Today’s corporations have found a way to become an essential part of human life, even if their products aren’t necessary for the survival of our species. On June 29th of 2007, Apple came out with the first iPhone that would go on to change the world forever. The iPhone would result in the further development …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Over the Counter at McDonald’s
McDonald’s, for the most part, has changed very little in the last 20 years of my life. This excerpt by Robin Leidner explains the uniformity that has driven Mcdonald’s success from a burger stand in San Bernardino, California to a billion-dollar corporation with nearly 40,000 stores worldwide. From the beginning, McDonald’s has strived to serve …
Nickled and Dimed
In this excerpt, Barbara Ehrenreich sets out to discover what life is like for the poor. She begins her journey by leaving behind everything that she knows, her home, her career, and her reputation are all to be forgotten. The first task on Barbara’s list is to find a place to live, she settles for …
Mandatory Blog Post: Is anything made in the U.S.A. anymore?
I begin the search for a “Made in the U.S.A.” tag by looking at the clothes I already have on. To my surprise my thrifted top, by Rebecca Virtue, was made in the U.S.A. which baffles me because I thought it was going to be a while before I found something that wasn’t made in …
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Shopping/Social Order
Consumer culture is incredibly important when it comes to a growing economy. Important factors like the idea that more stuff equals a better life is what drives people to but new products. There are different values associated with different areas of consumerism. For example, the automobile industry might have different values associated with it compared …
Mandatory Blog Post: Will the real Yesenia please stand up
I am going to present and compare multiple scenarios in which I believe my persona changes drastically. The first of which will be who I am when I’m interacting with people at my job. I like to describe my waitress persona as having only a “sprinkle of Yesenia.” This version of me is mostly fabricated. …
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If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably.
Obedience is the act of submitting to another’s authority. Children are taught to show their parents obedience from a very young age. They are constantly told what to do and are given consequences if they fail to follow their parents authority. Obedience is engraved into our brains and as we grow older, it seems like …
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Branding/The Self and Social Interaction
As children, we pay little attention to the things we wear. We throw on whatever is bright and colorful, paying no mind to the itchy, bothersome tags. As we grow older, these tags increase in personal value as we begin to shop for brands specific to our taste. We can observe the importance of brands …
Shopping for “we-ness”
As teenagers, there seems to be an obsession within all of us to fit in. We have this need within all of us to feel like we’re part of a greater whole. We’re convinced that to be a part of this, we must accumulate useless material possessions. Every year, there is a new product on …
Handling the Stigma of Handling the Dead
As a young girl, I believed that a funeral home was a place where people went to die. My idea of a funeral home was extremely skewed because I was a young girl who could not yet handle the reality of death. As I grew older, my understanding of what a funeral home was came …
A Sociology Blog 