In my Global Issues class we have been talking a lot about ISIS. Today we discussed how ISIS uses Twitter and other social media platforms to recruit people and post brutal and graphic videos of beheadings and other violent acts. This relates to pop culture because it represents the negative aspects and uses of social media. On one hand social media is a great way to stay connected with your friends, and things going on in the world. It is also an easy way to meet new people. There are plenty of good ways to promote yourself, an organization, or movement using social media. For example, the BlackLivesMatter movement has used social media, especially twitter and Instagram, to spread awareness about police brutality and killings that we may otherwise not know about. I personally have used social media to learn a lot about this topic. But, while there are good uses of social media, there are also negative ones. Such as ISIS using social media to recruit people into their violent terrorist group. Social media is supposed to be free and available for anyone to use around the world. So, I think that makes it hard to stop people like terrorist groups or hate groups from using social media platforms because technically they aren't really doing anything illegal. There are no rules to social media, so when someone uses it in a negative way, who can really tell them to stop? I guess we could delete or deactivate their account but there is nothing stopping these people from creating another one.
I agree with you, it seems as if there is no real way around it. How do you stop the hate without abusing someones freedom of speech and expression? Though they are extremely obnoxious and derogatory, to silence them would completely violate the constitution, which would be a whole new spectrum of issues.
Sports have become a very large part of popular culture in the 21st century. Events such as the Olympics, Super Bowl, and World Cup receive hundreds of millions of viewers on television and have packed stadiums in which they’re held. Sports give us something to rally together and cheer for, especially when our team or country is playing. They also providing an escape from the daily work grind and many are held during the weekend. While sports are a big part of pop culture the athletes that partake play a large role as well. In the recent summer Olympics in Rio, swimmer Michael Phelps held most of the attention, but his teammate Ryan Lochte received some negative attention toward the end of the games. He claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint by men disguised as Brazilian police officers but further investigation showed he gave false information and the group he was with had committed acts of vandalism and defamation of property outside of the Olympic village at a gas station after a night of drinking. When these athletes make mistakes, people are usually somewhat shocked and disappointed by their behavior. But when it is an American athlete that was representing his country in the Olympic Games, people are angered that he would disappoint his fans and disrespect his country through his actions and later by lying about them. This anger lead to two men getting arrested as they went on stage during Lochte’s performance on the TV show “Dancing With the Stars,” as well as five women wearing anti-Lochte t-shirts, who were chanting “liar,” to be removed from the audience on Monday night. While these actions may not be justified they highlight how much we as a society value sports and the athletes that compete in them. These actions also show us that we look up to athletes as role models and hold them to a very high standard, especially when they’re representing our country.
Dancing With the Stars arrest - https://youtu.be/K0Vt5AsbAQs
I agree, i think sports are a great way for people of different backgrounds to come together. I also agree that American athletes are judged more harshly when they make mistakes and fans of theses athletes tend to act out, sometimes irrationally, when they disagree with the mistakes the athletes make.
I agree, I feel like athletes are just as important as movie or television celebrities these days and have such a large impact on society. In the specific case of the Ryan Locate thing though I feel like it was such a scandal because of how he twisted the story and it made the whole team look bad in the eyes of some. I think our society should value athletes more than people that are famous for insignificant reasons like reality tv stars.
Television shows have been a necessity in human lives since basic cable became available to us in the 1920s. Since the 1920s, the kinds of shows that have been aired on television have changed over time. The most beloved, but kind of obsolete, television shows are sitcoms. Dictionary.com defines a sitcom as a situation comedy. When looked at carefully, these sitcoms were a reflection of the situations faced at the time. “The Brady Bunch” (1969-1974), revolved around a blended family and how they overcame rivalries among each other and transgressions within a blended family. Around the 1970s, blended families were on the rise and this show reflected the trend that already existed during this time. Another show called “Good Times” (1974-1979), reflected the hardships and realities of African-American lives in the 1970s. The 1970s was the time where new policies were created to help African-Americans and allowed more African-Americans in politics and entrepreneurship. However, “Good Times” reflects the lower class attempts to conquer poverty. A more recent example of a sitcom today is “The Carmichael Show” (2015-), which focuses on topics that we are faced with every day. The range of topics the show can cover are as wide as terrorism, religion, underprivileged youth, and Donald Trump. Today, we live in a culture that is more accepting of viewpoints and “The Carmichael Show” reflects the world we live in presently. Sitcoms have always informed people of the situations that we face in our varying cultures. However, sitcoms have been able to balance hard to hear facts with comical humor that keeps viewers engaged and informed.
I agree that television shows accurately reflect the world during the time they are produced. It is cool to examine how these sitcoms and shows have changed over time as the values and actions of society changed as well.
