Why Use Shoes?

The use of shoes has been around for many years throughout different cultures. Shoes are designed to make us walk and run comfortably but are these the only reasons human beings rely on shoes? Definitely not especially in this new digital world we are living in. Shoes can sometime identify us for who we are. Identity plays major roles in our life; it is our characteristics which give cues to others to help them figure out what we represent. In our textbook Culture and Technology it states, “Identity affects how a person is placed in culture: how important they are, how they are treated, and what possibilities are open to them” (Slack 149). When we look at a commercial and see our favorite celebrity promoting shoes we run and buy the shoes no matter what the circumstances are. It doesn’t matter if we like them, the style of the shoe, or how much they cost. The only thing that matters is, Hanna Montana, Beyonce, or TI has the shoes on, therefore; it has to be the new trend. The funny thing is you can take those same shoes and someone who is not a celebrity can wear them and most people would say things like, “those shoes are old” or “nobody wears them anymore.” Shoes can say a lot about your character such as; if you keep yourself up, the type of style you like and you personality (outgoing, adventurous, quite, loud and soft spoken). When looking at someone shoes we tend to stereotype their lives at that very moment. In the reading, Cybertyping and the Work of Race, the author Lisa Nakamura states, “Stereotype itself an example of machine-language, albeit pre computer; the first stereotype was a machine device that could reproduce images relatively cheaply, quickly, and in mass quantities,” (Nakamura 318). In this day and time shoes are becoming more and more expensive. Prada, Gucci, Chanel, and even Nikes are all well quality shoes and all have been duplicated by cheap material and sold. The other manufactures know that everyone can not afford these shoes so they use cheap material to make the duplicates and sell them at a low price. If someone was to have on the fake Gucci or Jordan’s we atomically identify them as being cheap or having low income.

Technology is developed within shoes but why does this matter? Identity matter is one way of answering this question. Technology targets a particular group of people. Technology is designed according to who will use it. This is how they determine who they will distribute it to! In chapter thirteen of our textbook Culture and Technology, it talked about how technologies will be designed to work in ways that suite those use and users (Slack 150). When looking at a commercial in which a celebrity is promoting shoes, the commercial does not necessarily mean you are the target audience? If you are not a person who buys or will ever plan to buy expensive shoes the commercials is not meant for you. Although the purpose of these commercials is to get everyone to buy the product this is not possible. Therefore, when targeting an audience they use celebrities, people with nice skin, nice bodies, and gender depending on the type of shoe they are trying to sell. “The discourse of many commercials for the internet includes gender as only one of a series of outmode “body categories” like race and age,” (Nakamura 32). Race and gender is design to get the attention of the audience .When people wear shoes it is not just a shoe, it is culture, fashion, and above all their identity.

Cites: Slack, Jennifer Wise, J. MacGregor. Culture and Technology.

Nakamuar, Lisa. Cybertyping and the Work of Race.