Normal Gets You Nowhere - Hardcover

Cutrone, Kelly; Bryan, Meredith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062059793 ISBN 13: 9780062059796

Verlag: HarperOne, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

nor-mal: 2 a: according with, constituting, ornot deviating from a norm, rule or principle b: conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern 4 a: of, relating to, or characterized by average intelligence or development

Uh, who wants that?

Hot on the heels of her New York Times bestseller IfYou Have to Cry, Go Outside, Kelly Cutrone isback with another no-holds-barred book to awaken our souls and kick our assesinto gear. In Normal Gets You Nowhere, she invites us to get our freakon. History is full of successful, world-changing people who did not fitin. Think Nelson Mendela, Joan of Arc, EleanorRoosevelt, John Lennon. Instead of changing themselves to accommodate thestatus quo or what others thought they should be, these people hung a light ontheir differences – and changed humanity in the process. There’s already anarmy of supertalented uberfreakschanging the world–isn’t it time you joined them?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kelly Cutrone is the CEO and founder of People's Revolution, the New York Times bestselling author of If You Have to Cry, Go Outside, a television personality, and mother to nine-year-old Ava.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

nor-mal: according with, constituting,or not deviating from a norm, ruleor principle / conforming to a type,standard, or regular pattern / of,relating to, or characterized byaverage intelligence or development

Normal?

Who wants to be that?

When Kelly Cutrone’s first book, If You Haveto Cry, Go Outside, was first published, youngpeople flocked to this new voice—finally,someone was telling it like it is, in languagethey spoke. It quickly became a New YorkTimes bestseller, and fashion publicist KellyCutrone became more than a personality,she became a beloved guru, mentor, andfairy godmother.

Now she’s back with another no-holds-barredbook to awaken our souls and kick our assesinto gear. With Normal Gets You Nowhere,she invites us to get our freak on. History isfull of successful, world-changing people whodid not fit in. Think Nelson Mandela, Joanof Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart,John Lennon, and Rosa Parks. Instead ofchanging themselves to accommodate thestatus quo or what others thought they shouldbe, these people hung a light on their differences—and changed humanity in the process.

“I know you don’t feel normal, so why areyou trying to act it and prove to everyone youare?” Cutrone says. So much of what we sayor don’t say, and what we do or don’t do, isdictated by what others have told us, or whatpeople may think of us. This is not how weshould be living, by measuring ourselvesagainst the mundane.

An invitation to rethink who you are, what youvalue, and what you want from life, NormalGets You Nowhere goes beyond how to reinventyourself and create your own brand, andinvestigates what it means to live in this worldas a tuned-in, caring individual with a passionfor making a difference. There’s already anarmy of super talented uberfreaks changingthe world–isn’t it time you joined them?

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Normal Gets You Nowhere

Trust Me, They're Lying to YouBy Kelly Cutrone, Meredith Bryan

HarperOne

Copyright © 2011 Kelly Cutrone
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-205979-6

Chapter One

The media?s the most powerful entity on earth.
They have the power to make the innocent guilty and
to make the guilty innocent, and that?s power. Because
they control the minds of the masses.
?Malcolm X

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the
shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society, we can
brutalize it. Or we can help lift it to a higher level.
?Bill Bernbach

