Media and Culture! Weee...

So, I just finished reading the Conquest of Cool excerpt. How interesting!

Honestly, I'd never though about if culture created advertising norms, or if advertising created cultural norms. This article definitely stretched my mindset of this type of media.

The way I figure, advertising norms primarily come from culture. After all, how would the market know what is trendy and what will sell if that which they are selling were not already trendy? At the same time though, advertising can create culture because it is persuasive in nature.

Let's use this example. A guy in Missouri creates an awesome tee-shirt that, instead of zipping up and down the middle, goes diagonally from shoulder to waist. (Bear with me, even if it's really unrealistic.) Lots of his friends pick up the style, and eventually so does his community. It then become a cultural norm of the county.

Hollister discovers this trend as soon as it becomes 'trendy' within the county. They buy his idea, and begin marketing it. All of the sudden, it becomes a nationwide trend. There are thousands of people who now fit into this style group.

In this case, one man created a shirt which ended up reflecting the culture of his county. However, when it become nationally advertised, the advertisements created the culture all over the country.

Anyway, I though it was a really interesting thought. Similarly to how we can function both as rhetors and critics.