Comparative AnalysisGrowing up you expect many things. You expect your family to always support you, you expect to have many friends, you expect to get married, you may expect to go to college or you may expect a high-paying job that you love. However, these things are not always guaranteed. The media fills our heads with these high expectations for a perfect, glamorous lifestyle that will never be a reality for most of us. Terrance Hayes' poem “New York Poem” and George Saunders' short story “The Simplica-Girl Diaries” are two modern literary works that describe how reality does not always meet our expectations. Both take place from the perspective of being on the outside and observing the glamorous lifestyles they were expected to live. The narrators have the feeling that the people around them are all the same, boring copies of each other. Who lack individualization and value the most ignorant materialistic objects. The authors of both expose the sad truth behind these perfect lifestyles we all aspire for. Nothing is all good or all bad; There is a price to pay for having this certain lifestyle. Morals, values ​​and beliefs that you are forced to abandon. You have to decide if these are things you are willing to give up, as in “Simplica-Girls,” or if that lifestyle is one you admire from the outside, as in “New York Poem.” In today's society, reality television programs like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and the Real Housewives expose us to wealthy and glamorous lifestyles. I don't know about you, but after seeing their lives my new life goal was to get married to a rich man. From the outside this lifestyle appears perfect; Never having to worry about money, people falling in love with you, getting paid to film your… medium of paper… have flooded us with idolatry. Reality TV and celebrity idolization have created a culture where glamorous lives are what every person should aspire to. The contrasting conclusions of these two pieces juxtapose the two sides of this culture. You can choose to stay away from the glamour, ignoring the ugly and morally unjust parts, or stay on the outside, where you will still be surrounded by it. These two pieces reveal how today we all expect to have fabulous lives free from financial and relationship problems and to escape all forms of unhappiness when in reality no such lifestyle exists. These pieces show how greedy and vain people can be. The result is that in today's culture it is necessary to decide whether it is worth giving up certain moral values ​​and beliefs for this lifestyle or whether it is better to simply admire it from the outside..