People as a rule are sheep. I am not sure where that comes from. I don’t know if it is wired into us, or if we learn it somewhere along the way. There are people in the world that don’t act as sheep and there are people that in general aren’t sheep, but have some sheep like tendencies.
I am sure you have seen the sheep effect in action. Have you ever walked up to a line and seen a huge line of people standing there, only to look over and see a perfectly empty line that no one is using? How about eating at someplace like Rally’s that has the drive thru on both sides. How man times have you seen the line for the right side of the building be three times longer than the line for the left side?
I think is has something to do with schools and the way that we are taught to be. “Everyone get in line to go to lunch.”, “Everyone line up to go outside.”, “Repeat after me.” these are all lines that I think are still commonly used in today’s schools. I know that they were when I was in school. I think this maybe one source of this sheep effect. I am sure there are others though. Plus it is an effect that breeds itself. What has this led to though? A society where it is expected to follow others and to follow orders without thinking for your self. A society where phrases like, “We do it this way, because that is the way that it has always been done.” or “Do what I say, because I told you to.” are considered OK as valid management practices. A society where to punish kids we make them sit and stare at a wall in a so called “time out”. These ideas do not help to make people grow and improve, they instead lead to stagnancy, boredom and repetitiveness. Why is it a requirement in most peoples minds that when you become an adult you have to lose your sense of imagination? Again is that something we are taught?
I am not sure if I can blame it all on schools though since while we are in school we idolize the people that are the best sheep. If you think about it who were the cool people at your school? The people that had Air Jordan shoes, or Ambercrombe and Fitch shirts, or Guess jeans. Do you think these people went out to the stores and bought this stuff because it was comfortable or because they new that it was the in thing to wear? So what does that mean? To be cool you have to be a good sheep and buy what the nice people on television tell you to. Oh and if you can “baaaa” on the way out, yeah that would be greeeaaaaat.
Now the market droids have started to push 70’s style commercials out. I guess they are hoping that people will see this and think they need to buy the stuff. If we see a resurgence of 70’s style clothes then I think my theory will be proven. By and large I think is no reason for 70’s clothes to come back into style unless it is pushed there.