The main character in the music video was a completely different guy online than he was in reality. He pretended to be someone he was not because he valued an unrealistic image of beauty that he'd adopted from our culture. Our culture clearly values beauty (the Hollywood kind we see all over the media). We value perfection. Offline the main character was a middle-aged man who would be deemed geeky in our culture. He was bald with glasses, a sci-fi fanatic, living with his senior parents. Online he was a Hollywood personality, perfect in nearly every way by our culture's standards. He had good looks ("6'5" and six-pack abs"), all the women he could possibly want, money, a sweet Hollywood career, nice cars, etc. The women he was chatting with online were also pretending to be something they were not. They pretended to be our culture's version of perfect (something like a Victoria's Secret model). In reality, they were not all made up; they didn't look anything like the airbrushed images of women we see in magazines.
Based on what I observed, I would conclude that these people were not satisfied with who they really were because they were comparing themselves with some glamorized images seen in the media. They were unhappy because they were basing their judgements of themselves on something other than reality. Online, they figured nobody could see who they really were. They could invent an online personality that made them look as glamorous as the Hollywood stars they saw in the media. They could actually "be" who they "wanted" to be and "live" the lives they "wanted" to live. I would go even one step further to say that they felt like they were only acceptable as long as they matched our culture's definition of beautiful. It is a cultural norm to look perfect; it is unacceptable not to aspire to be beautiful (at least that's what we feel like when we are surrounded with all these images of "perfection").
I would say the music video shows technological determinism is clearly at work in our society. The way people think is altered because of technology. Our replacing nature with technology has caused people to be involved in fewer face-to-face interactions with other real people. Now technology feeds them images of "perfect" people and, as they "interact" more with these "perfect" people through different media, the way they think of themselves changes. I don't think that TV, the Internet, magazines, or other media sources were necessarily created to make everyone feel like they should fit a certain mold, but they've done it nonetheless. They've fundamentally changed the way we live, and also the way we think.
The synchronous communication the characters in the music video experienced online gave them an illusion of reality, but the truth is that, even though their "interactions" were taking place in real time and they may have been communicating real emotions, every ineraction was based on lies. They interacted in a fantasy world made possible by technology.
In the past, everything in our culture has decisively "given way" to the development of new technologies. We've been living in a technocracy for some time. I think the music video shows that we, in the US, are now living in a technopoly. We've moved beyond having control over tools. World views based in religion, art, politics, and family still hold some influence, but are under the shadow of technology. Our world views are based on what we see on TV, on the Internet, or in magazines. We shape our thinking around whatever the media feeds us. Now, not everyone in the US is completely at the mercy of technology, but those who are not have to make a conscious decision not to be.
The music video was humorous yet sad. I wish our thinking were not altered by technology sometimes. I think a lot of people would be a whole lot happier if they'd stop comparing themselves to the airbrushed images that bombard them from so many different technologies. Too bad our culture values such an unrealistic image of beauty. Too bad we think it is unacceptable not to aspire to be "beautiful." While I do think we have some control over whether or not technology changes our thinking, the more exposure we get to certain ideas through technology, the more likley our thinking will be altered by those ideas.
3 comments:
I think we see example of alternate identities over the internet a lot these days. Facebook nd myspace are perfect examples of this. We do not really know who every person adding us and talking to us are. Like I said in my post about You've Got Mail, a girl may think she is talking to this handsome guy and really he is a 55 year old man with a beer belly. You just never know. But I agree with your views. I think people should not look at a model of the type of person they want to be on the internet because it is true that many people on the internet are not really real. Or at least the image they protray over the internet may not be real. And I do agree with you when you referred to Postman's idea that we are living in a technopoly, because it is true, we are. Technology has taken over. We need to be careful how far we let technology take over our lives.
I also think that technology is a big part of our lives. With facebook, twitter, email, texting- i'm always doing something on the internet. After reading this blog it makes you really wonder who you are talking to. I know I try and make sure to know the person that I am talking to because you never really know who it can be. The song is all about making up a new identity which does happen in real life. I agree, people shouldn't be comparing themselves to pictures or people they see online, and trying to be someone they are not.
What i find interesting about this is that so much of what we see as the 'perfect' or 'cool' persona is visible. It's all about looks and what people can conclude from a first impression, ie: nice car must equal good job, nice house means rich, etc. This doesn't necessarily take into account peoples personalities. What does our society deem as the perfect personality? Void of everything but looks and money is what it seems like.
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