There’s no arguing about the fact that Buck Owens gave real country music a much-needed shot in the arm when Nashville was whoring itself out to pop audiences. While many people think of Buck Owens as the human definition of “country music,” others demonize him like some kind of Boogeyman in Bakersfield. This is a guy who- well, it really depends who you ask. These are questions worth asking and thinking about before we start talking about Buck Owens. What would the average “you” come out looking like? And, are “you” who you think you are? Or, are “you” who they think you are? But, also, maybe your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, maybe the guy whose taxi you stole on New Year’s Eve or the kid you were mean to in high school. Your boyfriend or girlfriend might be in there, perhaps a best friend or two. Imagine if we were somehow able to take a poll of 10,000 random people you’ve had memorable interactions with – maybe not memorable to you but memorable to them – a totally random sample from your whole life. However, if a survey taker asked your opinion of that person you would be able to give one, even with the small amount of data that you have. That’s quite likely the only memory you will ever have of that random person in that random car. Now, think about how many times you can remember seeing a random person drive like a maniac. He thinks you shouldn’t be allowed to drive a car, ever, at all. The guy you cut off in traffic would probably still be pissed even if he did know why you were driving that way but he doesn’t, so he’s extra pissed. You know why you did that and you cut yourself some slack for it. You make a decision to drive your car in an unsafe manner. Say you’re trying to not be late for work on the most important day of your life or say there’s a medical emergency. We are good at rationalizing our own behavior where we would hold others accountable for doing the same things we do. What I’m saying, I think, is that human beings are incredibly bad at judging ourselves, inside and out. We don’t even have to agree on a method for measuring average intelligence to know these people are not as smart as they think they are because 55% of any group cannot be above average. When Americans are asked to rate their own level of intelligence, 55% of them say they believe themselves to be of above average intelligence. How many of them would you say are beautiful? But, if this is an accurate reflection of society, it means that out of every 100 women you see in your life, approximately 4 of them believe themselves to be beautiful. Real beauty is on the inside.” Yeah, yeah – all of that.
The marketing agency who made this campaign was inspired to do so when market research indicated that only somewhere around 4% of women consider themselves beautiful. It’s only a real life demonstration of something they already knew was true before they started. You could find a lot of flaws with this, if it were a science experiment, which it’s not. The sketches drawn from the perspective of strangers showed women with happier, friendlier features – a “nice chin,” a “cute nose,” “very nice blue eyes,” etc. When sketching from a woman describing herself, he ends up with an image of a woman whose every self-perceived flaw and imperfection is on display. Pretty much the same questions about the same person but the sketch artist is working from two different perspectives and ends up with two very different results. Another person, who’d met the original interview subject for the first time that day, is brought in and asked to describe that first person to the same sketch artist. When he’s done, the interview subject leaves without seeing the sketch artist’s rendering of them. He asks the interview subject many questions about her own appearance and draws a sketch of this person, again, without seeing them. A forensic sketch artist with over 15 years experience at the San Jose Police Department is seated at a drawing desk where he and an interview subject can hear but not see each other. Probably most of you saw this commercial from a soap company in 2013.
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