Nice Blackberry. You must be rich.

Earlier this year, my friend Denise, who keeps up with the latest fashion and technology, boxed up her fairly new Blackberry for the new iPhone. I on the other hand, had a phone that looked like it ran with the bulls. I don't know why but I had this tendency to forget that I was holding the phone, thus dropping it at least once a day. I still am perplexed as to how I almost flushed it down the toilet one day during work. I mean there is a huge difference between toilet paper and a cell phone right? Anyway, so when Denise was showing off her new iPhone, she, being the generous type, told me I could have her Blackberry. You would have thought that she told me I was going to meet the cast of Six Feet Under by the way my face lit up. I obviously complied with her offer.

So after I spent a few hours playing with my hip, expensive phone, I began to feel this sense of power. Like I was officially a true professional with a Blackberry. I even felt cool holding the phone up to my ear. This is materialism at it's best. I felt a sense of power, which led to a new identity, from a simple item that I owned. It's pretty sad if you think about it but I couldn't help myself. However, that feeling subsided once I realized that I was being judged by my Blackberry.

Some brands, like Blackberry's, are so strong that the general consensus is that Blackberry caters to the upperclass population. Brands have the power to make us feel like we are a part of it. So, in a way, they give us an identity. The downside to this is that others, also, assign us an identity primarily by the brands we support, which could oftentimes be incorrect. So when people would see me with my Blackberry, they would say, "look at you and your expensive Blackberry" or "ohhh, you have a Blackberry", thus, implying that I had money. I actually had to explain myself and say, "It's not what you think, my friend gave it to me." I don't like how people automatically assume that because I have a Blackberry, I am rich. That's not the case, I just know people who have money. Ha. Ha.

But don't you think it's twisted, yet funny that we are judged by the materials we own? I'm tempted to go out unknown wearing an over-sized tweety bird t-shirt, jean shorts, keds, tease my hair with lots of hairspray and put on some blue eye shadow, heavy mascara and black eyeliner. What do you think people's impression would be? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that everyone would assume that I am lower class, uneducated and own a trailer.

Basically, we could be anything people want us to be by the items we own/wear. If you think about it, the things we own tell a story about who we are. In particular, we buy clothes that are parallel with our identity. There are some clothes that I don't buy because "they aren't me" and I think you can agree. What we wear is rhetorical. If I am out wearing khaki shorts, Columbia hiking shoes, and a Patagonia fleece, you can pretty much determine that I am an outdoor-oriented individual.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that we can very easily fool people by what we own. Our core doesn't matter. Our appearence does, which, excuse me, sucks because people can be too quick to judge. Let's admit it, we all are guilty. We don't give each other a chance to discover what makes up our core. It's a cliche statement but it's true. You can't judge a book by it's cover. Maybe we can change the world if we make an effort to not judge someone and to actually find out who they are as a person, not as a material. But that will be challenging because as Madonna says, "We live in a material world."