Self-Made World

I want to describe a storyline that I notice is used time and again … indeed, so much that it seems as if it were repetitive enough to come across as suspicious … .

This is the myth of the “self-made man” (or woman? why not person? probably because it lacks the alliteration 😉 ).

In its mild form, it may simply be the story of and individual who made it — they succeeded at something. The main thing, however, that makes up this story is the story itself: it satisfies the popular hunger for a happy ending. Besides that, the saccharine gingerbread-house setting makes for lots of promotional opportunities for both the backdrop and the main character.

Few people will focus their attention on the backdrop directly — and therefore it seems like child’s play to bring on some products and/or services into such a fairy-tale placement opportunity. Since few people are so utterly naive as to actually believe the “self-made” story, the corresponding placements will be readily interpreted as optimal circumstances for the successful outcome.

There are also more extreme versions of such “self-made” stories, which are embellished with concepts like outright independence and / or widespread celebrity. If these concepts have already been adopted in the “Human Brain Conditioner” (see also “Human Brain Conditioner“), then accordingly conditioned brains may accept these more extreme storylines quite willingly.

I had originally intended to consider whether other aspects of the world we live in are also “self-made”, but perhaps this “celluloid-hero” version may be more appropriate for the festive holiday movie viewing season. Maybe I will return to the other question at a later date (and maybe I will even be able to tie a cute bow around an answer by then 😉 ).