Language is just how we communicate, or so I thought up until this week. Language actually defines who we are, our values, how we view the world, and how we view ourselves.  We need language to communicate with each other though, to prosper in the world. But how do we do this when everyone in the world generally speaks a different language? We pass judgment on many other languages that we don’t speak for the main reason that we just don’t understand them. This creates the cultural line, stopping much communication between people of different descents. Just imagine when you’re at the nail salon (if you happen to go from time to time) and you are greeted by an Asian woman or man, once you sit down and you pedicure or manicure is started and the workers start to talk amongst themselves. We stare in awe at them as we assume that they are talking about how we didn’t want to upgrade to the deluxe pedicure. When for all we know they could be talking about daily normalcies. Because of this lack of knowledge of different languages, we just assume things, assuming the worst. Languages are just so different they create this wall between us, keeping ideas from being shared, stopping the ever so changing world.

And with that, the above paragraph has been edited to perfection, so every English speaker could understand the message being sent forth. And it continues to be edited as I make continuous errors even writing this sentence. With the ever-prospering technology, comes the ability for a computer, phone, tablet, etc. to basically talk and convey our messages for us. As a teenager, I could say that about 50% of the teenage population text-talks. I’m sure if you listened to any conversations in the hallway you’ll have heard “Lol”, “omg” or the recently popular “rt” which stands for the twitter use of retweet. Because technology has taken such an important role in our life, primarily texting, we have adapted to continuing to text-talk outside of our phones. Auto correct is a different story, we have adapted to understanding the many common auto correction, *uck to duck, u to you, etc. We have also learned to ignore the absolute insane auto corrections; we just wait for the person we are texting to correct themselves, and then blame it on auto correct.

As technology continues to advance and take bigger and bigger roles in our lives, it will eventually take over entirely. I could see the text-talking becoming the normal talk, just to save time, and just because it’ll be the normal way of talking. Although I do hope that the most of our generation tries to stop themselves from making this drastic change, and at least stop themselves from text-talking to their parents, teachers, or any other elders. Technology will develop the new social norm for the basic human being, taking over our lives more and more…..*drags out for suspense and effect* each day.

Many of us (women) debate which shaving cream is the best, which leaves our skin moisturized and looking smooth. We see advertisements for silky, smooth, and skinny legs, which lead us on in a way. We want to achieve this look of skinny, tanned, smooth legs, even though we know this shaving cream won’t change our size and look of our legs. So why do we still buy into this?

In this ad you see a very tanned and skinny leg on the scene of a beach. The person is wearing a white dress that makes her tanned, smooth leg pop, this was very orchestrated by the company, wanting it to seem very natural and relaxed, but in reality this shot probably took many times to get just right. Then your eye next is pulled to the glowing shaving cream, which is very tropical, bight and enticing to the eye. The bottles seem to give off an aura. In the very middle of the ad you see in bold, white text; which reads “Deliciously smooth”, the ad is comparing the feel of our legs to the taste of food, what a classic move. Advertisements seem to always compare the look of things, in this case legs, to the emotional taste and feel of food. Now let me point this out, if the ad used a very pale girls leg, would you still want this shaving cream? The knee of this leg seems to be smoothed; no edge or curve seems to stand out. The more and more you look at this leg you see how photo shopped and unrealistic it is, its perfectly tanned and smooth to capture their slogan “deliciously smooth”.  And what a unique name for a shaving cream company…. “Shave”. The company also uses very bright and enticing colors for their bottles, because we all know when we go to the store, the bottle that sticks out the most, being the prettiest is going to be the one we pick up, the one the teenage girl begs their mother for, all because the bottle is pretty.  What a smart move.

WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA…..

Alright, I’m going to make the assumption that EVERYONE has seen at least one episode (maybe not a full episode) of Spongebob Squarepants. Am I right? Well if you don’t know this cartoon series is about a Sponge, named Spongebob Squarpants who lives in a pineapple under the sea * cues music* and dedicates his life to his job at the Krusty Krab. He lives in the city of Bikini Bottom. Citizens of this city get around on boatmobiles. In almost every episode it establishes the clear competition of the two restaurants (or lack of competition) the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket owned by the evil Plankton. Most reoccurring characters are: Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick star, Squidward Tentacles, and Mr. Krabs. Secondary characters include: Pearl, Sandy, Mrs. Puff, Plankton, and Larry.