As many of you know, Apple recently released ios10 to the public. After months of anticipation and various rumors circling around what new features would be included, we are finally able to update and see for ourselves. Personally, I am usually always excited for these updates because it’s almost like getting a brand new phone except you save a good $200 to use on things that matter, like food. I only recently downloaded it a few days ago and after a good 20 minutes of use, I concluded that I do not like it. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some perks to the update like the new design and the new easy access to all the funny gifs on imessage, but everything else is just so extra. For example, what the actual hell is the point of the little drawing option in imessage. I really do not think that it is necessary to send a “fireball” with the tap of my finger to the person I am messaging. Another thing that pisses me off is the way that banners work now. Before this update, when you received a notification while using your phone a little banner would drop down and you could either EASILY swipe up to get rid of it or swipe down and type your message. Now, not only can you not swipe up without struggling and wanting to throw your phone out the window, but also if you swipe down it no longer just shows a simple message bar but it brings the ENTIRE conversation up into the bubble. To sum it up and end my rant, just like the new iphone, the new ios10 update was extremely overhyped and kind of completely unnecessary.
I agree that a lot of the apple updates hardly improve anything. They change a few small things and usually its not even what the customers wanted. I will not update mine to ios 10 because I don't think it is worth the space it will take up, but I agree it is unnecessary.
As many of you may have heard, a gas spill has occurred in Alabama. This is a really big thing because automobiles are a large part of pop culture. This past week we have seen a huge shock in this area, especially because the metro Atlanta area gets its gas directly from the place that had the spill. They actually spilled nearly 250,000 gallons of gas. It has clearly showed how lost we are without our vehicles and our ability to go places because nearly everyone is freaking out about the entire situation. Everyone hears one little thing about running out of gas at the pump and instantly everyone is up and running to fill up their cars and gas cans. It actually has cause things to escalate because this causes the gas prices to skyrocket at an even faster rate and even causes some of the gas stations to completely run out of gas from the crowds of people. Some gas stations have even began to limit the amount of gas that its customers can actually buy at a time, like a gas station near my house that will only allow you to make a 10$ purchase. Honestly, I believe the attachment that people have to their cars is what caused this to rise to this point as fast as it did. People instantly freaked out because they thought they may not be able to get gas for their vehicle, which is a life changer for most people. This would really affect everyone who has to drive extended distances to get to work or get to school like I do and even I had thoughts about that. Overall, this has really just showed how important the ownership of automobiles is to people.
You do have a point on how our actions may also be the reason behind prices rising on gas prices but I feel it is also because they have to get rid of the gas as soon as possible and since it is a need for vehicles to get to places except for those that aren't eco-friendly,the prices rises up.
More times than not, pop culture is the repetition of contributions made by previous generations. In one aspect, however, pop culture seems to be evolving, social roles. Every few years our societal beliefs become more liberal than the years before. For example, a century ago, most women were confined to whim of their husbands and fathers, not really expected to have a job, education, or an opinion. But that was the norm, a part of the social expectations created in pop culture. Today, on the other hand, it’s the total opposite, women are expected to have much more freedom. We are socially expected to have jobs, use our talents, and attain more prestigious titles. A contemporary example of this is Hillary Clinton. As we all know she is running for president, something women a century, let alone half a century ago, couldn’t fathomed to do. Despite her politics and views, she’s a great example of how far women can go despite traditional standards, which is fantastic. The question that arises however, when is the stopping point for the liberal agenda? Once women finally gain the social and economic equivalent to men, then what? As history has shown, time and time again, our believe system only progresses, seldom, if ever have our view ever receded back to conservatism. So what next? Do we teach the next generations that females are superior to our male counterparts or do we simply stop progressing all together? Or should we set limits for ourselves and put in place a glass ceiling so that we at least have something to strive for in the future. In a way this idea seems barbaric but what other options are there? Ideally, we could say that once equality is reached, genders could stop competing and exist in commonplace, but then again when in history has that EVER happened? Are we bound to compete against each other forever or is equality inevitable?
Every since we had our discussion in class about gendered, populist, and elitist advertisements I’ve been seeing so many kinds where I can actually point which one is which. I saw a Chevrolet ad with a salesman, John whom gives the mother and her two kids and other families a scenario including an explanation of two vehicles abilities to safeties driving. One vehicle was “…a Chevrolet Traverse that provides a five score overall vehicle on safety and offers that are available active safety technology to help drifting apart slaying other lanes intrusions and collisions with vehicles that are too close to the front and the Honda Pilot doesn’t.” With this in mind the families automatically want to choose the Chevrolet because it appears to be more safe than the Honda. I believe that this is a Men’s Women and Women’s Men advertisement because it fulfills the fantasy of security for every common families that wants the safest vehicles. It somehow makes the families feel a brief vulnerability when the salesman tries and tell them that they have to choose the Honda but after he expresses that he was joking there was a sense of relief. It involves lust and admirers from the women and male dominance from the men in the families in approving of some aspect of the Chevrolet Traverse. I would like to say that this is a populist ad instead of elitist because it transforms the product into signs of belongings, utilizing common icons available to everyone.
