Entry 1: Century of Self

https://watchdocumentaries.com/the-century-of-the-self/

I think the way that Edward Bernays manipulated the people is especially intriguing. The way he used his uncle’s teachings and methodology and the fact he was inspired by the way the people swarmed the current president is honestly shocking and scary. Honestly, the fact that he was able to convince the female population that cigarettes weren’t a sexual symbol, but a symbol of power and resistance towards the male population, who held all of the power, is interesting to learn about. Nowadays, you can see basically anyone smoking in the streets, no matter the gender, and the fact that he was able to link cigarettes to an aspect of the human mind is something most people would never consider. After all, cigarettes aren’t actually symbols of freedom and resistance, but he was able to convince people that was the case is fascinating. The fact that this is rather common in the modern age is what makes this scary. The way he changed American mindset on wants and needs is also fascinating. Product placement, cars and masculinity, and fashion being connected to one’s character seems so common nowadays that seeing it begin in American culture is shocking. The way he also manipulated the stock market and, in a way, caused the Great Depression, paints him as a monstrous puppet master, one who employed the methods of self reflection of hid uncle Sigmund Freud to numb and control the Egos of the general population of the United States of America.

 

Entry 2: Small Assignment 2 Informal Proposal

I plan on covering physical and mental disorders in my mini tutorial for Small Assignment 2. I personally want to cover this topic because of who I am as a human being. I am on the autism spectrum and have ADHD, so this kind of thing really hits home for me. I first want to cover the difference between a physical disorder and a mental disorder. This is to establish what my peers should expect from the tutorial. I will then put in some links and videos for different physical disorders, as there are many kinds of maladies that people suffer from, and I feel like we should learn more about them. People are often referred to as freaks or monsters just because of something that is affecting them, and we should learn more about them to help improve their lives. Next, I will put some hyperlinks, videos, and images for my peers to learn about mental disorders, as there are many types of them and many subtypes as well. This a thing that is more for me as, growing up, I have heard my classmates refer to people with autism as “retarded faggots” when I’m sitting right next to them.  People with mental disorders are often more abused than people with physical disorders, due to it not being visible. People just assume that they’re psychos or insane and it’s just dehumanizing. I feel like helping people be more informed about these things will help those who suffer from their own minds.

Entry 3: Childhood Collections

Now, I don’t remember really collecting anything that I would say were truly “things” when I was a kid. However, I remember collecting something that is fairly close to the definition of “things”. When I was like 7 or 8 or around then, I collected these toy-like things called The Trash Pack. I say toy-like because there wasn’t any real point to buying them other than collecting them. You would buy a little pack of them, and there would be one plastic trash can in it. Inside of it would be a small rubber trash-themed monster the size of a large marble. They had no special gimmicks like, say, Bakugan did. They were basically those rubber end pieces that you would put on the eraser end of your pencil. Now, I feel like this collection of mine only affected my life and cultural identity subconsciously. You see, in the commercials for The Trash Pack, from what I remember, the only kids that were playing with the “trashies” were boys. So I think that I subconsciously associated buying these things with being a boy. I know this sounds strange, but a similar, older, series of collectibles may have influenced The Trash Pack. My stepdad has a bunch of collectible cards for The Garbage Pail Kids, the boy version of The Strawberry Patch Kids. I’m willing to bet that that series of cards affected the way The Trash Pack was marketed to the public. Therefore, The Garbage Pail Kids indirectly affected my cultural identity.

Entry 4: Culture Icon

I have always found trading card somewhat interesting. Not because I liked collecting them or anything like that, it’s because I have always thought to myself “Why are they so popular?” and “How did this kind of craze come to be, trading what is pretty much a glorified playing card?”. Because of this, I did some research, and what I found surprised me. The first “trading cards” were called Trade Cards, advertising cards sold in cigarette packages to stiffen the package. When baseball became a national pastime, baseball cards were printed in the 1860’s, usually sold in tobacco or candy packages. Multi-colored printing led to “Trade Cards” becoming popular in the 1870’s and early 1900’s. Many companies would, as a prize, put these cards into their product packaging. Many designs of the cards weren’t product related but were made to appeal to the consumers’ tastes. The general public began collecting these cards, often trading with others to get a complete set, hence the name. The concept of trading cards was born, despite the popularity fading soon after. Topps Chewing Gum began inserting trading cards into their packaging in the 1950’s, with the company soon creating the sports trading cards we know today. The company overproduced the cards, though, leading to them being worthless today, and companies learned from this mistake by controlling the volume of cards produced, in order to maintain their value.

