I had tried to prepare myself for our time in New York… Having never been to the Northeast before I was curious to see how it compared to the west coast mentality and lifestyle I’ve experienced on countless occasions, and I soon realized how the geography of these two areas of the country had developed their individual identities and cultures…
One of the most interesting things that New York shared with the west coast was the relationship to celebrity people had. While the idolization of celebrities is prominent throughout the entire country, I saw the way in which New York displays the attempted emulation as the most amplified and exaggerated version. As I walked out into Times Square for the first time, after seeing it repeatedly on television and in movies, I noticed that the sensory overload was just as much a commentary on commercialization as it was on superstardom. Beaudrillard came rushing to mind as we passed innumerable groups of people who were all dressed in the way the flashing billboards and magazines promoted, walking with their cups of Starbucks coffee while wearing their ‘nonconformist’ graphic tees. I’m amazed by how, mainly through media and peer influence, the youth of this country continue to obsess over celebrities and the images they sell and yet fail to pay attention to the messages that are being sent by those pieces of culture. Furthermore, even less attention is paid to the importance of messages within politics and social movements. I’m curious as to how much more change could be affected and how much more knowledgeable this generation could be if we spent less time idolizing and imitating these celebrities and more time focusing on the people in this country who verbalize social issues and injustices instead of what colors are ‘in’ this fall…
One of the main problems that I’ve seen develop from this celebrity-obsession is the transformation of political figures into a celebrity status. We wear Obama t-shirts and paste Hope stickers on our cars, but I have to wonder about whether the motivations behind these slight and insignificant actions are true desire for change and progress or to gain some sort of veiled cultural capital among our peers.
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