- •Contents
- •Illinois man claims largest known diamond 4
- •Infidelity epidemic sweeping cheating britain 35
- •25 Easy ways to knock years off your body 52
- •Is Your Dream Job Really Out There? 74
- •Illinois man claims largest known diamond
- •Why we're slaves to the latest fashion fads
- •World’s most beautiful girls live in Stockholm, Sweden
- •Homeless billionaire gives away his 3-billion-dollar fortune
- •Why do foreign tourists hate Russians on holidays?
- •Chinese prepare to live in hell for 2008 Summer Olympics
- •Arctic region likely to become the center of World War III
- •Five terrible atrocities against women around the world
- •Slavery continues to prosper worldwide
- •Stop the poverty to stop the terrorism
- •Questions and Tasks:
- •Air rage caused by oxygen deprivation
- •Questions and Tasks:
- •Japan still unable to cut national suicide rate with over 33,000 deaths a year
- •Questions and Tasks:
- •Children do imitate violence they see on tv
- •Mum to mum special: We must beat the bullies
- •What to do if your child's a bully
- •Teens’ problems: Curfew
- •Looking for love on dating websites has its own hidden dangers
- •Best of mates
- •Infidelity epidemic sweeping cheating britain
- •Brothers and sisters are doing it for themselves
- •Will this man make you happy?
- •Women who dislike football are stupid
- •Pet therapy wins more popularity whereas Russia uses only leeches
- •25 Easy ways to knock years off your body
- •Top 5 scientists killed by their experiments
- •Humans may eventually conquer ocean world after David Blaine’s underwater stunt
- •Dolphins used to look like humans and lived in Atlantis
- •So .. Is there a god?
- •Legends about vampires and werewolves still live today
- •The Nostradamus prophecies popular in every century
- •Rambo's hardest mission .. Saving his 3 girls from perils of showbiz
- •Is Your Dream Job Really Out There?
- •Fed up with your job? ..Get a new one!
- •No ifs... No butts: mp's vote for total smoking ban
- •World on drugs
- •Truth and lies about alcoholism
Why we're slaves to the latest fashion fads
In pop culture, the one constant is change. And according to new research, what’s hot in baby names, dog breeds, clothing “must haves” and chart-topping music is the result of random copycats. Whether skinny-leg or boot-cut jeans become all the rage, therefore, is up to chance. If you don’t like the outcome, no worries, since it will be out of fashion lickety-split.
The research, published in the issue of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, reveals that fashions come and go at a surprisingly regular and predictable rate, which is fueled by very few innovators amidst millions of people copying each other. The research supports recent thinking that challenges some classic economic theories about decision-making among members of a consumer culture. “It doesn’t necessarily have to involve any rational decisions to get all the way up to the top,” said lead author Alex Bentley of Durham University in England.
Copycats Bentley and his colleagues analyzed the Billboard Top 200 chart of the most popular songs from the 1950s through the 1980s. The turnover rate was relatively steady, averaging nearly 6 percent each month over the entire 30 years. Analysis of most-popular lists for baby names and dog breeds revealed a similar consistency in turnover within each “market.”
To come up with a template of the trend-setting machine, the scientists developed computer simulations based on a system of random copying in which hundreds or thousands of individuals copy each other with 2 percent or fewer being innovators. The model predicted regular and consistent turnover rates that matched the real-world data.
Bentley found that how quickly something comes into fashion and then fades out depends on the size of the list, with a top-100 list changing much faster than a top-40 list. However, the population number had no effect on turnover rate. The scientists suggest a larger population does mean more new ideas but it also means more competition for a top spot and they balance each other out.
Trendsetters Perhaps not surprisingly, the study also found that the more trendsetting innovators there are in a society, the faster one trend will replace another within a particular sector. “Innovators are the cool ones who ‘pump’ new fashions into our world,” Bentley said.
The results suggests that the practice, common among captains of the fashion industry, of trying to handpick the next consumer “gems” amongst millions of proposals is a hopeless undertaking. Even with the unpredictable outcome, the advantage of the change-dominated world of fashion is that “change” is the commodity and if you want to sell, it’s the required ingredient.
“Madonna is a great example of someone who just radically changes her visual image every year,” Bentley told LiveScience, “and she’s had such an incredible lifespan on the charts because change itself is what we’re saying is the actual commodity that pop culture is about.”
Random copying results in irrational decisions, the researchers say, which is perfectly fine for clothing and other music, but it would be detrimental if applied to other arenas in life.
“Listening to popular opinion constantly can be an unproductive strategy for a lot of things. It leads to constant turnover with no rational basis for what you’re settling on,” Bentley said. “You don’t want scientists and politicians paying attention to fashion; you want them thinking independently.”
Questions and Tasks:
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Who decides what is “fashionable”?
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Why is it so important to be trendy?
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Is there any difference between being stylish and fashionable?
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Can we say that fashion conceals individuality?
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What fashion style do you follow?
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