This morning's short video has now been published. In it, I argue that you're not normal. You're unique, special, different. We all are. So why does marketing and the market try to force us all to behave as if we are part of a herd of identical people? Why can't they live with our differences?
The transcript is:
You're not normal.
Nor am I.
And that's good for both of us. Because, frankly, we don't want to be normal. We want to stand out from a crowd. We want to be different. We want to be identifiable. That's called having character. And why not? Doesn't everybody want to have a little bit of themselves to display to others?
So why then is society so determined that we should be normal?
They advertise as if there are stereotypical people.
They sell us products as if we all want to look the same. Just watch fashion and you'll see what I mean.
What is it about the whole of market-based society that tries to force us into being normal, when the reality is that all of us are distinctly different in certain ways, and we feel stress because of this pressure brought to bear on us to be normal?
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I couldn’t resist posting this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXI9RJSgok
I immediately thought of…
https://youtu.be/QereR0CViMY?si=5YZ6PrxcDsvQgCAy
But Ill take the Bonzos too
Thank you. You pipped me at the post. The lyrics from this Vivian Stanshell classic have, over the decades, become call and response familial mantras in response to our increasingly bizarre social intolerances.
Indeed at it worst this average is representative myth, is particularly damaging in the services sector like leisure and health and social care.
Since people aren’t distributed in a “normal” (aka right angle) distribution, the concept but are instead on a skewed distribution, treating them as “average” means most get more than they want or need. And about a third get insufficient to help them. So vast waste is built in helping speed up the destruction of all life on the planet.
Richard, what they mean by being normal is that they want us to confirm to the views that politicians find acceptable. They want sheep who are happy to be herded in the direction that their paymasters dictate.
Rational economic man – one of the key assumptions of neo-liberalism, everybody with full knowledge. Normal.
In current society everybody spends so much time looking different they all look the same (or differing only marginally).
Marketing relies on being told that we are different in a bad way, which can be solved by an inexpensive purchase.
We should be celebrating our difference because we have much more in common.
I AM normal. Well, normal for me, anyway.
🙂
Here is someone who is certainly not acting ‘normal’. Who else would, or could, get away with this?
https://t.co/NHxmb9YpcD
I know the US has it bad candidate wise but the UK has almost reached the Yank level.
See link below for a short dissertation on “not normal”:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/one-star-wince-at-joyce-mcmillans-scathing-review-of-the-sunak-vs-starmer-show-4681900?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2024-06-27-
Thanks
Worth reading
More to the point whats happened to the shirt!!
Summer plumage
I like that shirt. For the purpose of being telegenic, you look younger and slimmer, the shirt sets off you glasses (spectacles to be “U”) and the shirt makes your beard look less gray.
Also, you can wear black without looking like you are on your way to a funeral or are a sports referee.
You will also look good in navy blue!
Who is your stylist? I tip my hat!
I just read this to my stylist
She appreciates your comment
I was styled, I admit….
Yep — definitely helps RM look more normal………
Normal is a baseline where everything is at equilibrium. Everything is right. Every is in its right place. Everything is just. And there is a natural improvement in things which is known as progress.
No one has a right to complain.
It is a fantasy.
Don’t worry, be happy.
Entropy is the cure for all those ills, Bill.
and disorders.