WTF is social? Stereotypes

This blog is part of a series.  WTF is social?  Using Human Completeness as the core ability of the human brain, we examine various facets of social life and how communication technology and size of social circle,  impact our ability to be socially effective.

Stereotypes 

Why do ads and jokes use stereotypes? First of all stereotypes are a modern phenomenon. It is a term first used to describe something completely technical in printing process. One of the key features of stereotypes is that they are widely understood. We don't label our friends and family members with stereotypes and if we do, it must be a really hard relationship. Some people can afford to do that, if they enjoy lots of power in the relationship or if they have no reason to maintain that relationship.  

What stereotypes do is that they activate and stimulate our social brain. Given the time (30 seconds ad), that is all marketing people can do to get our attention. Why do we believe in stereotypes? That is all we can do within our social brain limits. It is hard and even impossible to think and consider every thing about everyone. We just have to deal with too many people in the modern world. Some of them are real people we actually meet, but some of them are pure fiction created by the broadcasting  communication. Cartoons and caricatures work because our brain supply the rest of the details. Stereotypes work the same way. We bring them to life with our experience. They will break as soon as we have to debate them with our friends, but on a one way broadcast they are never questioned and skip the test of normal socially created reality.   

Let's add stereotypes to the list of some of the slots that are already taken in the brain. It is no wonder we miss the human connection in our interactions. There are not many slots left nor much time left to fill them to any decent depth. Stereotypes are just simplifications created by us to cope up with the scale of the societies we are now forced to live in. It is practically impossible to be human at scale. 

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