Harrison Quick
The Illusion of Age
Social norms, guidelines for all people in the social world, allow people to thrive. Socialization is a process people live by to develop norms, behavior, and social skills. Norms are usually reflected upon as ridiculous customs people live by in their daily lives to fit in with everyone else associated with their socialization. However, there are good norms that cover areas like health. This includes brushing your teeth twice a day. But I would like to focus on the bad social norms regarding age. Through the use of this mask, I have decided to attempt to reverse the cycle of socialization, a cycle everyone is a part of that runs social norms through socialization, of age. This cycle’s birthplace consists of the media, a way of communication and influence on the citizens of a population, and sets social norms. Close to never do you find people above the age of fifty modeling for a new brand of shirts, or saving the United States from a nuclear-charged meteor falling from the sky in a movie. In fact, the only time you really do see these kinds of people is in immature comedies or sad movies, which can actually be rather insulting. Thus proven, the message the media is trying to send is that people should only be accepted into society as a socially normal person as long as they’re between the ages of 4 and 40. There is actually no real specific age range the media is trying to present, but 4-40 is an educated generalization.
Another target I could benefit from focusing on (being that I am within it) is the teenage age group. They are often judged by their age. These people are mainly sought out to be lazy, unreliable, crazy, etc. and are therefore judged by these characteristics, which may not even be consistent throughout all teenagers. I have had these kinds of experiences. For example, I tried to get a job at one point not too long ago at all. As it turns out, teenagers aren’t trustworthy enough to show up on time, what with all the high school drama, and what not. I’m sure these experiences can also apply to many other teenagers.
Every time you look at someone throughout the duration of your life, they might look a little different each time. In my mask, I have used an optical illusion, a seemingly changing to the human eye, however unchanging image to symbolize my efforts. It may appear constantly changing the more you look at it, but you need to take in mind that this is just a painting on a mask, and therefore unimportant. What we need to realize, as a human body, is that people are all human, and regardless of age, should be treated in the same manner. This goes without saying that you still shouldn’t go out and feed a baby alcohol, because while people’s personalities, which may be defined as a classification of one’s actions, stay consistent throughout the main chunk of their lives, they go through seriously dramatic changes, and that also needs to be respected. Still, people are constantly being judged wrongly by their age. I had known someone who had recently skipped a grade, and was equally mature in comparison to everyone, but she was still treated like a baby, although she was only about a year younger than anyone else in the grade. Sometimes, humanity needs to break free from listening to everything the media is trying to tell them.
People all have personalities that vary regardless of age. Many people may act “younger” or “older” than they actually are, but these judgments, I have recently realized, are way off. This is because there is a set format for social norms per age group. These regulations, I should call them, were most likely taken as an average from a large group of people. People noticed differences between each other through observation, and later became social norms, sometimes through wrong judgment. That is what I am referring to. Now, everyone knows people are all below or above average, but just a select few are almost exact. This should apply to these regulations, and they should expand to cover more ages. Still, there are some people who don’t fall under these guidelines, based on other categories. This would mainly be ability compared to inability, but that is all a completely different matter.
As humans, our personalities stay consistently similar to what they originally were, regardless of age, throughout the main chunk of our lives. This does not include, however, dramatic personality changing points in our lives, like childbirth, mental development changes throughout our teenage years, etc. We begin to shape to our personalities during our earliest years of age. I have applied this to the mask, because when it was first being created, it underwent the most changes. And, I have also included the fact that once our personalities set in, they stay about the same for most of our lives, because after the creation of this mask, it went through no other changes. Still, through the final years of our lives, as I referred to sudden life changes earlier, we change both physically and mentally. Our bodies become vulnerable, meaning more susceptible, to illness, mental illness, etc. I have known a few people with a terrifying condition called Alzheimer’s. This condition gives people mental disorders, including memory distortion. Also, it nears you severely closer to death. Now, all of these people were 80 and older. Although this is a huge factor in the receiving of this illness, the media over-stresses this in movies, shows, magazines, etc. This would be considered a generalization, which is, once again, completely over-emphasized.
