Article Test

This is a test article, so I can try out some formatting and other items before actually taking a shot at an article. It’s not really anything more than just some filler text, but since I’m writing it anyway, I might as well make it a little more interesting than inserting “lorem ipsum” into the text wall over and over again.

Incidentally, why do we actually do that? Sure, it allows us to see the formatting fairly simply, but in the end, it’s really just nonsense. It means nothing, and when we actually sit and read something, the words on the page mean just as much, if not more than the formatting in which they’re placed.

It just seems to make the entire typesetting so disingenuous.

So what was the point I was trying to make? Oh yes — Formatting. Making something look prettier, and thereby increasing the importance of words by showing them in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

It’s not like we don’t all do it. Branding, in and of itself, is certainly all about taking the mundane and converting it into the essential. The made-up word “Pepsi” on its own, means quite literally nothing. But add a blue and red circle, a stylish font, and the crisp sound of refreshment, and you’ve suddenly got a viewer in a terrible thirst, looking for relief from a cool, caramel-colored beverage that you’ve conveniently supplied within a five-minute drive in any direction.

We wear such masks in our every day lives, putting forth our “best selves,” marketing ourselves through resumes and profiles to create an idealized version of who we are. We do it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on everything. We pick and choose the selves that others should see, carefully hiding those things that would distract from the “persona.”

Now, of course, that’s not to say that such things are wrong. Instead, they are truly essential to our every day lives. We have far too many things going on in our own lives to worry about the detailed minutae of another’s.

“How are you?” “Just fine, and you?” “Doing well.” The most common of interactions between ourselves and other human beings, because we care little about what others are saying/feeling/hoping/dreaming/enduring/elating beyond how such an instance affects us personally.

Alright, that seems like enough of a ramble. Unfocused, barely held together, and truly a little pompous — Seems like an article that’d fit right in. Lol.