Trading Cards:

The History of Collectible Trading Cards – Collectibles Insurance Services (collectinsure.com)

Entry 5: Observations of an Organic Object

I chose a banana for this entry because it was the only thing on hand that I had that was organic. Bananas are one of the only fruits I eat, mainly because of texture. I also like eating bananas when they’re slightly ripe, like on day two or three of having it. During my time observing it, I noticed how easy it is for bananas to go bad. Between day one and two, there is a decent amount of softness to the banana than there was. Each day, it kept getting softer, until the fifth day, where the peels itself was coming undone from the weight of the banana. I did a little bit of research, and it turns out that bananas are one of the quickest fruits to go bad. This is because bananas emit something called ethylene gas, which causes ripening in fruit. One fun little thing I learned from this is that you should never store bananas with other fruit, because the ethylene they emit causes other fruits to ripen faster. Ethylene is also the reason bananas get brown spots. I also thought about how bananas are one of the only sources of good vitamins that my body needs, and of course it’s the one that goes bad the fastest. The only good thing I can find about this nonsense is that it allows me to make banana muffins in about a week. Its like recycling, only you’re eating the thing you’re recycling.

Entry 6: Fetish Objects

The word “Fetish” has multiple definitions, one of them is “an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit”. For this journal entry, I have decided to research one of the most well-known examples of a “fetish”: voodoo dolls.

The practice of Voodoo is very old, stemming long ago from African religion. The modern interpretation began in New Orleans in the 1700’s, when colonists brought slaves from West Africa, which was commonly known as the “slave coast” back then. The slaves brought the ancient Voodoo religion with them, and like many religions, it was masked together with Catholicism roots to keep it safe from their “masters”, creating what we know today. Later, the New Orleans Voodoo, which others refer to as Hoodoo, was accepted as an established religion after the Catholic Church accepted it and stopped demonizing it.

The voodoo doll was an object that survived the hybridization of Voodoo. The word Voodoo means “spirit of God”. When it refers to “God” it is referring to Bondye, and the many spirits that serve him are called Loa. The doll is used to either place a curse on evil, or to ward off evil spirits. It is a form of Hoodoo, Today, the doll is shown to be a method of inflicting pain and cursing one’s enemies. The practice of sticking needles into the doll to inflict pain actually European roots, but it has become part of the practice of Voodoo.

Research:

https://voodoodolls.typepad.com/voodoo_dolls/2007/04/a_brief_history.html

https://besttattootoday.com/voodoo-doll-tattoo-art-history-symbolism-and-meanings/ 

The True History and Faith Behind Voodoo

Entry 7: Fashion and Identity

For this journal entry, I will be choosing to research the Japanese fashion culture that is gyaru. The word Gyaru is a Japanese transliteration of the English slang word gal and can refer to any gender, though most of the time its females. This subculture first began to develop in 1972, when an American jeans company called Lee started a new line of jeans in Japan. The line was called ‘GALS’ and was translated into the term it is now referred to.

Gyaru fashions typically call for having tan skin, decorated artificial nails, dramatic makeup, and most of the time they wore western or Japanese street brands of clothes. Gyaru fashion was the biggest during the Heisei Era (From January 1989 to April 2019) and was considered a rebellion against Japanese beauty standards since women back then were “supposed” to be housewifes and have black hair and pale skin. This rebellious undertone is similar to how greaser fashion’s rebellious attitude attracted many working-class teenagers.

