"Why We Like What We Like"

Central Argument: The things we like and the things we dislike are influenced more by the things around us – our environment – rather than the way we feel and “who we are as a person.”

Essay:

We have new trends bombarding our daily lives with advertisements, with magazines commercials, and with movies that show everything we want but don’t have. We are also human beings and all we want to do is be part of the crowd, and not be socially outlasted by society. For that matter, being a social outcast is our biggest nightmare, whether we admit it or not. Everything around makes us want to be or have what society is presenting to us. This is evident with the way fashion has changed and with the way we have found the need for different types of electronic gadgets.

The fashion pattern in history seems to repeat itself every 20 years. I remember going through my mom’s old photos only to find that things were pretty much similar to what she wore when she was in college, when I was in middle school. There were a lot of solid colors, lot of flared jeans, a lot of scarves, and so on. Now, 5 years after that, the style has changed to short dresses, tight shirts, a lot of patterns, choosy jeans and so on. There has been a major shift in the way people dress up every few years. At Woodstock especially we notice, the fashion trends and changes among students quickly. One year you see people wearing bell bottoms and a plain t-shirt and sweat shirt and the a few years later you find people wearing animal prints, and patterns, and choosy jeans, and so on. People like the things that influence society because they don’t want to be classified as outcasts of society. They want to be part of the in crowd, and that is what most humans thrive and live for.

When it comes to gadgets, Apple products out ride every other company in the world. Apple is the biggest household name on the block and is the one who has made everyone change from PCs to Macs. 1990’s and the early 2000s consisted of mainly Windows products, as Apple was unsuccessful in winning over the ever-growing gadget seeking nation. After the MacBook came out, the change in demand of products were huge. Many started shifting from Windows to Macs. After a few people started with this, the majority of the technology population started buying Apple products. Apple became extremely famous after this. They came up with the iPhone, the iPod, the iTouch, the iPad, and so on. But why do people really buy these products? Because they are durable and reliable or because they are the in thing right now? I think that it’s because it’s the in thing. When my father bought his Mac, he bought it because it was of strong quality. That computer lasted him 10 years. When he bought me a Mac, the only thing that I though of was the way it looked and how everyone was going on about it being the best. I didn’t even consider my dad’s experience with it before buying the product. He just bought it for me, and I felt part of something – maybe the Apple revolution.

We focus too much on being accepted by everyone that we forget some times that we let them choose the way we become. But the reason why we like what we like is because we care about what others think of us.