Social change is a result of the general public’s reception of the developments of current media. It is a very gradual process that, in my opinion, can’t be observed and anyone that attempts to ‘observe’ the change of the social aspect of humanity is simply missing the point: to observe is to remove oneself from the present situation, and to observe the maturation, development, or evolution of the present is to be perceived through hindsight. To do this in the ‘present’, to look through hindsight at the present is not possible, and anyone that attempts to do so is, also in my opinion, a ‘hipster’. All social change is is the development of new and different reservoirs in which people can find identity, and the only reason it is recognized as ‘change’ as opposed to development is because those individuals labeling it as change are stuck in a previous, or yet to be social reservoir. ’Social reservoir’ is my own term and can be defined as an embodiment of a particular subculture or particular generalized appeal of interest. In my opinion, people’s identity can be both described and understood by the social reservoir of their choosing. You might say that I think, for most people, their identity lies in their choice of media, clothing and language. Identity is the core issue behind the question of social change, for how can one say there is change without the comparison to the present: or, their present (state of being/mind). Most people define themselves by the accolades of their reality, the things that they surround themselves with: keyword- ‘most’. This is not to say that someone who likes Lamb of God is doomed to a life of screaming, headbanging and partaking in endless ‘Wall-of-Death’ s at concerts, but it is unquestionably to say that these people can sympathize for those who do.. In other words, this is a social reservoir in which people can identify. Social change rarely occurs on a universal scale, because people rarely change unanimously… and by rarely I mean never. There are however, mass social movements: a very large conglomerate moving towards a mutual and unified cause. This is likely the biggest proponent of widespread social change, and in my opinion the archetypal social movement of the past century is the Civil Rights movement. I don’t think I need to elaborate on the contents of the Civil Rights movement, but the outcome, and how it had unified a previously separate people cannot be overlooked, rather exalted for its magnitude. Needless to say, with social change comes unity, but with this unity comes a proportionately opposite force of resistance. Although, it is within that resistance that a newfound unity exists, be it for better or worse, those racist bastards have something to identify with, and no matter how much I, myself, may detest their view, their position is nonetheless valid to a certain extent. Ultimately, social change is characterized by the people within said paradigm, and the change that they undergo as a newly birthed social reservoir.
