Sunday, November 19, 2006

One of the greatest powers in the world is social proof. In our world this can be called fads, fashions or "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups". What this means is that if people are enjoying something, that means it's fun. Or something along those lines.

Perhaps our world isn't as capitalist as we thought, and free choice is nothing more than an illusion to make the masses happy. If you give the masses free choice, and they all gravitate towards the same direction anyway, there really isn't much of a difference.

Case in point : There are an awful lot of people(more than one isolated case) who don't have cable television, and hence are unable to watch Rockstar Supernova, and may not even have heard the music before, but are blindly strung along just because friends tell them it's good. You could attribute this to trusting your friends, but at the end of the day you're still being strung along. I won't deny that it's a fairly good show, easily dwarfing anything Singapore can come up with. But. If you're going to herald it as the best "bla blah blah" since "blah blah blah", you could at least give the show some dignity by watching it first. As you can tell, I've given up on listening to people for a while now.

As some of you might or might not know, Ryan Star came to Singapore recently. Now, he's not actually anybody big, nor is he exceptional. But the fact that he's a "rockstar" does get everyone excited, because, hey, he's a ROCKSTAR! That's pretty much it. It's effectively nothing but the social stigma of being a rockstar, kind of like a reverse poserism - It actually works. You have no idea how many idiots will act like fanatics just to say "I got a picture with ______!" for the simple fact that _____ is famous. Once again, social proof and reflected glory for people who can't get any of their own and can't live without it. For reference, please listen to "my band" by Eminem and d12.

Obviously, social proof, or "fashion trends", as the more conservative analytical may call it, is also behind some of the world's most shameful acts. Notice how protestors always show up in bulk. Some of theese protestors may in fact be indifferent, but seek a sense of unity with the community. If everyone is angry, then I need to be angry too, they think. In a similar sense, "There are so many shameless groupies nowadays, I should be one too!" or "Skimpy clothes are the in-thing right now, how can I not follow the trend?" The "Kiasu" mentatlity of Singaporeans plays a big part too, as it makes the problem even worse as nobody wants to lose out in any way. And it's eating the world alive.

And they say morality is still alive in this world. I'm not sure how it works, but just because everyone around you is/dresses like a slut does not give you the license to follow them and be both an idiot and a slut. In fact, it makes you look even dumber because the people who started it actually might be able to pull it off respectably, which probably can't be said for supposed imitators. People might say it's their choice and they dress how they like, but then it's not really their choice anymore, because in their minds they absolutely need to follow the crowd. And at the end of the day, society becomes a mish-mash of moral disasters, imitation DVDs that lack quality, and this bleeds all over, as you start to realise that nobody thinks differently anymore, opinions diluted by the wave of sociality. Such a trend takes away individuality, personal dignity and ultimately integrity, and trades it off for an invisible hollowness that people don't notice until it's too late.

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On a side note, please attend my funeral when it happens.Most likely on A level results day.

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