The law of Jante

1. Thou shalt not believe thou art something.
2. Thou shalt not believe thou art as good as we.
3. Thou shalt not believe thou art more wise than we.
4. Thou shalt not fancy thyself better than we.
5. Thou shalt not believe thou knowest more than we.
6. Thou shalt not believe thou art greater than we.
7. Thou shalt not believe thou amountest to anything.
8. Thou shalt not laugh at us.
9. Thou shalt not believe that anyone is concerned with thee.
10. Thou shalt not believe thou canst teach us anything.

How long will this thought pattern govern the mind-set of the Scandinavian people in our ”global village”?

In Sweden we also have a word that ties in with the Law of Jante. It’s the word ”lagom” which means ”just enough”, ”optimal amount”, ”not too much, not too little”.  Using this word in our everyday discussions emphasizes the need to not stick out and be special but instead behave in a ”lagom” way.Similar Posts:

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In pictures models usually have a typical behavior.
Females avert her eyes and thereby shows modesty, patience and a lack of interest in anything else. Or stares straight at the viewer thereby becoming in the viewers ”control”
Males look off/up and thereby shows a suggestion of interest in something else than the viewer.
This is also show by statistics on profile pictures that Okcupid had done on their community.

”Stereotypical notions of masculinity are strongly oriented towards the active.” They avoid being feminine in not being portrayed as the passive object of an active gaze. They control and dominate the situation by making a choice of who to look out at from inside a picture.

Thus to change the objectification of women they need to start gazing more at men and thereby taking control, also when in a picture women need to focus on something outside the lens. The opposite applies to men: act mysterious but maintain the suggestion of interest in the viewer when portrayed in a picture.

So an inquiry to the females (for the sake of equality): GAZE MORE AT MEN;)

Source used: Notes on the Gaze – Daniel ChandlerSimilar Posts:

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There’s been several stories of sharing too much information on social media. One example is the case where a British women forgot she had befriended her boss on Facebook.

Another example is the recent case of a Swedish guy who published a picture of himself where he wore a cap with the text ”porn star”. His problem was that parents had seen the picture and the principal called him up and fired him from the childcare center he was working at.

When do people share too much information? I recently found the site pleaserobme.com which wants to make people aware of the risks of telling too much about themself to the world.

The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc.

The website lists everyone that displays their status on Twitter as being away from home. Not in itself a dangerous feature but coupled with a quick search on the persons name on a site that lists where they live (e.g. hitta.se in Sweden) it’s an easy way to rob them without risk.

Keep being transparent but reflect on how and what you share with the world!Similar Posts:

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Contrast: Old and New

Motivation

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The best tip about how to gain followers on Twitter is probably tweeting tips on ”how to gain followers” since this will attract anyone else ”trying to gain a following” to follow you. Similar people are attracted to each other and will most likely reach their goals together. But why gain a following on Twitter just to ”gain a following”?

One of the ways some people use to measure their importance on Twitter is counting the number of followers they have. This popularity contest is nothing new. A lot of people still play the ”I have more friends then you” game on Facebook as well as in real life. This is a way of measuring their perceived importance and impact based on quantity rather then quality of friends. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, as long as it is what you truly believe. Believing in quantity over quality will always attract like-minded people who give you a pseudo-importance that you have in inspiring them to get a larger quantity as well.

What about quality then? If you want followers that truly interact you need to gain them organically. Posting relevant tweets about what truly interests you and it will bear fruit. Another important part is commenting on others and discussion. When you want to make new friends you need to be more social then usual. Find the people, comment, discuss and praise to gain qualitative new friends. One of the ironic parts is that some of these people first look on your number of followers to see if ”you are important” which means that it could be an idea to build up numbers with ”empty followers” in order to get more quality followers.

What are your thoughts on Followers?Similar Posts:

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I. Introduction and Method
II. Analysis (with help of Panofsky’s three levels of understanding)
III. Discussion and Conclusion

I. Introduction and Method
The visual object I chose for this ‘case study of contemporary visual culture’ was a picture of label for a Sierra tequila bottle. The reasoning behind the choice of this particular picture is an interest for branding and analyzing this from signs. Basically a sign is the result of the difference to other signs. This makes it interesting to analyze brands and see how they set themselves apart from their competition. In this analysis I will discuss and analyze how a brand of tequila chooses to depict themselves in their visual communication.

