I heard this phrase for the first time the other night whilst watching ‘How I Met Your Mother’ … and it made such an impact that I actually replayed the scene to jot down the definition onto my phone.
Basically the cheerleader effect occurs when you see a group of girls (or guys) and they look ‘hot’ … BUT when you see each person ‘individually’ they are NOT ! So really they only appear hot as a collective group and NOT as individuals. The phrase ideally is used for women however can apply to groups of men too.
I found it quite funny the way it was described in the show and turns out that theUrban Dictionary does have a definition for the phrase as well ! The Cheerleader Effect is also known as the Sorority Girls Syndrome or the Bridesmaid Parado; for a brief window in the mid 90s the Spice Girls Conspiracy...SCARY Spice, indeed :P Oh and according to TheHappyGoat the PussyCat Dolls are another group of hotties who actually cause us to fall victim of the Cheerleader Effect
Jillian Wertheim recently wrote about the The Cheerleader Effect and has gone on to suggest that it is closely related to the Distance Dispute a.k.a where an individual looks appealing from afar but becomes less so as you approach. I’ve known of this particular theory but never quite knew its name.
So for you to really catch my drift – check out the video from the TV Show
Have any of you experienced the Cheerleader Effect ? I’ve always wondered why is it that some of friends (guys and girls alike) – have pointed out groups of men who are sitting at private booths at clubs looking like total stud muffins (I love this word) and groups of women at the bar / dance floor who ooze sex appeal – and whenever I’ve managed to have a look at them – have never felt the same way. My mates put it down to me being very critical. Don’t get me wrong – I’m ALL for appreciating a good looking man or woman but lately it just seems that there are none around these days.
I suppose that just means I’m not privy to the cheerleader effect and the power on my lenses are correct – I’m not mistaking fake hotties for real hotties =P So if you have ever fallen victim to the cheerleader effect – don’t let it get you down – and definitely don’t let let it prevent you from ever approaching a group of ‘supposed’ hotties ever again.
Just follow Jillians’ advise and instead, keep in mind how easily our senses can be deceived, and your chances of becoming a victim of the Cheerleader Effect will go way down
So it’s been a ‘not so good morning’ for me … and it’s coming to lunch time … and I have found some Cardboard Love … If you haven’t heard about this site, then I urge you to go and visit it … I can guarantee that you will get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the time you enter the site …
I saw this and I smiled … my first smile for today and it only took 7 hours from the time I woke up to find a reason to smile.
Everything will go away if I could be held right now … Yup .. that’s what I need …
I came across a great post on Primer magazine titledThe Politics of Texting : New Technology, New Dramaby Adam Baxter and it instantly conjured up an image of a round table discussion I was having with a group of friends whilst filming for the documentary that I participated in.
The subject of conversation that day included the implications of putting an ‘x’ at the end of a text message and more so about how my friends and I (who are all technically NRI’s who have moved to India recently) found that some people really ‘read into’ the smallest details behind text messages.
I’ve actually had a conversation with a girlfriend who analysed the way a guy had sent me a text and what it meant … That’s right – she looked at whether or not he put a smiley or a winky or the cheeky tongue (=P) ..
My first hand look at the art of flirting by text ! Apparently all those mean that a guy / girl is showing signs of affection and being flirty … to me .. that’s just the way I normally text … with expression.
The person on the receiving end is unable to see my face nor can they hear my tone of voice – and depending on the way the message is written (all lower case; all caps which is the equivalent of ‘shouting’) it very well could come out the wrong way. I can be quite sarcastic when I joke around, so I tend to put =P or ;) or LOL (laughs out loud) thus allowing the recipient to know my mood and frame of mind when I send the message.
According to SG, one of my guy friends “a message with an ‘x’ is better than a message without an ‘x’ especially when it’s from a person whom you know as it brings a smile to my face and makes you feel that the person cares for you.” At the same time – he doesn’t think too much about whether he’s putting smiley faces or ‘x’s – because his friends will understand what he actually means.
Another friend AA, reckons that if the recipient is a chilled out / open minded individual – they wouldn’t really read into the ‘x’ at the end of a message … however a person who is a bit more conservative will look further into it and wonder ‘why’ would someone use such a ‘personal expression’ ….
Personally, I will only put ‘x’, ‘xxx’, ‘xoxo’ or ‘mwaah’ at the end of a text if I know the person very well – regardless if they are male or female – single or in a relationship. I don’t think too much about it. I will NOT however do that with just ‘anyone’ especially if I get the impression that the other party might even be remotely interested in me – I don’t want to give off the wrong impression.
