In today's world, especially in semi-developed societies where the most basic needs are satisfied, people's "content" and "package" can't be completely dissociated: we all have our own values, attitudes towards life, love, family or work, political positioning, cultural/intellectual interests, things we consider to be priorities and other that we deem irrelevant and all of them might lead to different choices regarding, say, the newspaper we decide to read, the restaurants and bars we frequent, the clothes we decide to wear, our haircut and facial hair style, consumption habits (cell phones and electronic items....), etc.
They say "function precedes form", and it may pretty well apply to this case as well. Even when someone brags about not following the trend like the hapless sheep, they are making a fashion statement, as it is important to them not to look like the rest, and therefore, they like looking in a certain way.
Read this interesting article on one of today's most easily recognizable urban trends.
After having done so, you can discuss about the following issues:
- Do you think your appearance/ interests say something about you?
- Are you concerned at all about looking in a certain way/ having a particular kind of interests/ political and intellectual stance?
- Do you believe in first impressions? Have you ever been misled by one? Have some of your first impressions about certain people proven right?
We can not dennied that our society is made of appearances. Starting from Television up to social media (Instagram, facebook, etc) we witness a huge amount of people who want to show up at any cost. Even the youngest are using these tools to communicate their way to be .
ReplyDeleteEven on the everyday life we use appearance to express our personality.As long as I am concerned I do not really mind about my appearance as my work does not require a certain dress –code. I usually wear casual and comfy clothes as they make me feel more confident and relaxed. Even if I like wearing casual I have to say that it is important to appear accordingly to certain kinds of situations where you must wear sharp clothes .Apart from this I am not expressing any particular beliefs or political views throughout my aspect.
As I am an easy-going person I mostly do not judge people by the first impression. An exception is when their look is extreme for example a punk in a push restaurant or even a suit-dress man in Mercadona . Once I met I guy in a chinese shop dressed in a suit an at the first sight I thought: Did not this guy have the time to go home and change? But the fate wanted I had the chance to have a chat with him an he actually was a very cool guy. On the other hand once I interviewed a person who did not come with the appropriate dress and also behaved nervously. He was not experienced but I decided to give him a chance an he did not let me down.