People do not have knowledge they have 'images'.
 
Knowledge of the world and of the self may or may not be true. Thus personal
 
knowledge of the 'facts' are really an 'Image' of the facts and not objective truth.
 
Just as self-knowledge is really self-image not a valid objective reality.
Messages are information. fact or not.
The meaning of any message is the change it makes in the 'image' held.
a message perceived as "bad' 'wrong' or 'hostile' or  any message that is
 
inconsistent with the status quo favorable or not is usually met with resisitance.  a
 
message repeted often enough or with unusual force or authority is able to
 
penetrate the resisitance and alter the image.
 
The idea of making sense of reality in any way comes down to pattern recognition at
 
some level.
 
Reality is chaos until the mind coceives patterns that repeat in recognizable ways.
 
When A happens and B happens C will happen too.
 
From this wise men devised mathematics and logic.
 
With new computer adoption and the abitlity to track mass cultural shifts chaotic
 
trnds become recognizable and adopted as the 'norm' of the group that is aware of
 
the trend before any logical conclusion is finalized. They do things that don't make
 
sense but because these things can be tracked and verified by computer they can
 
see that enough people have bought into the nonssense that that becomes its own
 
justification for being. I exist (in crirical mass) therefore I am righteous as the body
 
I represent and we deserve to exist.
 
Authority figures or models or icons can manipulate the trend and adopters of the
 
trend or the adopters themselves can point to the fact that the trend exists as
 
justification of its right to be. This is some sort of 'Meta' shortcircuiting of the
 
natural order of things it seems.
 
Cognitive dissonance sets in.
 
People make up 'reasons' such as it just 'feels good' to pay extra for coffee in a
 
place where 'cool' people like themselves hang-out whether or not the coffee itself is
 
any good--though they insist it is. And it's all just bullshit.
 
Attaining a critical mass of foolish behavior does not make that behavior acceptable
 
or any less factually foolish but there is strength in numbers. Especially if those
 
number generate profit.
 
Reality bends to needs of the masses. It goes where the money is. Branded sizzle.
 
Salable COOL. Reality packaged as a commodity for exclusive consumption by
 
'Hip' subcultures.
 
When economic power is in the hands of juvenile--much less adolecent-- level
 
critical thinkers then there is no critical thinking. It is all ad hoc, after the fact,
 
explaination. A creative hyper-verbal assemblage that becomes a kind of commodity
 
in the attention economy itself.
 
 
 
They pay for the 'experience' as long as there are enough like minded souls that feel
 
the sameway as they do and they feel an unspoken loose affiliateion to each other
 
and have a nodding/knowing look that conveys the appreciation of this belonging
 
without explicit vocallizing and publicly stating their relation to one another.