Pink/Blue

Yesterday and today I was tasked with hanging up Christmas ornaments onto pewgs while at work. Now, this is not a difficult task, just boring and tedious. But something had caught my attention. And this theme resonated throghout the entire Hobby Lobby store. The theme: Indoctrination. It is simple. But this is not just something that is found at Hobby Lobby. It is found throughout our entire society. Now I'm not talking about something big. It is simple. Something so small as color. I have this theory that color can influence people more than anything. I try to use this when I practice my photography. If something can stand on its own without the use of vivid and eye popping color, then it is worth being shown. But back to the color indoctrination that I encounter when I work. How many of you associate light blue with baby boys, and light pink with baby girls? Think about it. In movies, television, pop culture, our stores: pink and blue are the go-to two colors used to identify the sex of a baby. Not green. Not yellow. Not red. Not violet. Not white. Not black. Not orange. Why do we constantly use these two colors? It was introduced as a marketing scheme, as I'm sure. Think about it. People know that if you buy pink clothing, you are having a baby girl. Blue shit? A baby boy. "What color are you painting the nursery?" "Blue." "Congrats on the baby boy!" At Hobby Lobby we sell frames that have the cutout replicate the shape of a classic sonogram. We carry two styles, if you will: one with light pink plaid, the other with light blue plaid. All the baby themed frame are divided between two styles, spare a few that are just plain silver. This theme carries over to the area that sells decor for children's rooms. Everything is pink or blue. What really brought this to the forefront of my brain was the comment yesterday: "People will know that pink is for girls and blue is for boys." Now that is fine and dandy. We, as humans, like to have certain colors associated with certain themes, topics, or places. I just feel that is it just a bad thing to continue this trend of pink=girls and blue=boys. Cause this leads to bad fashion trends like guys trying to be "real men" or "tough" start wearing pink everything, including shirts that state "Real men wear pink". No one gives a shit about that. Wear what you want, no matter what people might think. What people say doesn't matter. If someday I have a child, I will try my damnest to avoid the pink/blue cliche. Hopefully I will be with a girl who will feel the same, or at least will hear out my arguement against picking them automatically. I will admit that my room currently is blue and white. But my favorite color is blue. I might pick blue as the color for my nursery. But I know that blue is a calming color. Red is a great color, just not my favorite. I love certain shades and hues, and I love those specific ones matched with a white trim. I love color. I honestly do. But I also know that too much color can be distracting and change our perception of things. I was taught this in Photography class: We were forced to set our desktop background to a neutral gray. Why? Because by setting it close to 18% gray [which is middle tone Zone V, which is the Average Meter Reading for photography] will set up our eyes to match what the camera sees. It also prevents images from appearing too dark or too bright, depending on our background. It sets us up for neutral. We don't adjust well when we have certain associations with a certain color. One big example of this is the Boise State Broncos football field. Football fields are normally green, with white stripes and numbers. Boise State's is blue with the white stripes and numbers; this cause some people [DAD] complain that the game is "too difficult to watch". It is not diffcult; just not what he is used to. It happens. Here is something that I wonder if people will catch: Leave a comment with what is your favorite color, and what you think about the pink/blue baby world.