I’m obsessed with people. “A keen observer of the human condition,” someone once diagnosed me. It’s true: I live to observe and interact with others. But that’s not unique, right? We all like to people-watch. But I don’t stop at people watching, I people-analyze and people-theorize and then “rinse wash repeat.” The end of this process looks something like a sociological concept or theory, and I call the summation of these theories “every day sociology,” a discipline in itself. The distinction between academic sociology and every day sociology (EDS) is that I don’t have to provide any substantial evidence or research to support my claims. I am, in essence, my own review board. My theories are simply the result of my individual ethnography, and casual interviews (conversations) with friends and acquaintances that I find interesting enough to connect with on a level deeper than today’s weather or the latest apolitical current event.
I don’t put myself on the same shelf as the founding fathers of Sociology: Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. But I do think that this brand of sociology is necessary in attracting a new age, and perhaps mainstream (“basic?”) audience. The mass media cherish psychologists’ analyses of the presidential election, or philosophers’ two cents about civil rights. But sociologists need some more PR. Cue my entry. I am entering a conversation that no sociologist has entered before: everyday life. Wait, that’s all that sociology is about. I meant to say where no sociologist has gone before: the millennium. Let’s use our lofty sociological jargon to talk about Trump, Instagram, and the like. In fact, I think we (sociologists) have to glamorize our discipline in this way in order for it to survive.