The problem with text messages as highlighted in the above article is that the ‘meaning behind’ the SMS is lost or often misunderstood. Why ? Because we all have a different perspective on how we look at and digest information given to us.
I’ve noticed that since moving to Mumbai, India – almost EVERYONE I know seems to communicate using text messages, IM’s, Facebook or Twitter and no one seems to believe in picking up the phone and ‘talking’ to each other!
There have been occasions over the last 2 years where I’ve actually had to sit back and assess a few of the text messages I have received and tried to figure out exactly what they mean or imply. e.g. when I first got here, a guy I’d met who seemed quite into me – would call me quite a bit; and then as we both got busy with work – the ‘texting’ came about … and for the life of me I had no idea if this man was still flirting or if he was even interested. I’m just not ‘used to’ having conversations with people over ‘texts’ !
Just yesterday whilst writing this post, it struck me that this guy KB that I’m getting to know – for the past month has always called me ‘diva’ in his messages … yeah that didn’t happen yesterday. Coincidentally – I barely heard from him all day except for a minutes in the morning (so at least he was taking my calls). Later in the day – I sent him a message (yeah I’m guilty for doing that) telling him to ‘cheer up – it was the end of the day – and as his messages came across as frustrated’ … No response ! (Don’t blame him either)
Basically I got ‘used to’ the fact that he addressed me in a certain way and it was out of my comfort zone when he didn’t .. it made me wonder - ‘is all ok’ …. I know I don’t need to think that way – however for the purpose of this post – I allowed my mind to wonder about it. I still sent him a ‘good morning’ message today … and I got a ‘diva’ this morning woohoo !
Oh and ironically – just the other day I told this same guy that ‘I felt that for some reason I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call him as I would with others as I feel I might be interrupting his work’ to which he told me not to worry and just call him at any time and if he couldn’t talk he would let me know …
It’s an obvious – stares in your face – fact. From my social circle, I’d say that 6 out of 10 use short handSMS or acronyms whilst chatting ‘online’ i.e text message, IM, and email.
I absolutely detest receiving messages in short hand. I really do. I find it annoying to read and decipher messages in a combination of upper and lower case characters and what looks and reads like atrocious grammatical errors ! But unfortunately for me – the rest of the population around me don’t care a damn because short hand SMS is now perfectly acceptable ! *sigh*
In essence,Social Networks are Changing Conversation. There is no shortage of communication between people - email, instant messaging, and text messages, but there is a definite shortage of clear and concise human communication – basically we now lack theart of conversation!
It just seems these days, that the only people I speak to are my ‘good friends’ whilst texting is when I can’t really be bothered to ‘speak’ to the other party. Intellectual conversation seems to be a dying art form according to me – at least around the people I am surrounded by because everyone is so damn busy with their own lives. During the day, whilst at work – when I feel like exercising my vocabulary skills, then I will either text / IM / FB message my friends (depending on how and where they came to mind) – however the majority of the time – we end up in a conversation over MSN or Gtalk so that we are able to at least multi-task and get work done at the same time. Personally I don’t indulge in too many personal ‘calls’ whilst at work.
To highlight my point, luckily I found some valid stats about this on an article in the Business Standard.Furthermore, VitalAnalytics states that India is currently the second largest mobile market in the world after China, and nearly 10-12 million mobile subscribers are added monthly in the country.
Do you realise the implication of just how many text messages are sent out on daily basis ? No wonder people are getting confused and mixed signals about text messages and their deep dark hidden mysteries !
For those that ‘read into’ the messages that you receive – my only advice to you is ‘Don’t Do It’ ! Especially if you live in a multi-cultural environment – there are people from all sorts of backgrounds and each culture has their own way of communicating – with or without the ‘x’s and ‘mwaahs’ and ‘hugs’ … So don’t dwell too much and just take the message for what it is … read it but don’t read into it !
I mentioned that I went for a live stand-up comedy on Friday night and it was definitely one of the most unique acts that I have witnessed ! The show which is a part of the International Stand-Up Comedy Circuit, has been promoted by Comedy Pimp – Quill Potter
The comedian was Al Pitcherand if you haven’t heard about him then I highly recommend that you catch him the next time he is visiting whichever part of the world you are in !
The show was held at the Sophia College Auditorium and I must mention that everyone in Bombay pronounces this as ‘Sapphire’s College’ … don’t ask why or how they could mispronounce this but they do … and no one has a logical reason for it … how hard is it to say So-FI-A !
