There aren't too many people in the world that can deny the cuteness of a little kitten getting tickled with its paws spread or a puppy with big eyes who looks more like a beanie baby than a real creature. However, why have we as a society developed an obsession and, in some cases, an addiction to watching, sharing, searching, and/or creating memes and videos of these pets of ours? What I see being the answer to this question came to me when doing the assigned reading for this topic. I didn't extract it from the text, but (somehow) when applying cats and dogs to history and economic ideas, the answer just came to me.
One thing I learned from my tenth grade AP world history course is that all throughout history, whenever a society is doing well economically, there is a mass increase in leisure time and leisure activities. I feel that watching pet videos and viewing pet memes would be considered a leisure time activity (except for in this case, which is academic, of course). As we all know, the United States of America has been, and still is, a powerhouse of a country at a global level. Many of the less fortunate in our country are well off from the perspective of someone in other countries around the world. However, what we also know is that our economy isn't performing at a level that it used to, and the "general public", as Smith may say, has definitely felt a mighty blow. Oddly though, dog and cat memes and videos are not a privilege reserved exclusively for the rich. This is very much due to the invention of the internet and all of the free entertainment within it. Just think about how this would've been back prior to the 20th century. The wealthy and ruling classes of society would be the only ones to have the privilege of live shows of dogs and cats being cute and performing funny acts. Luckily, for us, this isn't the case now.
Or are we really so lucky? The rich in society can afford to waste time watching pet videos and such, however, the general public does not have this kind of time to waste. I don't know about you, but I know that when I get on youtube to watch a video, it never EVER stops with just one. Very frequently actually, it turns into 30 minutes to an hour of time wasted that I will never get back. Granted not all of these videos are on pets, it is easy to start with one focus and bounce from one topic to another. But imagine if you had all the time you ever wasted watching pet videos or searching for pet memes back? Or if you had all of the time you ever wasted watching the videos or memes that these videos and memes triggered you to watch or see back? You'd have a lot of time on your hands to do something very productive...or you could just use it to watch more pet videos.
I agree 100% with you. I wish I had the hours I've spent watching pointless videos on youtube due to animals or human stupidity.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever find that you look at Internet memes when you have the smallest amount of leisure time available to you? Like, leading up to my IB exams I would get on Facebook for ten minutes then study for a minute then go back to Facebook. Also your post reminds me about something I learned in tenth grade free enterprise. My teacher said that there were only 3 important resources that people traded and time was the most important of the three.
ReplyDeleteI also did not foresee this as a writing topic in college Jeff. Don't feel too bad about wasting all that time on stupid youtube videos though, it is just one of the billions of possible things people waste their time on everyday. Don't spend life worrying about lost time haha
ReplyDeleteThis videos and memes are just too magnetic to avoid. Realistically they are useless, but they supply a level of quick and time passing humor that is tough to ignore.
ReplyDeleteJeff, I think you are on to something here. We don't necessarily think of leisure as a type of consumption, but one question that economists and other social theorists ask is how much of growing wealth to people choose to consume as leisure. For example, our economy has grown a great deal since, say, the 1950s, and a greater deal going back before that. But the amount people have worked has not decreased to the same extent. It has decreased somewhat, obviously, but it's not like the workweek is half as short as it was in the 50s, even though the economy is probably more than twice as large. Exactly why this has happened is a big question. My guess is that people simply like to be busy for most of the time, of course, but also wages have not always kept up to the same extent with growth (or more importantly perhaps, the growth of expectations about consumption levels).
ReplyDeleteNow, you see all the interesting stuff that can come from cat videos.
Amanda, I've never heard the three important goods line. What are the other two, and where did he/she derive this observation from?