Gyaru fashion is also somewhat of a spectrum, as there are many subtypes of this fashion sense. One type is a Ganguro, which is a gyaru with artificial deep tanned skin, heavy makeup, especially around the eyes, and bleached hair. Another is called Agejō, which is a mature, almost vixen-like style.

This style of fashion heavily influenced Japan culturally. It become a bit of a niche on the internet, and affected music, Japanese comics, and movies.

Research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyaru8

Entry 8: Objects of Desire

In this journal entry, I will be talking about gold and how much destruction it has caused. The environmental effect of mining gold is tremendous, with Alastair Blaine of the Smithsonian Magazine stating “this, he explains, makes the energy required to mine that gold—and the waste and pollution produced in the process—proportionally greater and greater. In other words, dirty gold is only getting dirtier. What’s more, gold that cannot be traced back to some level of deforestation, air and watershed pollution, and human injury and death is virtually nonexistent, according to Septoff”. Mines end up dumping millions of waste debris into rivers and water systems every year. That isn’t all on how gold has cause destruction. Ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition? The lust for gold was massive back then, with many people being condemn for heresy and having all of their wealth stolen, all because of that psycho Queen Isabella 1st of Castile. There are also all of the expeditions that the Old World took into South and Central America, killing so many natives in their lust for the gilded material. One of the most sought out locations in these expeditions, aside from the Fountain of Youth, was the city of El Dorado, the fictional city of gold. The ruler there would cover himself in gold dust every morning, and the city itself was gilded with gold, so no wonder every explorer wanted to find the city, even if it cost them their lives, as many never returned.

Research: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/environmental-disaster-gold-industry-180949762/

Entry 9: Bizarre Collections

Before we begin, professor, let me just say that this journal entry is not pandering to you in terms of the content, it just happens to be the first weird collection I found. There are probably hundreds of millions of people who collect things, from the normal and relatively mundane, like trading cards, to the downright strange, like haunted dolls (yes, this is a thing, look it up). Today, I will be discussing a collection that is a bit in the middle of the spectrum of collections, leaning a little to the strange side. The collection I have chosen is of Rob Hull and his collection of Daleks.

Daleks are a fictional race of extraterrestrials from the British TV show Doctor Who. They are a species of hate within the universe of the show. 49-year-old Rob Hull of South Yorkshire has never seen the show in question, yet he has been enchanted with the creatures as a child. According to the staff of YBMW.com, a website devoted to all things geeky, “49-year-old Rob Hull of South-Yorkshireman is the Guinness Book of world records holder for the man who owns the largest collection of Daleks. Hull was officially recognized for having the largest Dalek collection with an astounding 571 models. Everything from 6ft life-size replicas to miniaturized toys”. The funniest part about his collection is that his wife hates them.  When she was asked if she was going to celebrate him obtaining the world record, she stated “I hate the bloody things and I’ve got a feeling this is only going to encourage him.”

Research: https://youbentmywookie.com/wtf/the-worlds-largest-dalek-collection-owned-by-man-who-doesnt-like-dr-who-13885

Entry 10: Amateur Curators

Our final writing journal entry is one that has spanned a good chunk of this semester. We were told to start a collection of objects that we would showcase here. We couldn’t purchase the objects, but the objects could be a byproduct of a purchase, such as grocery bags or the twist ties in the produce section. I have limited money and don’t get groceries. The campus does have the Grubhub board meals, and each meal you get this way comes with a receipt with your name on it, so I decided to go with receipts. They were easy to get and were more interesting than just collecting rocks from the ground or something similar. I also chose this object because I am a glutton, and I love to eat, so the excuse to eat a bunch of food was very welcome in my mind. I was also curious on the purpose of receipts. Why do we have these slips of paper in the first place, if not just to make sure you didn’t get overcharged? I did some digging, and it turns out receipts are like the reason we keep tax papers or important documents, they are physical proof of a purchase, and can’t be hacked or the like, so I found that interesting.

The receipts that I collected look so messy because they are. With the Grubhub board meals, they are often halfway slipped into the box of food so they can be seen by the workers, so they know which box was ordered by a customer. As a result, the receipts are almost always soaked with grease and condensation from the heat of the food.