This analysis will work from the theoretical framework of Panofsky and his concepts about Iconology and Iconography.  The reason I chose to use Panofsky is that his way of understanding a picture is a way that coincides in many ways with my own understanding of pictures. The thought from the start was applying a few different ways of understanding a picture (Saussere, Barthes, Peirce) and comparing the results with each other but this essay will have to focus on Panofsky due to a limited amount of space. I will start off by applying Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to the picture.  After the analysis I will follow up the analysis with a discussion and conclusion about the results found.

II. Analysis
I will start to analyze the picture by using Panofsky’s three levels of understanding to find the meaning of the picture. The first level is ‘Pre-iconographical description’: seeing lines, shapes, colors and volumes representing something in the picture. The second level is ‘Iconographical analysis’: using themes, stories, allegories and concepts to understand the meaning of the picture. The third level Panofsky uses is ‘Iconological interpretation’: linking the analysis with people, nations and periods of time.

Pre-iconographical description
The image portrays a lone Mexican sitting by a large cactus in the middle of the desert while the sun goes down in the background. One can see that the person is Mexican since he has a big Sombrero and a distinct black mustache coupled with a vest, bandana and boots which is an attire often used in the image of Mexicans. Sierra Tequila is prominently displayed by words right above the Mexican and the cactus. The colors most used are red, green, white, yellow and silver. Other colors exist as well but only as minor details on the Mexican person displayed on the bottle. The text on the bottle is written in spanish and the word ‘Sierra’ has an ”old type” font whilst ‘Tequila’ uses a more straight and modern font mixing old and new. There’s a ”branding” in silver above the wording ‘Sierra’ that says ”Jalisco Mexico” with a symbol that looks like a crown in-between. There is a framing around the picture which is in red with a gold line in the middle.  The banner on the top of the frame is green, white and red and says ‘Mexico’ in the middle.

Iconographical analysis
This part requires a bit more understanding on underlying factors behind the picture. Tequila has become a product which is only allowed to be produced in the province of Jalisco in Mexico. This explains why this is displayed in such a visible part on the label. The theme of Mexico runs through the label with the words ”hecho en Mexico” (made in Mexico),  Jalisco and the decision to keep the text in Spanish on the label even though it’s an exported bottle. The choice of colors also reinforce the theme of Mexico  by having red, white, green (flag of Mexico) in the banner and almost all objects in the picture (red frame, white text, green cactus). The cactus is displayed since Tequila is made out of the Agave cactus. Showing only one cactus in a big and hot desert on the label creates a higher value in the Tequila since it communicates a limited amount of cactus to make the tequila from in a hostile environment.

Iconological interpretation
When going another level down in the understanding and analyzing the ‘world-view of time and place’ we find the importance of Mexico again. The historical context of Tequila being produced in Mexico is reflected in the image. The tradition is communicated through the old font style used on ”Sierra” and contrasted by the silver letters in a more modern font used in ”Tequila”. This mix of styles is probably because they can’t communicate themselves with only the ”old image” as Cognac or others are able to. The characteristic Mexican is displayed in the picture and communicates a message that this is what Mexicans drink.

III. Discussion and Conclusion
Each level of understanding used to analyze the picture brings a deeper understanding on what the meaning behind the picture is. The first level is the easiest to analyze and describe. The deeper one goes in levels the harder it becomes to analyze. The lower levels  also requires more of the person trying to understand the picture in terms of knowledge needed to get out more meaning from the message. This knowledge can sometimes be seen in different ways and therefore some subjectivity is added to the picture when analyzed deeper.

The other thing about understanding a picture using Panofsky’s method of analysis is that you find more things about the picture when you study it harder. Panofsky does not mention anything about how much visual communication is passed on to a person only looking at a picture for a limited amount of time. The impact of finding more understanding of a picture the more time one spends on it implies that there might be an even deeper level of understanding, than the one I have achieved in this analysis, if  even more time had been spent on understanding this picture.

Sierra Tequila utilizes the theme and concept of Mexico on several levels to create consistency and emphasize the connotation between Mexico, Tequila and the Sierra brand.

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creative business cards

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