For this topic I choose something that we all could enjoy reading and I would enjoy looking up and researching. The topic of Bigfoot (Abominable Snowman, Yeti) there is many names but this author thinks they are the same thing. When I say the same thing I don’t mean the same animal. If you believe what this author is saying Bigfoot isn’t an animal rather a idea or ideology that people of a certain time for a certain reason thought it helpful to talk of this made up beast. The author states “Bigfoot endures in the American imagination because, as a representative of an old order, this beast functions outside a growing consumer-oriented society to appeal to those looking for the real reality behind the plastic” (Buhs, 2009). The author goes on to explain how in different cultures this mythic monster is made up and he traces the times that there are spikes in stories to different societal changes.
Now who was this article written for? I think this article is written for people who are on the fence of believing or disbelieving in things like Bigfoot or fictional monsters of any type. There are a great amount of people in the world who would like to think these animals exist because they want to think the world is different than their dull lives. All over the world we have stories or tall tales of beasts or animals that have gone to the wayside or have been so illusive they are timeless. I think this article was meant to show that there is an answer to these stories; the answer is we made it up.
I would say this article is written very well. I would say the introduction reads, as it should. It leads you into the story giving key terms and triggers memory’s we may have of this tall tale. Then it goes into the research. It states how and why the author came to the conclusions he did and the research behind it. The conclusion of the article wraps up the article nicely and leaves very little to the imagination. Unless you don’t agree and you think there is a Bigfoot. Hey, we are all entitled to an opinion.
The key idea of this article is the fact we as humans always try and view our world differently then it is. For some reason historically their has always been unexplained things or stories floating around to give us a taste of what might be out their. Even in this day in age we cannot for sure say Bigfoot doesn’t exist. Humans have always stretched the imagination far beyond reality to explain the unexplained. This article tries to say just that. Humans tend to embellish stories for their own good and to gain something. We might be trying to gain money or friends or status. But there is always a reason behind these tall tales and in this case the author tries to get the point across with research and facts. There are no Yeti, or Bigfoot. We use them as another way to explain naturally occurring things that effect our everyday life we have no other explanation for.
Reference
Buhs, J. B. (2009). The Journal of Popular Culture. Journal of Polular Culture , 42 (6), pp. 1137-1139.