The media, spanning from Television, Magazines, Internet, Radio, and much more needs to recognize its wrongdoing. By this, I mean its bad influence on humanity through the setting of bad social norms. Now, I’m not saying this to a point of something, more like someone, because the media, of course, consists of many different people. Although we don’t realize it, each and every person working for the media has a huge impact on modern civilization. I say this while considering all the people who research how America’s population acts and reacts to different products, or styles. This might be an occasional job, not exactly an occupation, for people like photographers and editors of magazines, and they take the information based on the actions and reactions shown by America’s population, and create more products, photos, etc. Now, there are many factors involved in this idea with its association with age, because older people usually have wrinkled, worn skin, and are therefore not often featured in magazines or movies, and people have seemed to base the elderly off of this, when really, they are not so different from anyone else.
The main age group that the media seems to focus more on is the young adults. I have observed this in all categories in the media. I think this is the model age group, because while they are fresh, mostly healthy, and have great skin, however have a fresh sense of freedom, like in areas such as driving, better ability to get a good job application, and beyond. This group consists of people from about the ages 15 to their mid-20s. However, we still must look past all this straight down to these kinds of peoples’ personalities. They are not that different from anyone else’s, whether they are 16 or 90.
Also, all things that were given life only have one life. Trees, seemingly lifeless objects that surround us everywhere, do have life, but still have only one. Plants, animals, and anything else that has life, only has one. It’s not like we can go through life, but come back whenever we need to and reverse aging. It’s just not possible. Everyone needs to realize that there are different stages in our lives, but they only happen once. Once you go through a stage, there is no going back. You can have all the fun as you want as a teenager in high school, but eventually, life will pass you by. With aging comes different treatment from everyone, including the media, even loved ones in your family. This will cut you off from the world, your true personality, everything you have come to know, leaving you an old, tossed-out tool used by the whole world, used for observation, to supposedly make the world a better place. But, once again, there is no going back. That is why this mask symbolizes how I’m trying to break this negative cycle of socialization, because the media is wrong in it’s doing, hiding people from their true personalities.
With the use of an optical illusion, I am trying to symbolize my efforts in breaking the negative age cycle of socialization. The featured illusion is what some people call a curving-in square, which should be self-explanatory. Others might call it a pyramid from a bird’s-eye-view, meaning what a pyramid would look like from directly up above. After a while of looking at it, though, anyone can see it from both perspectives, constantly changing between the two as they look at it. But, under that constantly-changing surface is the same old mask, relating to the personality of any human being, never changing.
The Illusion of Age
Social norms, guidelines for all people in the social world, allow people to thrive. Socialization is a process people live by to develop norms, behavior, and social skills. Norms are usually reflected upon as ridiculous customs people live by in their daily lives to fit in with everyone else associated with their socialization. However, there are good norms that cover areas like health. This includes brushing your teeth twice a day. But I would like to focus on the bad social norms regarding age. Through the use of this mask, I have decided to attempt to reverse the cycle of socialization, a cycle everyone is a part of that runs social norms through socialization, of age. This cycle’s birthplace consists of the media, a way of communication and influence on the citizens of a population, and sets social norms. Close to never do you find people above the age of fifty modeling for a new brand of shirts, or saving the United States from a nuclear-charged meteor falling from the sky in a movie. In fact, the only time you really do see these kinds of people is in immature comedies or sad movies, which can actually be rather insulting. Thus proven, the message the media is trying to send is that people should only be accepted into society as a socially normal person as long as they’re between the ages of 4 and 40. There is actually no real specific age range the media is trying to present, but 4-40 is an educated generalization.
Another target I could benefit from focusing on (being that I am within it) is the teenage age group. They are often judged by their age. These people are mainly sought out to be lazy, unreliable, crazy, etc. and are therefore judged by these characteristics, which may not even be consistent throughout all teenagers. I have had these kinds of experiences. For example, I tried to get a job at one point not too long ago at all. As it turns out, teenagers aren’t trustworthy enough to show up on time, what with all the high school drama, and what not. I’m sure these experiences can also apply to many other teenagers.
Every time you look at someone throughout the duration of your life, they might look a little different each time. In my mask, I have used an optical illusion, a seemingly changing to the human eye, however unchanging image to symbolize my efforts. It may appear constantly changing the more you look at it, but you need to take in mind that this is just a painting on a mask, and therefore unimportant. What we need to realize, as a human body, is that people are all human, and regardless of age, should be treated in the same manner. This goes without saying that you still shouldn’t go out and feed a baby alcohol, because while people’s personalities, which may be defined as a classification of one’s actions, stay consistent throughout the main chunk of their lives, they go through seriously dramatic changes, and that also needs to be respected. Still, people are constantly being judged wrongly by their age. I had known someone who had recently skipped a grade, and was equally mature in comparison to everyone, but she was still treated like a baby, although she was only about a year younger than anyone else in the grade. Sometimes, humanity needs to break free from listening to everything the media is trying to tell them.
