Fashion: Does it Affect Us?
More than ever, the mass media communicates with people across the world and injects subtle nuances that shift opinions and alter fashion, music, and the lifestyles of the masses. This is because the mass media is literally impossible to escape in a modern lifestyle.
So does what we see on television really change our fashion tastes, for instance? Do pop stars and their fashion set new bars or trends for the masses? The answer is a bit complicated.
Many do follow these fashion trends actively and subscribe to new styles, accessorizing like their favourite stars and setting aside money to buy new designers clothing. Conversely, counter-culture movements seek to go against these trends, but they do not completely avoid them. Humans are wired socially, so the human brain attempts to convince us that we should conform to some group so we do not become outcasts. To do this, the brain helps us conform so we become a part of the mass, using social camouflage. Even those who refuse to be a part of “popular” culture are following trends. Counter-culture movements do not avoid the ties of conformity, and actively make fashion and lifestyle choices just like popular culture. They dress like the idols of their movement, or claim to dress “for themselves” but really try and dress like the other members of their clique to blend in.
Pop magazines are filled with endless pages that describe “what’s in” and “what’s out”. Each issue covers new fashions and trends, calling to action that readers consider tossing those season-old boots away for a newer pair with less fur, for example.
Since the advent of the Internet, new information reaches our homes faster than ever before. This means that trends move at lightning speed. In the span of a few months, everyone could be wearing a shirt that jokes about a current Internet phenomenon or “meme” then suddenly abandon the meme as it grows far too old to be relevant and trendy.
It is true then that fashion trends are inescapable. Humans as social animals attempt to fit in with the rest of their kind for survival. It is a mechanism that cannot be abandoned until we have found a way to completely overcome our nature. Scientists have devoted decades of study to conformity, but the results have been inconclusive in finding methods for individual humans to break away from the social mesh.
