Authenticity

I've been watching a lot of Pawn Stars lately (the History Channel) - had never seen it before, but it's fun!

It's interesting, they're so obsessed with authenticity, that authenticity itself is tied to monetary value. Is this signature from Winston Churchill real? If it is, it's worth thousands. But it needs to be authenticated by an expert. Not all of us are experts. So, what's on the line if the store says it's real and it's not? Who would know? What would get hurt? Reputation? Legitimacy?

Interesting framework to think about - the framework of realness, of valuing certain individuals and certain narratives in our history, and translating that to actual monetary value, into capital.

I'd like to see a show about who they sell all this stuff to.

Sickiness

Being sick constitutes a really particular form of temporary social exclusion. There's a social stigma in interacting with normal society when one is in a state of sickiness. People even deny that they are sick by saying things like "oh, I have really bad allergies" or something to that effect in order to be able to continue participating in society.

When one admits that one is sick, it involves telling people around them to excuse them from social niceties like giving hugs and shaking hands. Indeed, in order to not make others around feel too uncomfortable, one must also excuse oneself from social gatherings, furthering the point of social isolation due to sickness. There are also only certain people one can be exposed to while sick, and those usually don't involve the very young (ie: infants) or the very elderly and frail.

It's a bit like coming out of the closet. It's not something you can help, but if you admit to it, you have to face the social stigmas that come along with it...along with being treated a little bit like a freak. I guess the good thing about having a cold is that it's temporary.