New Race of Orange People

http://perezhilton.com/2010-04-12-too-much-tanning-will-do-this-to-your-face#.Tn-v1HOrVRk

Trends and styles are constantly changing. What was fashionable years ago is not anymore and what is culturally accepted now probably wasn’t before. Tanning or the act of darkening your skin has been a new phenomenon for the past couple years. However, the act or process has really been emphasized in the pop subculture through objectivity. If you look for tanning salons around your area, I am sure that multiple locations spring up. The new trend has engulfed society of all ages and is also similar to the tattoo pandemic.

Going back about the span of 50 to 100 years ago, a person having dark or tan skin was looked down upon. The fact that your skin was tan or darker meant that you were a laborer thus a member of lower class. This is why upper class members relied on various methods in order to keep their skin pasty and thus maintain their ‘superior’ status. In fact, certain societies and cultures continue practicing and maintaining the same practices/beliefs. So what explains this new phenomenon?

Bordo points out the connection that bodies have with social construction. The so-called docile body is subjected, used, transformed and improved. While darker skin tone was associated with lower status it is now seen as an object that defines the rich or upper class. The position that we as subjects are left with is the decision making in whether we comply and by tanning align ourselves somehow with this particular sub-culture regardless of your financial status. The description of someone as tan falls in line with descriptive phrases/words such as good looking, rich, classy, and successful. However, since tanning is an object of a sub-culture with so much influence, the majority of those that tan do not qualify as the upper class but yet continue to do so anyways.

Even though when mom insists for you to stop tanning because she is worried about you getting skin cancer, you continue to do so but not because you magically woke up one day with this thought/idea in your head.