{"id":6840,"date":"2020-03-04T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=6840"},"modified":"2020-03-04T14:53:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T09:23:23","slug":"making-connectionssociology-in-the-real-world-parrotheads-as-sociological-subjects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/making-connectionssociology-in-the-real-world-parrotheads-as-sociological-subjects\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Connections:Sociology in the real World: Parrotheads as Sociological Subjects"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Relevance: Sociology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Parrot Head<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0Parrothead<\/b><\/span>\u00a0is a commonly used nickname for fans of\u00a0Jimmy Buffett. “Parakeets” or “Keets” is the term used for younger fans of Buffett, or children of Parrotheads.<\/p>\n

Some sociologists study small groups of people who share an identity in one aspect of their lives.<\/p>\n

Who belongs to the group?<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Almost everyone belongs to a group of like-minded people who share an interest or hobby.<\/p>\n

Scientologists, folk dancers, or members of Mensa (an organization for people with exceptionally high IQs) express a specific part of their identity through their affiliation with a group. Those groups are often of great interest to sociologists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jimmy Buffett, an American musician who built a career from his single top-10 song \u201cMargaritaville,\u201d has a following of devoted groupies called Parrotheads.<\/strong> Some of them have taken fandom to the extreme, making Parrothead culture a lifestyle.<\/p>\n

What the research says about parrotheads?<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2005, Parrotheads and their subculture caught the attention of researchers John Mihelich and John Papineau<\/strong>. The two saw the way Jimmy Buffett fans collectively created an artificial reality. They wanted to know how fan groups shape culture. The result was a study and resulting article called \u201cParrotheads in Margaritaville: Fan Practice, Oppositional Culture, and Embedded Cultural Resistance in Buffett Fandom.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Mihelich and Papineau found was that Parrotheads, for the most part, do not seek to challenge or even change society, as many sub-groups do. In fact, most Parrotheads live successfully within society, holding upper-level jobs in the corporate world. What they seek is escape from the stress of daily life. They get it from Jimmy Buffett\u2019s concerts and from the public image he projects. Buffett fans collectively keep their version of an alternate reality alive.<\/p>\n

At Jimmy Buffett concerts, Parrotheads engage in a form of role play. They paint their faces and dress for the tropics in grass skirts, Hawaiian leis, and Parrot hats. These fans don\u2019t generally play the part of Parrotheads outside of these concerts; you are not likely to see a lone Parrothead in a bank or library. In that sense, Parrothead culture is less about individualism and more about conformity. Being a Parrothead means sharing a specific identity. Parrotheads feel connected to each other: it\u2019s a group identity, not an individual one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On fan websites, followers conduct polls calling for responses to message-board prompts such as \u201cWhy are you a Parrothead\u201d and \u201cWhere is your Margaritaville?\u201d<\/p>\n

To the latter question, fans define the place as anywhere from a beach to a bar to a peaceful state of mind. Ultimately, however, \u201cMargaritaville\u201d is an imaginary place.<\/p>\n

In their study, Mihelich and Papineau quote from a recent book by sociologist Richard Butsch, who writes, \u201cun-self-conscious acts, if done by many people together, can produce change, even though the change may be unintended\u201d (2000). Many Parrothead fan groups have performed good works in the name of Jimmy Buffett culture, donating to charities and volunteering their services.<\/p>\n

What really drives Parrothead culture is commercialism?<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jimmy Buffett\u2019s popularity was dying out in the 1980s until being reinvigorated after he signed a sponsorship deal with a beer company. These days, his concert tours alone generate nearly $30 million a year. Buffett made a lucrative career for himself by partnering with product companies and marketing Margaritaville in the form of T-shirts, restaurants, casinos, and an expansive line of products. Some fans accuse Buffett of selling out, while others admire his financial success.<\/p>\n

Buffett makes no secret of his commercial exploitations; from the stage, he\u2019s been known to tell his fans, \u201cJust remember, I am spending your money foolishly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mihelich and Papineau gathered much of their information online. Referring to their study as a \u201cWeb ethnography,\u201d they collected extensive narrative material from fans who joined Parrothead clubs and posted their experiences on websites. \u201cWe do not claim to have conducted a complete ethnography of Parrothead fans, or even of the Parrothead Web activity,\u201d state the authors, \u201cbut we focused on particular aspects of Parrothead practice as revealed through Web research\u201d (2005).<\/p>\n

Fan narratives gave them insight into how individuals identify with Buffett\u2019s world and how fans used popular music to cultivate personal and collective meaning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In conducting studies about pockets of culture, most sociologists seek to discover a universal appeal. Mihelich and Papineau stated, \u201cAlthough Parrotheads are a relative minority of the contemporary US population, an in-depth look at their practice and conditions illuminate cultural practices and conditions many of us experience and participate in\u201d (2005).<\/p>\n

For more such notes, Articles, News & Views Join our Telegram Channel.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/t.me\/triumphias<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Click the link below to see the details about the UPSC \u2013Civils courses offered by Triumph IAS. <\/span>https:\/\/triumphias.com\/pages-all-courses.php<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Relevance: Sociology Parrot Head\u00a0or\u00a0Parrothead\u00a0is a commonly used nickname for fans of\u00a0Jimmy Buffett. “Parakeets” or “Keets” is the term used for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-6840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6844,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions\/6844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}