Place, Culture, Context and Media Sources
I wish we did a better job of fostering diversity of views from other places even within the US.I grew up in Columbus, Georgia. I would read fashion magazines and there would be all these articles about layers in fall and what winter coat to buy and which boots were in style. This left me bewildered as to how I was supposed to dress.
It's something I've lamented before: Even Americans get kind of brainwashed that their local culture is inferior and everything is better in New York (and California) because that's where so much of our popular media originates and is set.
None of that applied to my life in Georgia. They shut everything down when it snows because it snows so rarely that no one owns snow plows. When I was eight, we got like 18 inches of snow and my father walked to a store because driving wasn't feasible and they sent out a van to pick up essential personnel at hospitals because no one could drive in this.
It gets cold enough for a serious winter coat for like three days out of the year there. You simply do not need serious winter clothes in that part of Georgia the way you do in places like New York or Germany.
It makes no sense to spend a lot of time thinking about serious winter clothes there. You probably can't even find such in the local stores.
It makes more sense to plan to throw on extra layers for the few days out of the year that it gets seriously cold. Paying attention to winter fashion advice from publications headquartered in New York makes about as much sense as taking fashion tips from Inuit living in igloos in Alaska or tribes people in remote villages in tropical jungles.
It also makes no sense to pay attention to fashion advice from publications headquartered in California. Los Angeles is not only in a desert, it's where Hollyweird is.
The way they dress and behave is outrageous by the standards of most Americans. San Francisco isn't any better as a template for most Americans.
But good luck trying to find a local or regional publication with fashion advice pertinent to people living in Georgia. Most fashion publications will be based in either New York or Los Angeles and their advice is geared to their locale and only their locale.
Those are the big fashion industry hot spots in the US, so fashion starts there and "trickles down" to the rest of the US and we largely lack local or regional fashion fashion publications.
That's just one example of many.
But good luck trying to find a local or regional publication with fashion advice pertinent to people living in Georgia. Most fashion publications will be based in either New York or Los Angeles and their advice is geared to their locale and only their locale.
Those are the big fashion industry hot spots in the US, so fashion starts there and "trickles down" to the rest of the US and we largely lack local or regional fashion fashion publications.
That's just one example of many.
We also produce a lot of movies, books, music and TV shows in those two locations and I spent much of my life feeling like I was "just doing it wrong" because what I was seeing and hearing in various media seemed so disconnected from my life and so unrepresentative of my life.
It took me a long time to realize that a very high percentage of American media does NOT portray "life in America." Instead it portrays "life in either New York City or somewhere in California."
New York City is simply not representative of how life works anywhere else in the US, even aside from the fact that New York City is much, much larger than most American cities. We have fifty states and the other forty-nine states have their own local histories, culture, laws, etc. that are different from New York.
It took me a long time to realize that a very high percentage of American media does NOT portray "life in America." Instead it portrays "life in either New York City or somewhere in California."
New York City is simply not representative of how life works anywhere else in the US, even aside from the fact that New York City is much, much larger than most American cities. We have fifty states and the other forty-nine states have their own local histories, culture, laws, etc. that are different from New York.
I'm well aware that there are more restaurants and other things people think of as "culture." That is irrelevant because all places have a local culture and more monied and more densely populated isn't automatically a "superior" culture.
Too much existing media "tells" the world how life is in a very short list of places as if that generalizes and it simply doesn't. And what we watch and listen to is a form of education when it goes well or brain washing when it doesn't.
So most of America is getting "told" we "should" live like this and it's like a coat that doesn't fit and we aren't being explicitly told it needs to be altered to work for us. We are implicitly being told "There must be something wrong with you if that doesn't fit you."
I've had a class in Economic Geography, so I'm aware of some of the forces that help shape the media landscape in this particular manner. But with the existence of the internet, I can't help but feel we ought to be able to do something about this.
And should. Because I believe this is extremely harmful to a lot of people, not just a problem for ME.