Is it really like That 70's Show?

I think I looked at Becker’s article on using marijuana a bit differently. I have an outsider’s perspective so I interpreted what he was saying in an alternate way. Since we are looking at culture as a group of people with common interests and how that creates their world, I think after reading this article, everyone was picturing the same thing. The way that most of us see people smoking pot is due to social construction which comes from TV shows, songs, movies, etc. Most people are probably envisioning a group of friends hanging out on a weekend in somebody’s basement smoking pot and having a good night. Or something similar, maybe like That 70’s Show, right? That is what I got from listening to everyone’s interpretations and comments in discussion. I think that is because of how Becker set up his argument and the methods, such as interviews, he used to get his point across.

This image did cross my mind, but not immediately. I didn’t just think of friends sitting around getting high, which is what made it most enjoyable and addictive. But I think the inter-textual content created that image for the reader. I saw the article almost as an informative essay on how to smoke marijuana. I felt that it explained what you need to do to smoke pot right and get the “right” kind of high. That is why I think some people don’t need to be in a social setting to enjoy marijuana. They could Google how to smoke pot and figure it out soon enough. People could use it as a recreational drug like Becker said or a coping mechanism for just about anything.

I saw the article this way because of my schema and the way I unconsciously read it. That’s why I had a different opinion of the article and maybe criticized it more than others.