People all have personalities that vary regardless of age. Many people may act “younger” or “older” than they actually are, but these judgments, I have recently realized, are way off. This is because there is a set format for social norms per age group. These regulations, I should call them, were most likely taken as an average from a large group of people. People noticed differences between each other through observation, and later became social norms, sometimes through wrong judgment. That is what I am referring to. Now, everyone knows people are all below or above average, but just a select few are almost exact. This should apply to these regulations, and they should expand to cover more ages. Still, there are some people who don’t fall under these guidelines, based on other categories. This would mainly be ability compared to inability, but that is all a completely different matter.
As humans, our personalities stay consistently similar to what they originally were, regardless of age, throughout the main chunk of our lives. This does not include, however, dramatic personality changing points in our lives, like childbirth, mental development changes throughout our teenage years, etc. We begin to shape to our personalities during our earliest years of age. I have applied this to the mask, because when it was first being created, it underwent the most changes. And, I have also included the fact that once our personalities set in, they stay about the same for most of our lives, because after the creation of this mask, it went through no other changes. Still, through the final years of our lives, as I referred to sudden life changes earlier, we change both physically and mentally. Our bodies become vulnerable, meaning more susceptible, to illness, mental illness, etc. I have known a few people with a terrifying condition called Alzheimer’s. This condition gives people mental disorders, including memory distortion. Also, it nears you severely closer to death. Now, all of these people were 80 and older. Although this is a huge factor in the receiving of this illness, the media over-stresses this in movies, shows, magazines, etc. This would be considered a generalization, which is, once again, completely over-emphasized.
The media, spanning from Television, Magazines, Internet, Radio, and much more needs to recognize its wrongdoing. By this, I mean its bad influence on humanity through the setting of bad social norms. Now, I’m not saying this to a point of something, more like someone, because the media, of course, consists of many different people. Although we don’t realize it, each and every person working for the media has a huge impact on modern civilization. I say this while considering all the people who research how America’s population acts and reacts to different products, or styles. This might be an occasional job, not exactly an occupation, for people like photographers and editors of magazines, and they take the information based on the actions and reactions shown by America’s population, and create more products, photos, etc. Now, there are many factors involved in this idea with its association with age, because older people usually have wrinkled, worn skin, and are therefore not often featured in magazines or movies, and people have seemed to base the elderly off of this, when really, they are not so different from anyone else.
The main age group that the media seems to focus more on is the young adults. I have observed this in all categories in the media. I think this is the model age group, because while they are fresh, mostly healthy, and have great skin, however have a fresh sense of freedom, like in areas such as driving, better ability to get a good job application, and beyond. This group consists of people from about the ages 15 to their mid-20s. However, we still must look past all this straight down to these kinds of peoples’ personalities. They are not that different from anyone else’s, whether they are 16 or 90.
Also, all things that were given life only have one life. Trees, seemingly lifeless objects that surround us everywhere, do have life, but still have only one. Plants, animals, and anything else that has life, only has one. It’s not like we can go through life, but come back whenever we need to and reverse aging. It’s just not possible. Everyone needs to realize that there are different stages in our lives, but they only happen once. Once you go through a stage, there is no going back. You can have all the fun as you want as a teenager in high school, but eventually, life will pass you by. With aging comes different treatment from everyone, including the media, even loved ones in your family. This will cut you off from the world, your true personality, everything you have come to know, leaving you an old, tossed-out tool used by the whole world, used for observation, to supposedly make the world a better place. But, once again, there is no going back. That is why this mask symbolizes how I’m trying to break this negative cycle of socialization, because the media is wrong in it’s doing, hiding people from their true personalities.
With the use of an optical illusion, I am trying to symbolize my efforts in breaking the negative age cycle of socialization. The featured illusion is what some people call a curving-in square, which should be self-explanatory. Others might call it a pyramid from a bird’s-eye-view, meaning what a pyramid would look like from directly up above. After a while of looking at it, though, anyone can see it from both perspectives, constantly changing between the two as they look at it. But, under that constantly-changing surface is the same old mask, relating to the personality of any human being, never changing.
