Culture is the individuality and implied shared moments with others through noise. Throughout the semester I’ve gotten to explore the various definitions of culture and subculture in its light from different philosophers and thinkers who analysed it. In my everyday life, I decided to dive into the culture of my everyday life and how it represents me as a person and my culture in a sense of individuality. I explored this through the use of firsthand accounts and neutrality in my video essay to convey my culture in its rawest. Noise affects my mood, interactions and analysis of my life and through non-verbal moments I get to create an intimate space that I can share with the viewer to feel what I feel.
     Without a voiceover, the use of visuals in my video should help elaborate on the simple answer that I propose as: ‘culture is noise’. The strongest rhetorical choice I use is anecdotes, intertwining with pathos and logic with the captions I include in every scene. Taking it from a first-person standpoint and a third-person in others gives it a more intimate perspective as it feels as though you’re in the shoes of the camera. I purposely begin with a taskbar search on Pinterest that shows culture in general and what these media define it as. And to the contrary of my proposed question, it’s not about traditional wear and celebrations as the continued scrolling suggests, but rather my personal definition of noise. I immediately shut down this traditional view of culture by explicitly stating it and closing the laptop as a way of rejection of the idea. Conveying that message through captioning of my argument instead of using a voiceover lets the visuals speak for themselves.
This slow pacing is then shifted into a snappy sequence of my day, where I quickly cut to different scenes with noise to show the fleeting moments in routine that are involved in our culture. I show a car ride with the radio blue toothed to my brother’s apple music as we cross the 145th bridge. I arrived at the empty, dimmed studio where my architecture classes are held but luckily I arrived on an empty day on the weekend. This then follows my working time with no movement, but my arm reaching for materials as my favorite show “Beef” plays with its new season, streaming it without supporting Netflix of course.

     Although simple, it’s relatable to many people and helps put another definition of culture to others. My culture helps to reveal the simplicity of culture and how everyday it is and sustaining it takes no effort but to make every day. The noises that we always hear like the birds chirping, wind blowing, key jingling and more contribute to the community that we have. However, others can argue this noise is a contributor to our divided society and enforced social hierarchy. In the Critique of Everyday Life, Henri Lefebvre examines how these routines shape our behaviors but also the detriment of society because of daily routines that contribute to things like consumerism and our lack of activism through these routines. Capitalism has been ruining these ordinary experiences into boring and inauthentic experiences (Lefebvre Volume 1). He argues that our everyday experiences are shaped around these kinds of forces and they’re not strengthening them. His cultural critiques on how mundane lifestyles could turn interesting in breaking the static routine by reimagining how we interact socially and break the social hierarchies that we believe are so normal. Attending a lecture at my school could turn into spending a day at a lecture at Columbia, only a bus away. The simple idea of this challenges the societal hierarchy that exists in schools and pushes unity instead of division. What’s after that? Tagging friends and peers along to participate and build this community exponentially.
     So how can we persist in preserving our ordinary culture? That’s an example of what I convey in my video essay, which is participating in activities that don’t involve capitalistic ideals and consumerism like the line epidemics and purchasing from chain coffee shops. Small businesses and small social bursts of energy from owners help persist in this cultural noise and change in keeping these special ordinary experiences. Grabbing a flyer for a pop-up or event nearby school for a new event is a crack in the capitalistic norms that big corporate companies don’t want us to participate in. These small moments keep us in touch with our community without breaking it, and the culture of hearing the noise of laughter and appreciation from them are what keep our culture alive, even if it’s from yourself or for yourself.

Works Cited

Lefebvre, Henri. Critique of Everyday Life: Volume 1. Translated by John Moore,   

     Verso, 1991.