In all episodes of Spongebob there is an unequal ratio of females to males. The characters that are in all episodes are Spongebob, Patrick, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs, all males. But Spongebob serves as the median between male and female traits, he is presented as a male on the show, but often portrays female traits/actions. For example he often bats his eyelashes, blushes, clasps his hands together and jumps around and also changes the pitch of his voice, sounding feminine. In doing this it shows children the stereotypical ideas of what’s masculine and what is considered feminine.

This show also states how competition is an important factor in the society we live in today. It shows that all restaurants are always in competition, constantly trying to one-up each other. For example, Plankton, owner of the Chum Bucket, is in such a competition with Mr. Krabs, owner of the Krusty Krab, that he constantly tried to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula from the Krusty Krab. He wants to steal this to make his business a more successful enterprise. But in all of Planktons attempts to steal this formula he fails, which also shows an important factor that evil never wins.            

Starbucks: I exceed a 14 on the ph scale

You wake up, feeling very groggy, what do you need? That’s right, coffee, specifically a double shot venti espresso, no foam. As you walk into Starbucks you instantly are put in a studious environment. Couches line the back wall, and many chairs and table filled with students and business workers on their laptops typing away. If you choose to stay you are welcome, if not you need to match the step of the baristas and hurry your way out as soon as you get your coffee. You step up to the cashier, finally after waiting in a line you thought would never end, you order. The sizes are a little different here, it goes: tall, grande, venti and then trenta, Starbucks, all about being fancy with their naming and what not.  The barista asks for your name, writes it on your cup, because you know how important it is to make sure everything is personalized in Starbucks. Of course they make you spell out your name if it is on the more complicated side, can’t spell the customers name wrong! The barista may make a joke or two about your name, maybe even compliment you saying something like “very unique name” or “very weird way to spell your name, but hey its different!”.  Finally after at least 5 minutes you hear “double shot venti espresso for “your name””. Got to make sure everyone gets the right coffee, have to call out your order with your name on it!

Now you may think to yourself “why did I just pay $3.25 for a large (although a large is called a venti size….ooo fancy) for a coffee?” Why did Starbucks come up with their own names for the different sizes of coffee? Why is everything so overpriced? They want you to know the “luxury” of their coffee; the big comfy leather chairs and couches should key you in right there. You’re paying for the cups that are good quality so the coffee doesn’t leak through, the name, the couches, the free wifi, you can stay as long as you want to study! They want you to feel the luxury as soon as you walk in, the business studious environment, only for serious people, with serious attitudes towards their career and/or grades.

Society v.s. Individual

Have we lost our ability to communicate?

            Okay I want everyone to think about the last time they had a heart to heart conversation. But the conversation had to happen in person, not over text messages, not over social media, in person. We’ve lost our basic communication skills as a society, nothing has meaning anymore, nothing is sincere. Talk to you later has turned into “TTYL”, I love you to “ILY”, see you later to “C u later”. And now, this has affected our ability to grow up, put down the phone, get a job, and use proper communication skills. We’ve lost the ability to transition to formal grammar and communication at the right times.

            We’re growing up in a time when elementary school children rather play on their iPads rather than go outside and play with their friends, us high-schoolers rather facetime or text rather than go out, we stay in our room all night texting someone who’s just in the room next to ours. We don’t even want to talk to our parents face to face, I even find myself texting my mom while we are both in the same house, “how was your day?”, “what’s for dinner?”, “can you bring my backpack into my room?”. We are educating this society, this generation, in such a way that we lack to ability to work together, and communicate effectively. In Midnight;s Children, Saleem had his own way of losing his social skills, instead of losing them because of technology; he lost them because of the midnight’s children.  Once he discovers these “voices inside his head”, and discovers he can talk to the children all born at midnight when India gained its independence, he becomes an introvert. We lose our social skills, affecting us as we leave college, we leave college book smart, ready to tackle on a job, but here we are for our job interview and we can’t even get halfway through it because we can’t even seem to answer a couple questions about ourselves. 

            Cells communicate by sending and receiving signals, much like how we communicate by talking to another person, we “send” or say what we need to say and the other person “receives” our message and responds. In cells the way to trigger a response is by the signals transmitting across the cell membrane, our words that we say to another person affect them, letting our words soak into their brain “across the membrane” in order to “trigger” a response. Yes, I did just bring biology into this.

            So maybe we should put down the phones and discover and enjoy life not through a screen.