Here we go again.....

So my first assignment for my Youth Culture and Visual Media class was to write 250 in response to a few articles and I was like HEYYY I've got this easy! And you know what? It was! I mean it wasn't easy in the sense of thinking and understanding the articles, but it was easy in the sense that I knew the time it would take me, and how to think about it. Anyways, these responses aren't very good sooo hopefully the one tonight will be. 

Anyways, our articles were about ideology, culture, and the culture industry. Ideology and Culture—two words that have evolved from the late eighteenth century to now. To start, Grossberg notices how ideology started when people “wanted to bring the new scientific method to an understanding of the mind” (Grossberg 2). To solve complicated questions, ideology was created. However, it changed when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels thought that ideology was more expressionism. In the end, Grossberg connects their ideas to the earlier ones when both groups were looking for the answer. They both wanted to attain “knowledge” (Grossberg 3). Again as we travel through time, ideology gains different connotations.  Ideology, as I understand, is how we solve problems or the path we take to solve problems. It’s when we use current knowledge to solve problems that in return, answer complicated questions. However, I believe it can be used in different ways. Ideology gives me two different vibes—one: how we solve problems and two: the nonrealistic way of doing things. Culture on the other hand, according to Williams, started as “an abstract process or the product of such a process” (4). I agree with the idea that came later stating that culture is what you are born into in a sense. It is how the world around you works—what you believe in, how you celebrate events, music, etc. Culture surrounds us and makes us who we are. 

In reading Adorno’s article, I understand that culture industry is what we consume based off of what is going on in the current time and where we are living; however, we are not controlling the market. I had actually never thought of it that way. I always have thought that the consumers are in control. But designers make it first, throw it at us, and see what we give and take. They’re baiting us to see if we like worms or grasshoppers better. But the industry seems to be on a loop. Adorno says it “fuses the old and familiar into a new quality” (1). For instance: overalls. Overalls were very popular in the 90s and even the 00s. They went out of style and now when you go to a store you see overalls! Except they are short and have holes in them because that is what young adults think is attractive or hip or what-have-you. They threw the overalls back on the line and added what we as consumers think looks good. Adorno tells us that media, specifically movies, is the “central sector of the culture industry” (3). That is how the culture industry works. They create the situation in which we decide what we want.