Aaron Devor Your Generalized Other Analysis

Your Generalized Other In the article “Becoming Members of Society” Aaron Devor states, “Media images constitute part of the “generalized other”- the internalized sense of what is socially acceptable and unacceptable” A study showed that 54% of teenagers are unhappy with themselves and another 40% feel left out. It’s crazy to realize that a great deal of our concern with being socially acceptable spreads it’s fingers into everything we do in our everyday life’s. I believe that the things that have been the most influential to my “generalized other” have been magazines, the usage of makeup at a young age, and teen drinking. What is the first thing that you see when you open up a Victoria Secret Catalog? Long-haired, flat-tummied, and perfect

Whenever I see a 12-year-old girl walking by wearing a full face of makeup, I think to myself why someone so young and fragile would feel the need to wear that much makeup on a daily bases. And then I think of my childhood. Growing up, I remember putting on makeup was something I loved to play with. Every morning, I would watch my mother change her appearance in minutes using makeup and I would think to myself, “I want to do that”. I’d grab the leopard print bag containing the “dress up” cosmetics from my mom’s drawers and excitedly cover my face with red eyeshadow and pink blush before filling in my eyebrows with a black eyeliner while thinking to myself that I would be doing this for many more years in order to look like my mom and be able to look pretty. Little did I know how much of a movement the beauty industry and society would have on me and the generations after mine. Growing up, wearing the latest flavor of Lip Smacker was the trend, and now wearing a full face with highlight is the trend. A lot of girls growing up including myself, in my generation feel that in order to accept yourself with how you look in the outside, how much makeup a girl wears is going to improve that. I always told myself growing up that if there’s any way to hide your flaws to do so, and that’s what makeup does. As a result to all of this, girls are now growing up with the idea that their natural looks are not socially

Being in college, you experience many new things; one of them being college parties. Attending college parties can be fun, but can you really have fun while being sober? Being a student, alcohol at college parties is served to you like nothing; drink after drink and before you know it you’re down five cups of that mysterious juice. But, why do students like to drink at parties? Most students say they drink to have fun, to lower their shyness, and to enhance their own of sense of attractiveness. Teen drinking is perfectly portrayed in television like “13 Reasons Why” where a bunch of high schoolers were shown drinking at a house party. Being in college taught me that if I want to fit in, I have to drink at parties, which sounds bizarre, but true. I mean, who wants to be sober when everyone else is having fun? Young people are bombarded with people drinking and examples of drinking everywhere, on TV, magazines, movies, and even social media. Although, we want to feel and act like a grown up while we drink, we really