WHY DO PEOPLE COMMODIFY EVERY

ASPECT OF THEIR LIVES THROUGH A

ROMANTICIZED LENS?

maya de castro | engl 1302

CONTEXT FOR RESEARCH

I will be going on to address the ever growing urge to turn our

lives into a commodity all while romanticizing the reality of it.
As opposed to living life solely for one’s own purpose, wants,
and needs, many of us have come to go through our days
prioritizing financial issues (which, there’s no choice but to do
so sometimes). Constantly seeking ways to make a profit, it’s
no doubt that people will try to paint their overworking and
overachieving into a “boss”-like mindset. For this project
specifically, I want to hone in on those who are/have already
experienced the working life (i.e. my friends, older family
members, coworkers, etc) and explore the relationship
between the chase for profiting off of our lives and our want
to idealize the strenuous task of overworking.
RESEARCHER
INTENTIONS &
POSITIONALITY
As someone who is currently pursuing an art degree, I have DEFINITELY
fallen victim to this mindset. Money has always been a prevalent issue
growing up in a large, immigrant family, so naturally, I’ve always thought of
the many different things I could do to profit off of whatever I make, do,
say, or just off of how I exist. I’ve watched a number of adults from my own
household continuously work themselves to the bone on and on again by
saying that their efforts will give them and their loved ones a better quality
of life, such as my mother with a chronic case of workaholism. While that
isn’t necessarily a lie in and of itself, it made me wonder how seeing their
lives as is through rose-tinted glasses affected how they viewed
themselves. I hope I get to gain a better insight of this phenomenon
through this assignment.
SIGNIFICANCE OF CONDUCTING
THIS RESEARCH

Capitalism has, and will continue to, hold a tight grasp on

many of our lives. As sad as the reality is, a good amount of
people will spend their lives working again and again just to be
able to get a true taste of what life can bring. In modern times
especially, glorifying your life is meant to serve as an
empowering concept! More often than not, it’s been used as a
tool that serves to encourage a person to apply their energy
into turning that life into profit. Understanding the power that
a romanticized view toward life has on how we perceive our
very existence is a very crucial concept.
BRAINSTORMING &
SKETCHING
As of right now, I still feel as if my proposal is a bit all over the place. I’m
not fully confident that I’m shooting in the same direction for some of
these points, so I would really, REALLY like some feedback to see if I’m
making sense or not at all producing a coherent thought.

Once I try to align everything a little better, I plan on conducting

my own research and gain more of an understanding of what
h others believe (1) commodifying themselves and (2) doing so by
w i t romanticizing the process.
me oject
i s pr
th