Tag Archives: society

suomeksi

TV-mainokset

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Eilis-illalla näin tosi hyvän Elisan mainos, jossa tummaihoiset suomalaiset olivat mukana samassa mainoksessa kuin kaikki muut, vaan osana yhteiskuntaa.  Oli minun mielestä tosi kannustava ulkomaalaisena että joskus voisin nähdä ihmisiä kuin minä muussa roolissa kuin uhkana.

Sen ja mäkkärin kuuluinen mainos jossa tummaihoinen kaveri puhuu nopeasti Savon murretta toivottavasti alkaavat vaihtamaan yhteiskunnan asenteet.  Minäkin maksan verot, minäkin olen kuluttaja.  Minäkin puhun suomea ja olen ollut täällä kauan, ja tykkään tästä maasta.

Valitettavasti, joskus en tiedä jos maa tykkää minusta.

in english

MySpace is working class, Facebook upper-middle class?

3 Comments

Interesting article about how American class divisions are reflected in the usage patterns of Facebook and MySpace.  I still found it very interesting, as it is true that the way we use our tools reflect our societies..

Some traditional media (here, here) have picked up the story, but I'd rather read the whole essay, as I don't like the spin they put to it.

Via Slashdot.

in english

Sateluco forever

In Mexico City, there is a special brand of people, who work in the city, but live outside the limits of the Federal District.  If they don’t work in the
area, which after all is one of the largest industrial zones in Latin
America, they live their early mornings and late evenings listening to
the radio in their car while being stuck in the Periférico, the local
12-lane ring road, jokingly referred to as the largest parking lot in
the world.

Being a suburban boy means that, when growing up, crossing the city limits towards el D.F. was a day-long excursion, whereas going to the south was more like being in another city.  When coming back, being greeted by “las torres de Satélite” was comforting, as you knew you where in a familiar place.

Where I grew up, you would meet people at the mall (Plaza Satélite, the first one and still one of the largest in the country) for a cup of coffee to catch up with life.  Now that they all work, you assume they’ll be there after 7.  Funnily enough, this area of the city until recently didn’t have a very strong identity like Coyoacán and la Roma, being relatively new (developed since the 1950’s, but with large-scale urbanisation until the 1970’s).  That is a status that an organisation called “Satelín Torres” wants to revert, trying to give a memory to this part of the city.

Although considered by the rest to be a cultural wasteland, where people sleep, shop, eat and generally aspire to the middle class ideal and if they are interested to go to a museum or a concert they’ll cross to el D.F., it has spawned a number of rock groups.  Café Tacuba is of course the most renowned, but many other bands of the current indie movement come from this part of the city.

I started thinking about all this as I realised that it is my destiny to be a suburban guy, as I’ve lived in Espoo, suburb of Helsinki, for most of my time in Finland and that’s where I’m headed when I move back.  Furthermore, it feels really familiar, as instead of el Periférico they have Länsiväylä and instead of Plaza Satélite and Mundo E they have Iso Omena and Tapiola.

The time in Brussels has been an anomaly, more than the rule.

in english

The wrong way to treat your users

Two of the blogs I read the most (here and here), and many of my contacts (here, here, here, here, & here) are complaining about certain policies Flickr has enacted lately in coordination with its process of localisation into different languages.  You can check the whole story at the links but basically that's the problem with sites that rely on user-generated content for their value-added: you as an owner/operator can't decide alone when something is wrong, the community has to be involved.  Furthermore, when you put into action something that hasn't been agreed with said community, you risk alienating exactly the kind of people that made your site successful in the first place.

Whereas I definitely don't agree with the way things have turned lately, I am still in a wait-and-see kind of situation.  I definitely wouldn't like things to turn for the worse, since I really, really like Flickr, and I have a huge amount of my pictures there.

in english

It’s time for another good idea, bad idea

5 Comments

In YouTube, that is.

Good idea
Using new media to show the quandaries of senior citizens, as has been done with The Zimmers (more info here).

The Zimmers “My Generation” Released: 28/05/07

Bad idea
Using new media to show that any idiot can become famous.  And no, I’m not talking about Paris Hilton, but about
some guys that can’t even speak their native language, never mind play instruments.

Children garden

The End.

in english

Handling uncertainty

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I hadn't noticed how flexible I tend to be regarding uncertainty, and how much of that is due to my upbringing.  Don't get me wrong: I don't like knowing whether my plans will work either, but I don't let it worry me, since I'm too busy doing those things I can actually do.

Maybe it has to do with growing up in a society where not everything is provided "as is", and you have to learn to improvise as you go.  The problem with Mexicans is that they (we) tend to improvise too much, while others are much more inflexible.

Makes things interesting, that's for sure.

in english

The gap between X & Y

I know that Wikipedia cannot always be taken seriously or as more than a gateway to further original references, but I found this entry that ties in with my previous post.  It attempts to define a gap generation that crosses the chasm between Generation X & Generation Y.  That's exactly where I am, as I was born between 1974 & 1985.

One thing that really struck me is that it mentions that the musical tastes of people in this category tend to match those of Generation X, but their attitude towards life, work and everything else tends to match those of Generation Y.  For most of those issues, I either declare myself guilty as charged or know plenty of people who fulfill that criteria.

Still my largest source of anticipation is how will workplaces cope with the differences in values between those currently about to retire and those currently entering the workforce.  The next 15 years will be very, very interesting.

I recommend to read the articles quoted as sources of the Wikipedia entry.

in english

Attracting the twentysomething worker

Found this article at Lies' blog, and it is very, very interesting.

Maybe some of the difficulties I had at work before were due to this generational differences.  Maybe it was just differences in character and objectives, but nevertheless I found it really insightful, as some of my work colleagues behave the same way.

Regardless of what the article says, no, I don't involve my parents in absolutely every decision in my life.  They raised me to be independent.  And yes, I'm getting married soon, so that also goes against the trend explained there (then again, I'm 26, which is closer to the current average age of marriage in the States).

in english

Family

Family means different things to different people.  To some, it is only their parents and siblings.  To others, it might mean several generations of people including aunts, uncles and cousins relatively removed from them.

That is the case in Mexico.  Even though I don’t meet them very often, on my dad’s side I know around a hundred people who fall into the category of “family”, even though I don’t always remember how exactly am I related to them.  On my mom’s side it’s easier, and I probably know less than fifty.

In family reunions, since I never knew who was who, I usually called people around my age “cousins” and adults “uncles” and “aunts”.  Even though there were some exceptions to the rule, it did work.

All this because I was chatting on MSN about the family with a cousin who is the granddaugher of a cousin of my grandmother on my father’s side.  And yes, she’s still family, and we still know about each other, even though she lives in a part of Mexico I seldom visit.