ALPINE FINESSE ‘UNIQUELY FRESH’ ™
This paper is an honest reflexive analysis of my relationship to the product Alpine Finesse, a cigarette brand that I used as a teenager and into my early adulthood.
How did the item express your self-identity?
As a teenager I was influenced, like most other teenagers by the peers I surrounded myself with. Arguably, I was a teenager with an unusual background. My family was working class, my parents were divorced, and I was one of five living in a large blended household. Throughout my childhood we lived a Gypsie lifestyle, we travelled interstate and back and forth, over this period I attended over a dozen schools and almost everywhere we settled, I looked to make friends who were more like me, kids who lived rougher lives.
In my household, rite of passage from childhood to adulthood involved working a casual job and this undertaking of responsibility, enabled me to buy cigarettes. By year 9, I was a ‘cashed-up Bogan ' (Pini, et al., 2012, p. 142) and I could afford to be a pack-a-day smoker. …show more content…
Smoking created an excuse to hang out with other kids who weren’t afraid of bending or breaking the rules. Being a smoker had its social benefits, it helped me to feel included. At school we had our ‘smoker’s corner’ and this was an inclusive group. Smoking guaranteed me membership within this environment and entrenched my smoker’s identity. Unanimously, social theorists Beck, Giddens and Bauman all agree that people commonly define themselves through the messages they transmit by ways of displayed practices (Warde, 1994, p. 878). I found that being a smoker was, amongst my peers both inside and outside of school was widely considered acceptable, even desirable. I was hip, I was fashionable, I was a rule breaker, and I had a known social
This paper is an honest reflexive analysis of my relationship to the product Alpine Finesse, a cigarette brand that I used as a teenager and into my early adulthood.
How did the item express your self-identity?
As a teenager I was influenced, like most other teenagers by the peers I surrounded myself with. Arguably, I was a teenager with an unusual background. My family was working class, my parents were divorced, and I was one of five living in a large blended household. Throughout my childhood we lived a Gypsie lifestyle, we travelled interstate and back and forth, over this period I attended over a dozen schools and almost everywhere we settled, I looked to make friends who were more like me, kids who lived rougher lives.
In my household, rite of passage from childhood to adulthood involved working a casual job and this undertaking of responsibility, enabled me to buy cigarettes. By year 9, I was a ‘cashed-up Bogan ' (Pini, et al., 2012, p. 142) and I could afford to be a pack-a-day smoker. …show more content…
Smoking created an excuse to hang out with other kids who weren’t afraid of bending or breaking the rules. Being a smoker had its social benefits, it helped me to feel included. At school we had our ‘smoker’s corner’ and this was an inclusive group. Smoking guaranteed me membership within this environment and entrenched my smoker’s identity. Unanimously, social theorists Beck, Giddens and Bauman all agree that people commonly define themselves through the messages they transmit by ways of displayed practices (Warde, 1994, p. 878). I found that being a smoker was, amongst my peers both inside and outside of school was widely considered acceptable, even desirable. I was hip, I was fashionable, I was a rule breaker, and I had a known social