So, what did everyone do last weekend for Mother's Day? Celebration? Dinner? Give mom a hug and kiss and say thank you for raising you? Yeah, well mines didn't exactly go like that. I celebrated it a little differently from what most of us would do for our mom on Mother's Day. That's because instead of celebrating it with my mom, I went camping with my roommates and friends! My mom wasn't too pleased of course. In fact, we had one really interesting conversation on the phone.
So I was playing Halo 3 on my roommate's xbox 360 and then .. *Rinnngg Rinnng* .. Looks at my phone.. "Mom"... AW S***..
Me: Hi mom
Mom: Hi son, you coming home for Mother's Day this weekend right?
Me: *light chuckle* About that, mom.. I'm going camping with my roommates this weekend.
Mom: Do you know what day it is this weekend? Who are you going camping with again?
Me: I'm going with my roommates.
Mom: Why are you guys going camping this weekend? Why on Mother's Day? Do they know it's Mother's Day this weekend? I don't think they know it is. Tell them it's Mother's Day.
Me (to roommates): YOU GUYS KNOW ITS MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND RIGHT? MY MOM WANTS TO MAKE SURE YOU GUYS KNOW!
Roommates: *laughing* Yeah, we know.
Me (back to Mom): yeah they know.
Mom: Okay then.. Have fun camping. Do be safe. And don't forget to call back on Mother's Day! Remember to call Grandma too!
Me: Yeah, yeah okay mom. I'm getting killed here in the game! I will talk to you later! Bye!
So, that's the conversation I had with my mom before camping. So during camping, consumerism and fashion came to my mind. I was just walking around looking at everything since it's my first time camping. We had a lot of equipments. Tiki torch, lanterns, firewood, chairs, tents, sleeping bags, etc. But I felt like everything was limited. The food we are going to eat, the water we are going to drink, the oil we use to light the tiki torches with, the clothes we are going to wear, the firewood we are going to burn.. Because of this limitation, we are forced to consume everything wisely. We had a schedule of what to eat and when to eat, when to build camp fire, what we need to use water for, etc. But I was thinking, we can survive off of this for one whole weekend- 3 days and 2 nights. So why can't we do the same thing in our everyday life? Like get into a habit where we can limit our consumption?
In the article "Gabriel Tarde" by Gwen Williams, wrote that a French theorist named Gabriel Tarde came up with 3 imitation laws. 1) People have greater tendency to imitate fashions and customs those who they are in most contact with. 2)Imitation spreads from top down. 3)New fashion replaces old. So I was thinking, our friends probably are the ones that hangs out with us most and since we are learning about consumerism, why don't we show them how it's done and what we learned, since they are most likely to imitate what we do? Also, our siblings and other "youngn's" looks up to us, so if they see that we are going green and not consume as much, maybe they will do the same. Lastly, fighting consumerism might be a new thing- a new trend- if more people know more about it. Just a thought.
Kawamura wrote that "Imitation, which is at the basis i making an analysis of fashion, is typically a view from above since it assumes that social inferiors envy superiors and engage in imitative activities to emulate their 'betters' in order to gain recognition and even entry into the privileged group." (20)People imitate others to "fit-in." So if the cooler group of kids starts to fight consuming, maybe others will too! And since we are in Asian American Studies and in Valverde's class, we are the cooler kids. So let's show all those biosci major kids and computer science kids, who's boss! .. by fighting consumerism.. haha
Here is a movie trailer on the movie "Ping Pong Playa"! It's about how this guy became the little kids role model and big brother and how they start imitating what he do, say, and WEAR!
-Ivan Lee (Blog #3)
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Williams, Glen. Gabriel Tarde. 16 May 2009. http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/tarde.htm
Kawamura
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