Final Blog

Fairfield County; where art thou Fairfield County.

When I think about Fairfield County, I think about athletics, colleges, traveling abroad, wealthy families, toned workouts, and how it all ties in to our generation! We are living in one of the wealthiest county’s. It’s something to take pride in right? Our county reminds me of a plate of spaghetti. We have the meatballs, the spaghetti sticks, and the tomato sauce. No matter how different we all are, somehow we coincide to make a very accepting dish- or in this case small section of Connecticut.

Values of being successful is something that’s involved in our cultural space. For instance, in most high schools and magnet schools students go abroad to study different traditions - lifestyles, join sport teams, and do what’s needed for something as essential as a college essay. Unfortunately, going to a different country is a privilege. Those that may not be able to afford it kind of get singled out in a way. It’s like they’re missing out on a big opportunity. College in general is looked upon as a big asset towards being successful. With many affordable prices for schooling nowadays there’s basically no excuse not to go. Not moving forward to create a better life would be undervalued today.

I mean, not everyone can or will own a nice big mansion with a huge backyard and pool in the future. I just think that the individual would feel obligated to attempt climbing the social class ladder. Working somewhere like Mc Donald’s will eventually ask for a two year college degree in serving up orders in the future. In this county there are a variety of low wage jobs make the employees have a certain amount of education and skill to work there.  When I think about social and cultural boundaries its noticeable where said person would end up living. They’d most likely be in East/South Norwalk or Bridgeport, for example, than Fairfield & Darien where house are like a million dollars. Nobody has time for that!

Other than that, I feel like I’ll definitely make sure I’m aware of what’s going on around me in the near future. It’s interesting how my perspective of lifestyles around this country has changed or clarified because I took time to analyze old and new cartoons and observe common areas in the county. The most impacting analysis are the cartoons. They have so many hidden messages that kids wouldn’t usually get but it’s still defining what our generation will continue to be like. In relation to social classes and being successful, a lot of the cartoon characters don’t ponder on it as much. Fortunately, Cartoon network characters like “Flapjack” from the Misadventures of Flapjack, and “Chowder” show two different perspectives of life. Flapjack, this little boy, is somewhat poor. He’s always rummaging around for food or going in for free snacks at the candy store. It makes kids see a realistic struggle – minus his literal whale mother. As for Chowder, he likes in a middle class. His boss owns this important chef business and in one episode he sheds light on how hard it was to study, pass exams to be one.

It’s a bit confusing how society works with all these barriers. But, once our generation grows up we’ll face social and cultural barriers in our own societies.