Golden Gate [X]Press : Shock-Free Mentality:

Shock-Free Mentality:

The desensitization of a nation

March 13, 2008 6:35 AM

As a native San Franciscan, it is extremely difficult to shock me. My parents tried to keep me in what they hoped would be an everlasting, protective bubble, but, inevitably, the city acted as a sharp pin—POP! So there I was, as young and naïve as any little girl would be when exposed to a city full of new and different things. Having raised me in an environment as culturally rich as San Francisco, it didn’t surprise my parents that I would learn about different walks of life just by stepping out into the neighborhood. I consider myself lucky. Anyone who’s been here all their life, or even as little as a day, can understand where I’m coming from. Just look around. It’s all here. Practically everything good and bad you can imagine, and more, comes to fruition in the City by the Bay. In my twenty-two years of existence—as short as that sounds—I have almost literally seen it all, just because I live here. From witnessing a little boy with a dirty face digging through trashcans in the rain for scraps of food, to a woman expressing herself by covering her face in a crimson-red lipstick, it’s all become common. Even the scariest looking people, covered in full-body tattoos and piercings, turn out to be the kindest beings you will ever meet. Provided, of course, you take the time to talk with them. A shocking culture—a new and unexplored realm—is a fossilized idea these days. It’s practically an extinct concept in the United States, if you ask me. It is a given that new immigrants will experience culture shock in a plethora of ways, but they are only the exception and in due time, they too, will get over it. The idea of culture shock in this country is obsolete. Even in my travels throughout the States, I wasn’t taken aback for a nanosecond by how different places were compared to what I’ve experienced and observed here in San Francisco. In fact, each place in America has its unique and rare communities, and frequently what we think of as shocking and out-of-the-ordinary exist in the least expected places. There are plenty of ways to desensitize ourselves gradually each day: flip through a magazine or tune into your favorite radio station for grit and grime, but even what we see and hear from these media outlets isn’t shocking, it’s expected. Even our kids, whom we think are innocent and untainted, can easily conduct a search for practically anything on the net without parental consent. It’s quite safe to say we’ve seen it all, starting from a very young age. But, this wasn’t the case more than a decade ago. In the early 1990s the third season of MTV’s famous reality show, The Real World was set in San Francisco. For those old enough to remember, it was a culture shock for viewers across the country, who were introduced to “seven strangers, forced to live in a house and have their lives taped….” Once a week, Americans invited an H.I.V.-positive man-turned-activist and a bike messenger known for his “snot rockets” and nasty eating habits into their homes. Many audiences found both of them controversial and shocking. The season was broadcast at a time when the majority of the public feared AIDS victims because the disorder was still not understood. Many thought anyone would catch the virus by breathing the same air as someone who was H.I.V positive. So watching an H.I.V-positive man live and share a room with others was a big deal, and it helped to put many people’s misunderstandings to rest. When we fast-forward to today, to a little more than a decade later, a season of The Real World with similar residents would seem pretty tame. We’ve grown wiser in our assumptions, and most of us do our research. The shock value has gone. So does culture shock still exist? Go ahead and blame it on cable television and the rise of reality T.V, but this generation is becoming immune. It has become the cultural norm, not shock, to hear about things that are foreign to our lives and values. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will find that you are like me: utterly numb to shock, or quickly approaching that level of desensitization. Acceptance and growing tolerance is the antidote to culture shock. If you don’t believe me…gasp!

» E-mail Jennifer Tarantino @ jvt@sfsu.edu

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