, Jo Ann. "A Better You." Online Dating Magazine n. pag. Web. 17 Jan 2010. < http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/columns/abetteryou/23-behindthemask.html>.

Frontline: The Merchants of Cool. PBS Online, 2001. Web. 7 Feb. 2005

Fanning, John. “Personal/Political – Tattoo Talk”. Social Studies Class. School of the Future. Room 605.

Interviewees. “What is Cool?” Street Survey. 02 December 2009.

Lamert & Branaman. “The Production of Self”. Goffman Reader. 1956. 08 January 2010.

Snyder, Andy. "Personal/Political." Social Studies Class. School of the Future. Room 605.