but then again isnt that fucking america man...the most selfish country in the world. thats why this place colonized in the first place...so we could say what we want...do it to them in the name of whatever we want to glorify as our god...eventually well kill of our kin.i hate that shit....naturally i know your a moral or at least ethically healthy cat so im referring to the royal we. good artical by a guy with your name putting out ideas on my tattoo licence aniversary. pieces......jason
 

here's parts of a recent conversation b/w me and a friend, inspired in part by this blog i had posted a while ago..

SARAH:
Anyways, went into your blogs to do some reading and had some thoughts going on.

I've often thought about advertising, about marketting, about things. I've noticed how much people sell themselves to companies (in a way) to try to represent the image that the compnay/name advertises. They are honestly walking billboards for coach, roxy and so many other name brands. Even I know what such brands portray, coach, to me means money and class. Roxy means surfer cheer leader pretty girl. It's like buying these things will make you this way. We don't even need personalities anymore, because you can just buy one.

And how we often do judge eachother on appearance. I do this as well, it's a hard thing to break. We judge by appearance, try as you will, I think I always have some thought going through my head when I see someone, and yes we always will poke fun at someone wearing something socially "funny", but as more and more images and ideas are put forth through advertising, we really do believe these things when they are farthest from the truth.

Most people that wear or have coach are not rich. Doctors at my work have shitty purses from cheap stores, the secretaries that don't make very much money have coach everything. Trying to represent an image which is not reality. The girls I see wearing roxy are sometimes cheerleading preppy types, but a lot of girls are not that pretty (stereotypically) and are actually more of social oddities, but would rather represent an image which they are not.

To me it seems like clothing in particular uses you. you really gain nothing from it but being ripped off.

Again I can't say I am innocent of this, but I will say that I try to buy nothing name brand, or if it is, I try to have the brand hidden. I am not a brand, I am not trying to associate myself with any brand...and I'm not a billboard for anything other than art.

NICK:
thanks for writing that stuff to me. i can say that i for sure agree with you on all of it. and can add that we are pretty much officially, an 'identity society'...which is a kind of scary postmodern phenomenon where human brains and personalities have all but completely disconnected from real-time, real life experience of DOING and BEING for its own intrinsic value regardless of who sees or how it appears, and instead identify more with the IMAGE of doing or being, aka 'being seen as' such and such. for example, appearing to be rebellious via having tattoos or whatever, instead of actually BEING rebellious by having tattoos. meaning people need to see you having the tattoos, they are an identity accessory. and without an 'identity' we perceive ourselves to not exist. seeing/being seen > being/experiencing. i dont feel like im explaining this really abstract concept well enough, and im only using tattoos as an example because theyre something i am immersed in. but maybe you get my point. this is why i wrote that 'consuming the illusion' piece that you may or may not have read.

SARAH:
No I get what you mean, because all the time it's always consuming my thoughts on life and living.

Identity. What a joke. Identity really is suppose to mean that you find what stereotypes you want to portray and go with it. I'm guilty of this as well, as we all are. I remember being in high school and asking people, what are you? Are you a skater? or a goth? It seems like at some point you have to stop being just a stupid kid that dresses like whatever and does what your parents do. At that point you have being rebelious marketed towards you. There's advertising everywhere showing that skateboarding is rebelious, drinking, drugs, tattoos... etc... all this is rebelious, they market posters against the system and the man! patches that defy the government... but think about it. THEY market this stuff... advertising... it's an accepted norm to be a rebelious teen.. and there is plenty of stuff to accessorize this stage in life.

It's like we fall into a pit every way we turn, with music, clothes... sometimes I feel like books are the only thing that hasn't been over-run like the other things.

I'm rambling.. but see if you get any of my random thoughts.

Music... another form of selling, of representing something or an idea or perception. I wear hardcore band t-shirts, thus I am hardcore. I associate and identify with this type of music, thus I am this way, when it may not be the truth whatsoever. Some people feel like they are traitors to their identity for listening to different music. I went to a metal show the other night, where they called emo kids faggots with pissy pants. What the fuck is that? Buying into an identity. What does it matter if a metal kid likes emo music? How does that change his love for metal? How does that make him appreciate metal any less? Kids get called sell outs for liking rap when they listen to metal... its like they are saying... you have to only buy this, be true be true. True to what? What's it matter if you dress like a punk rocker and listen to destiny's child?

We tend to try to let music define who we are as well. Different musics associate with different lifestyles, but this is also sold to us. Look at the image that these bands portray, and by buying their record or their merch, we can be just like them. BULLSHIT. Music is music, it has an intensity to influence the soul, some of the very lost qualities of the rest of life...but we market it.. we make it worth a price.

Education is one of the most marketted identity thefts out there. Education, as in college, is there to literally rob the student of all free thought and speech as well as stealing their time away. How much more I could have learned on the job or by reading books or doing things differently. Stuck in a mindset. College is for partying, that's the college identity...that's what's advertised. Most of the people in college don't know what the fuck they are doing with their lives, why they are there or what's goin on. They fuck, they drink and they swing by in college because it's so easy. They complain and cheat when things get hard, it's like if they really wanted that education, they would be studying their assess off and it would be worth it. But it isn't worth it. Teachers don't know what they are teaching, if you plagiarize you get expelled. You should plagiarize, but improve on the original thought. How can you grow if not using the ideas of others, improving on them... sharing. Rules are set forth for so called "free speech" you have to have so many implications. Why... To have so called free thinking and being so futuristic.. we have these objectives we have to achieve for this letter that means nothing so we can receive a fucking peice of paper to hang on the wall and show people, see I'm smart, I went to college.

SARAH AGAIN:

"Have you ever noticed the amount of commercial messages on the freeway? and every vehicle driving past has its radio on, sending out even more commercial messages. In poinf of fact, it's estimated that Americans listen to three thousand messages every day--of what is more probable, they don't listen to them. Psychologists have determined that the sheer volume of messages creates a kind of anesthesia, which becomes ingrained over time. In a saturated media environment, all messages lose impact.

The saturation today is global, huge messages, including large screen video, appear in public squares, along motorways, in tube stations, train depots. We place videos of point of sale in retail stores. In toilets, in waiting rooms, pubs and restaurants. In airport lounges and aboard aircraft.

Furthermore, we have conquered personal space. Logos, brands, and slogans appear on the ordinary objects from knives to tableware to computers. They appear on all our possessions. Consumers wear logos on their clothing, handbags, shoes, jewelery. Indeed it is rare for a person to appear in public without them. Thirty years ago, if anyone predicted that the entire global public would turn themselves into sandwhich boards, walking about advertising products, the idea would have seemed illogical. Yet IT HAS HAPPENED,"

I posted a quote a little while ago, and since then I've been impressed by the bombardment of advertising.

You can't look at a word without reading it. Try it. And as I'm trying to drive somewhere, I'm always distracted by the signs on the side of the road... sometimes that say.."pay attention to the road" how more ironic could that be? I wonder how many people get into traffic accidents by looking at these signs..

Marketting is so sly that they sell us things that kill us, and we know it! They package poison and we willingly run out and buy it! DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS?

Smoking... milions of people know that it leads to death..not maybe, totally... alcohol.... candy...soda... we are sold things that we not only do not need, but that are harmful to us, and yet we buy on.

We buy billboards for ourselves to advertise some scumbag companies logo so that more people can go and waste their existance on being a tool.