The show in itself is a very unique show since it involves Al Pitcher going around each day in whichever city he is and taking pictures by the dozen of anything and everything that is eye catching and he uses that as part of his act. Hence every show is different.
One of the main reasons I enjoyed his show so much is because the Al Pitcher’s Picture Show (yes it is really called that – and you can find out how this name stuck by checking out Miss Malini’s Blog post ) sort of suggests that we need to stop rushing through our lives … we need to live a little and take the time to stop and smell the coffee .. alert our senses… to take note of all the funny, weird, ad hoc moments that take place all around us ! If only we could really capture everything that makes this thing called life …
Al Pitcher had some hilarious photos that he displayed on the night that I went for the show, and you can check out some of his top pics on Facebook. If you want to get another perspective on his show, check out the pics by Miss Malini – she’s taken quite a few pictures of his actual show and has put them up as well as a YouTube video … It was was taken at the end of the show when there were anonymous Q&A’s from the audience to Al Pitcher
He’s a man after my own heart as he’s about as camera obsessed as me … Now why didn’t I think of using all the ad hoc and inane pictures of what truly makes Mumbai unique in a quest for fame ?? Damn it …
So without further adieu, I present a few of my own personal unique Mumbai Moments … Would love to hear your thoughts on it =)
I’ve been sitting at home the last few days due to my foot injury and have had a lot of time to just gather my thoughts. Easy task ? Hell No !
I had found a post that I wrote months ago but never published on ‘The Art of Conversation’ which I have now posted up. It got me thinking on a few other things which have been coming to mind.
I suppose we all have ‘real’ conversations wherein we talk and communicate with each other. However ‘who’ are those conversations with ? People at work ? People at home ? People that we meet at a social gathering ?
The next question I ask myself is ‘how real’ are those conversations ? They are pretty generic when I look back at my own conversations with these people albeit with a handful of people whereby the conversation stems to a deeper level than just ‘hi, hello, how’s it going’.
So how do social networks come into play with this topic ? I suppose with the advent of various social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, Friendster, Linkedin, Internations, ASW etc there has been an increase in the number of ‘friends’ that we now have as compared to say perhaps 10 years ago.
There was a time when ‘friends’ were people whom we were close to and / or grew up with or went to school with or went to university with. They were also people who belonged to our local neighbourhood, playgroups, sports clubs etc. These friends changed as we moved along in life i.e moved to another city or country; changed schools; changed jobs etc. Of course we all have our ‘good friends’ who have known us since our childhood days and despite all the changes in demographics – we have maintained those friendships.
With the development of social networking platforms, even if one were to move countries, it is now possible to still be ‘friends’ with those from our past. There is a way to reconnect with people from our yesteryears – so much so that my uncles and aunts are now on sites such as Facebook and catching up with THEIR old friends via their children.
Let’s take Facebook as an example. If you take a few minutes and go through the wall posts and photo comments of ONE friend – you are more than likely to find them commenting on at least 30 different people. There are people such as myself who have almost 1500 ‘friends’ on FB. Funnily enough – I actually ‘know’ most of these people either by way of having gone to school (I went to 3 different schools growing up) with them, university, and work (3 different countries). Now add on to this that I am now living in a 4th country for the past 2 years and have met a huge number of people between work and my social circuit too.
A lot of these people are acquaintances; and a few are social friends i.e. people who I can count on to go out and have a few laughs; even fewer are my close friends and they are scattered globally. So YES – I am able to stay in touch and communicate with all these people – perhaps not individually but what FB allows me to do is send out a ‘global’ ‘mass’ message via my status updates that lets me put out my thoughts and it allows me to connect with my immediate circle of friends as well as my outer circle – whoever may be ‘online’ at the time and therefore enable us to strike up a conversation quite literally out of nowhere !
We are able to organize our friends and family on a particular networking site; catch up with friends via photo and video uploads – so you can keep track of what’s going on in their lives even if you aren’t really a part of it on a regular basis. Not to mention, all the events being organized in your own city via business networking and social stuff as well !
There was a point where we would communicate by way of meeting face-to-face; use physical letters & post cards if there was a geographic distance; the internet came along and we progressed on to emails; IM services came about followed by Video Conferencing services; and now we’re passively able to communicate each and every thought to a mass audience without specifying a certain person.
I think it’s a brilliant advance for us all – and technology is going to constantly be evolving so who knows what the next generation will be doing to communicate with each other !
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I was reading a really interesting article titled 
