Truman Show Syndrome: Why People Think They're Living in a Reality Show.

Mayra Delgado

Dr. Smith

         Truman Show Syndrome: Why People Think They're Living in a Reality Show.

   
According to Colin Lecher in the article "Truman show syndrome" the Truman Show Syndrome is a new phenomenon where people think they are living in a TV show and they became famous overnight. However, I think people should enjoy TV shows, social media, and the internet as a form of relaxation, and also to be informed. However it's important to don't make this phenomenon part of our life's.

     Social media is impacting every single day of our life. Almost 70% of U.S population has any social page such as facebook, twitter, instagram, printerest, etc. Every day people sign in to this pages to check updates, status, pictures, comments or simply to gossip about their friends life or public figure, as I do. Now days, most of the information found it on the web impacts our life's, sometimes I do get impacted. Few days ago I saw Megan Fox on facebook with a different hair color, I  felt tempted to change mine, or when I see Mila Kunis photos, I think that I need some diet. At that first moment, I'm not assuming that reality is different, those photos are edited and even  hair colors are different in real life.

       Women all wish that we could  wake up looking fabulous but unfortunately most of us don't. I work as a hair colorist in a small hair studio in Woodhaven, Queens. I had seen almost all my clients impacted for a beautiful, bright and perfect celebrity hair, specially photos from magazines and photo sessions such as Jennifer Aniston, Shakira, JLo, etc. It takes me few minutes to explain to them about how the flashlight impacts a photo, or how a hair color change depending the photo background and lights. And that most of those pictures are edited.  What it matters is, to explain and let them know that all of us are different. Therefore we all have different hair types, textures, color pigmentation and even our race has a big influence.  It takes a whole explanation to bring them back to their reality.

        Some young minds are easy to be influenced. I remember almost three and half years ago, three of five clients used to request  Kim Kardashian hair look.  They wanted so bad to have at least something similar to her, because of  Kardashian's reality show.  They fanaticism made them forget that Kardashian's had a hairdresser, makeup artist, fashion adviser as a everyday need, making them look beautiful at any single activity, even when they are working out. Some girls just want to be popular as their favorite celebrities are. My beautiful client Martha was one of them, but now she changed her mind, finally identifying her personality and her own style, making her unique.

           Entertainment is good, it turns wrong when we take it too serious, creating our own show in our daily routine. It is necessary to learn, analyze and to build our self-steam. Knowledge is never too much. If we achieve this, our mind will change and we will modify our way of living and thinking. It's necessary to don't be influenced by reality shows or entertainment that make us see, just what they want us to see. It is better to have a good self-teem, that way we will avoid any manipulation or influence by others. It feels great to live a life instead of seeing how others live theirs. 

    

Truman Show Self determination

3. Self-determination

Truman struggles between what his society (and his "god," Cristof) tells him to do and be, and what he feels he wants to do and who he wants to be.

Paragraph 1: Consider your own life (or the life of someone you know well): Have you ever disobeyed society’s rules because you were trying to follow your own instincts? What made you want to disobey the rules? Explain the situation.

Paragraph 2: What did you expect to gain from your disobedience? Did the consequences  to your disobedience confirm that you made the right choice?

Starting from zero is not easy. My lovely friends Marie and John decided to move from New York to Florida. She was seven months pregnant and they had two kids already, they were nine and seven years old. They went to a small town in FL at their friends house with no jobs and a small pocket. All their friends from New York we're telling them that it was a big mistake to move, that they will lost all the money and time, and that they will be back to New York in two years because of that. Their friends comments were all negative. My friends were looking for a better environment for their kids. A bigger house, a quiet place.  New York is an expensive city. They had no time to spend with their kids because both of them had to work full time to cover the bills. They were tired of a struggle life and they moved to Orlando, Florida.

Taking a chance risking all sometimes is the right choice. Marie and John are living in Orlando for about three years, happy and successful. Their kids are happy, they love going to Universal and Disney land. They live in Orange County, I had visit them few times, walked  around the lake,  saw the birds and ducks. They feel very happy abut the choice they did. It has hard at the beginning but with some effort they got the life they wanted. Seeing them happy made me realized  that taking risk is worth it. Doesn't matter what others think or believe what matters is the actions we take.