These days, American life is pretty much set up to allow us to
feel as little as possible. We?ve been
desensitized by the thousands of choices capitalism presents us on a
grocery store, sixteen different vitamin drinks, forty-seven brands
of jeans. In the words of Pink Floyd, we?ve become ?comfortably
numb.? While horrible things happen all over the world, we spend
a lot of our time deciding, Hmmm, should I get the Honey Nut Cheerios
or the organic almond Kashi granola? Should I buy a boyfriend jean or a
skinny jean? Should I watch HBO or TiVo? Let?s face it, we are in a
capitalistically overwhelmed state. And this is no accident. While you?re
in the grocery store or the Gap deciding what to eat and what to
wear, there are lobbyists and politicians in Washington passing bills
that you know nothing about. They might be limiting your rights at
the airport, in an abortion clinic, or at the gay pride parade. But you
wouldn?t know, because you?re wondering whether your cereal has
antioxidant powers or if that new pair of jeans will get you fucked.
Make no mistake. The government, the media, and commerce
are actively collaborating to distract us from what?s really important
in life. After all, unconsciousness is a very effective commercial
political, and even military strategy. Keeping droves of
citizens medicated and over stimulated with bullshit distractions
pretty much guarantees that when they go to their polling places
to vote, many will have no idea who the candidates on the ballot
are, let alone what the propositions they?re voting on say or mean.
Whoever said less is more was right: the less bullshit and
frivolity you have in your life, the more attention you have to
focus on what is really going on.
I want you to be able to see underneath, around, above, and
through things, so that you can form and shape your own opinions,
instead of just blindly going along with everyone else?s. A
good place to start is by understanding the media. I?m going to let
you in on something: every media outlet is a brand with its own
point of view. Writers who work at major international
newspapers are asked to express themselves in a different way than
tabloid reporters. Even my book is a brand! If I appeared in a pink
the languages of different media brands. After all, if you?re going
to pitch a fashion story to an industry publication like Women?s
Wear Daily or Style.com, you may need a different slant than you
would with Life & Style Weekly or USA Today. We like to say you
have to frost the cake differently for different publications.
If you take a minute to actually look at these brands, from the
major networks to the national newspapers, you?ll see that many
are owned by huge, multibillion-dollar corporations (that?s
billion with a b, baby!). Whether bringing you gossip or hard-hitting
readers, viewers, or advertisers. Last time I checked, none of these
major papers or networks had ?.org? after their names; they are
businesses. That means they have one responsibility to
carry out for their owners and their boards: to engage you, the
consumer or viewer, and keep you coming back for more.
How do they do this? At the top rungs of these networks
college graduates. If you were to sit in on their creative meetings,
you?d hear phrases like, ?Wouldn?t it be wild if we . . . ??
and ?Can we try . . . ?? Many of these brands will try anything
that works. I mean, let?s be honest. How many times have you
bought a tabloid promising that your favorite movie star couple
was getting divorced or that some young starlet had suddenly
sprouted cellulite?
One of their favorite tactics is fear. Hundreds of producers
employed by news organizations sit around every day scouring
the Internet, reading every paper from coast to coast and every
news feed from around the world. What are they looking for?
Stories that are going to keep you hooked, scared, trusting them,
and coming back for more updates, whether they?re about Amish
girls being slaughtered in their one-room schoolhouse by a milk
truck driver in Pennsylvania, or the unspeakable home invasion
paths, but playing them over and over during the evening hours
when most American families watch TV feels like an additional
attack, both on the crimes? victims and on the rest of us.
I don?t know about you, but this news is really freaking me
out. And not just when I?m watching it either?it continues to
haunt and stalk me afterwards. It?s almost as if, after seeing the
nonstop, sensationalized reporting of the Amish girls? story in
2006, my mind and heart opened a permanent portal through
which I constantly revisit the scene of the crime, and I continue to
pray for those girls and their families today. After being similarly
besieged by coverage of the unspeakable tragedy of the rape and
killing of three members of the Petit family in Connecticut, I
could no longer just be at the mercy of these fears; I had to look
at how they could be a teacher for me, and where I might actually
be vulnerable. So I invested in a heavy-duty security system and
started insisting on background checks for every person I hire at
People?s Revolution as well as independent contractors for my
home. Only then did I start sleeping even remotely better.
You have probably already seen the warnings on various
TV programs saying, ?What you?re about to see tonight is very
disturbing.? Well, I think these warnings are messages from the
brands too?that you?re about to get a big dose of your favorite
drug, FEAR, delivered! Instead, I suggest a simple blue screen,
perhaps counting down the numbers 3, 2, 1. And while we?re at
it, let?s put blank covers on our newspapers, so that stories about
young Disney stars ?cutting? themselves and being diagnosed
with borderline personality disorder don?t menace our eight-year-
olds when they pop into a bodega to get a candy bar on the way
home from school. (I mean, can it really be a coincidence that the
candy and newspapers are always stacked on top of each other?)
The people who work at media brands are experts at giving
us not what we want to see, but what they know we won?t be able
to turn away from. They make it so that we can?t help but look
or click; they ensnare us with a combination of the Divine and
the sadistic. In doing so, I believe they not only keep us numb
and distract us from what?s important in life?they manipulate
us into wreaking more havoc on ourselves. After all, what we
think is what we manifest, and I do not need or want people in
the media helping me sculpt my thoughts.
Don?t get me wrong, I love many members of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HarperOne
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0062059793
• ISBN 13: 9780062059796
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar