Being ambitious in Los Angeles leads you to meet a host of people, from all different points in their lives. I was having a conversation with a 46 year old, pretty established, Asshole (long story) a few weeks ago and I spoke of my socialization and he had never even heard of the term. For the past couple of days I have been thinking about how I wouldn't even know the official term if I wasn't a sociology major. So I want to share with my followers the system that teaches us how to be.
For anyone wondering I am still a student at sam (barely lmfao). Last spring I changed my major to Sociology because after taking one class I realized that it was probably the best and most interesting major I could probably have. Plus I decided, this degree is for my mother not for my life, so why not study people?
On the very first day of the class we delved into a topic that I can spend the rest of my life talking about. Socialization, defined as a lifelong process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and internalizes the norms, values, behavior and social skills appropriate to his or her social position and learn to function as members of society.
Now, this being a deep topic I don't have time to go too far into it but this will just be a brief overview on the vast subject. There are different agents that assist in socialization, some being family, school, peers and media. Family being the very first social institution and group that shapes individuals’ selves and personality. Imagine how many times you meet parents of longtime friends that you can see exactly where they get their personality traits. From your parents you learn trust, independence, initiative, how to interact with others and oneself. After family comes school and parents are replaced by teachers.
Unlike other agents of socialization such as family and school, peer groups allow children to escape the direct supervision of adults. Among peers, children learn to form relationships on their own, and have the chance to discuss interests that adults may not share with children, such as clothing and popular music, or interest authority figures may not allow, like drugs and sex. Also peers enforce conformity.
The last and I feel, the most important is the media. The messages given through the media act as the teachers of gender roles, values, ideologies and beliefs. Individuals who soak up these subliminal messages eventually take on, what is thought to be, the normative roles in society. Even down to the fact that television shows are commonly referred to as programs?! Programming, people. Subliminal messaging is ingrained into all television shows in one way or another. The most deplorable, in my opinion, is the stuff I now notice when I watch cartoons. I don't even mean the stuff I watch now as a "sort of" adult. I mean the stuff that was for the kids of the '90s, stuff I watched in the past and even back a couple months ago (in the free cable days). I would watch nothing but cartoon network and nickelodeon, because I feel like the brainwashing in adult programming is a bit harder to see, being as though it is created to program adult minds, and I don't like to knowingly allow negative things into my subconscious. In children programming it is a bit easier to perceive, so in these cartoons I really got to see so much "socialization". Cartoons are one of the first to teach kids how to divide themselves by societal standards, class, race, sexuality and gender roles. There are an endless number of standards that media and authority figures that try to get is to consciously and subconsciously force you to adhere to. "Don't ask too many questions" "look like this..." "Do bad things and the police will get you" "Strive to be better.......than everyone else" "Hate what's different" "Smart people are like this..." "Do what everyone else does" Those are standards (plus plenty more) taught through cartoons.
For those who don't know there is a newer version of the age old cartoon Looney Tunes. 
The newest version is quite different and the teaching of class and race separations is so undisguised its disgusting. Bugs Bunny is clearly a superior swindling white man, Daffy Duck is a black man who lives off of him and tries and tries to be like him but always fails miserably. Lola Bunny is the picture of an airhead blonde that also lives off of Bugs. Bugs is annoyed by her consistently but keeps her around because she is beautiful. Daffy has a girlfriend too but she is a ghetto Latina duck. Porky pig is a Jewish man that is cheap but rich. So ya'll get the point. The show literally teaches kids class and race separations, guiding them to fall into the stereotype that fits them best while shaping their views of others outside of their class/race box.
I also watched one of my childhood favorites Aladdin recently and has anyone noticed that by the end of the movie when He was a sultan Aladdin was white, versus the brown he was when he was a "streetrat". 
Now why would that be? Those are the things that our eyes pick up and our brain registers. no matter if we notice consciously or not.
Upon watching one of my favorite childhood movies Rugrats In Paris I was appalled to see that sexuality and gender roles are so blatantly put forth. One instance that stuck out to me is when Chuckie Finster sees a guy in a kilt he says something to the effect of "ewww guys aren't supposed to be wearing dresses!" Yall I cant even lie when I heard that I was so upset I almost cried. They are teaching children how to dress, act, and interact as boys and girls with no regard for individualism and no sensitivity to cultural differences. Adults make these cartoons that teach kids how to hate themselves and others and its despicable. I grew up with next to no television. I hope I can raise mine children without any at all.
Okay, moving on, a couple more things I learned in sociology that I think are interesting enough to share are Cooley's theory of the Looking Glass Self and Panoptic Society. There are a couple of Socialization Theories, Cooley's being the one I feel is most applicable to today's society, the looking glass self refers to a self image we have that we base on how we think others see us and how we want them to see us. He has a three step process that he feels we go through to achieve self:
Step 1
We imagine that a someone perceives us in a certain way.
Step 2
We imagine that he or she makes a judgment about us based on that perception.
Step 3
We form a self-image based on how we think our someone sees us
I feel like personally I still fall prey to behaving in such a ridiculous manner even being aware of it. Quite a hard habit to break but everyday I'm working more and more to find myself and just be that.
Now last but not least, Panoptic Society. First let me say that Panoptic means including everything visible in one view. The term panoptic society comes from panopticon. The notion of the Panopticon was first developed by a man named Jeremy Bentham. Conceived as an architectural model for the ideal prison, the Panopticon was built so that each inmate is always visible to all the others in separate cells and each inmate is always visible to a monitor situated in a central tower. Monitors will not in fact always see each inmate; the point is that they could at any time. Since inmates never know whether they are being observed, they must act as if they are always objects of observation.
Does that not seem quite synonymous with how we live today? The panopticon represents the way in which discipline and punishment work in modern society.
If you have made it this far with me GREAT!!! Thank you, I commend and appreciate you. I would just love it if you would drop a comment below. I could always use some feedback.
Ultimately these are all sociological theories so I want to know what you guys think. Do you feel like you shape your self image based on how you want your peers to see you or have you surpassed that? Are you somewhere in the middle? What about the Panoptic society? Do you think you would behave the same way of you didn't think you were always being watched, not only by your own peers but by surveillance cameras and *cough* Homeland Security *cough* and things of that nature....
Let me know what yall think!!
ॐNamasteॐ
