Advertising ourselves

Part of every person’s daily routine is picking out clothing; we take the time to carefully select an outfit that has the possibility of being visually pleasing both to us and to those around us, as well as something we can feel comfortable in.

From the moment we leave our homes, there is the possibility to be seen by strangers who consciously or unconsciously assess us based on the outfit we’ve spent so much time picking out. Hence, we have deliberately decided how we want to advertise ourselves to people we see on the street, or in school or at a job.

Every image we see is an advertisement. When you go to a restaurant, the food never looks like it does on the menu because the company is advertising their food in a way that is visually appealing and that will stimulate your desire to taste that food.

If the image doesn’t appeal to our tastes, we don’t want it. The same general idea can be applied to people.

For example, often people assume Goths aren’t the kind of people to be associated with because of the stereotypes surrounding the unorthodox nature of their culture: dark clothes, even darker eyeliner and lots of piercings.

I myself have made the mistake of assuming Goths are trying to associate themselves with darkness and have very different personalities from my own because of this.

However, again, this is a result of personal advertising and general stereotypes of people based on how they choose to present, or advertise, their selves to the world.

When we take a look at the world around us, everything we see is an advertisement Even if it’s not really selling anything, it’s selling the idea of something or someone to you.

That is why it’s so easy for people to pass judgement on others based on first impressions; the way that we present ourselves to the world is how we are advertising who we are, and those impressions that we make are what decides whether or not people are going to associate with us or not. Much like the food we purchase at restaurants, if it doesn’t look like something we want to try, we’re not going to order it, even if it happens to be delicious.