I completely agree with you. The ironic part is that car advertisents are usually assumed to be geared towards men (open roads and powerful engines) but this one takes another approach. By noting safety as the subject of its commercial, the ad leans more towards women who are wanting to keep their kids safe.
WOW OKAY IM SO MAD BECAUSE I JUST TYPED AN ENTIRE RESPONSE AND CLICKED SIGN OUT INSTEAD OF PUBLISH. WHY IS THERE NO AUTOSAVE OR CONFIRMATION OF DESIRE TO SIGN OUT UGH okay here we go, take two. I figured this week for my post I would talk about what i noticed in commercial advertisements, seeing as to how I'm a lazy bum and spent my weekend watching and accidentally analyzing what feels like hundreds of commercials. First up, (I wrote so much about this commercial two minutes ago I'm beyond mad that it all erased) is a commercial for splash-less bleach. The subject of the advertisement is an African American female who is slightly overweight. She is depicted on at a red carpet event with the "paparazzi" announcers raving generously about how good she looks and how she's not splashing her bleach (what?? Why, who on earth needs to pour bleach on the red carpet: illogical). I believe she this whole picture was made in light of the whole “oscar’s so white” escapade, and also in support (or to gain customers who support) the positive body image movement. The lady, who’s very average name I have already forgotten, appeared to be a very average woman who was REALLY excited to pour this bleach. This seems to be a strange mix of elitism and populism, seeing as to how she was on the red carpet all dressed up but doing a house-wife thing. Next up is a Rowley’s/Checker’s commercial. We see a punky young blonde eating some messy chicken nuggets. The strange thing is that the announcer, though female and speaking in first person, is almost obviously not the same girl (the voice sounds much older). This just made the whole sexualization of messy chicken nuggets even more ridiculous. Finally there is aa commercial for Cheetos where two families with some sort of ethnic background race towards the last bag of Cheetos. Their nationalities don’t actually matter to the content of the commercial itself, however I like to note it in any advertisement so I may see which big name corporations are accidentally offending America by either typecasting or leaving out one race in favor of another. For instance if one family was white and they got the Cheetos first, people would assume an underlying message of superiorty, etc. Chester the cheetah and the store attendant are later shown watching the families go and share dialogue about a secret stash of Cheetos. The store attendant appeared to be half black and half white, which seems like an impressive attention to detail on the part of the advertisers when casting their commercial. The end.
I would have never thought about the connection to the "oscars so white" controversy. Good Point. They are using bleach to make a social statement. Shows how pop culture has underlying messages everywhere,
As we all know an oil pipeline busted over in Alabama a couple of weeks ago. It is interesting to me how the media chooses what to talk about and what not to talk about. Media groups are very fast to talk about how we are starting to see gas shortages and rise in prices but none really saying why this is happening. I had to go on line and read about what happen and to find out why gas was at a shortage. Maybe I missed it the last couple of weeks but I didn’t hear anything about it. Pop culture has as big role in what the media talks about. The media will talk about what is going to get the biggest up roar out of people and the most views. Not really talk about what the cause is of the up roar or problem. Alabama and parts of Georgia are in a state of an emergency. Did you know that? We will start to see many gas stations with out gas really soon if they don’t get this pipeline fixed. I didn’t until I starting researching the oil spill. The pipeline busted and over 250,000 gallons of gas was wasted in Shelby County, Ala. This pipeline is shutdown until further notice or until they get it fixed. This pipe provides over 50 million people gas each day! Everyone better go fill up with gas!
I hope this counts for my post, because it is more of a story that I feel could relate. This past week I had to participate in court ordered mandatory community service (I accidentally ran a red light). It was just me and four other roughly nineteen year old boys. We spent a long time together that day so eventually we had to start talking. We started talking about what type of music we listened to. I said I liked dream pop music, and the other responses were Hip Hop, Country, Electronic and R&B. We all listed off some of our favorite bands and songs. We recommended music to each other, and talked about what this music meant to us. One of the boys in my community service group said that he listens to hip hop music because he grew up on it. He stated that he related to it, and that it distracted him from his family problems. The boy who said he like country music told me it was because he grew up in the country and worked at a farm to support himself. I found it really interesting how much we all agreed on, even though as people we did not have so much in common and claimed to like all different genres. Music is a huge part of pop culture, especially for younger people. Just talking about what we liked and why brought us all closer together. It definitely made the nine hours go by a lot faster.
I really like this post! It is the perfect example of how music brings people together. You all had different tastes in music, but through digging deeper and explaining your tastes, you all were able to bond. I think that's a beautiful thing!
So because the reading we had talks about data mining, I thought my blog boat should be about it. Now I know that I'm not the only one that absolutely hates the ads generated because of data mining, I get that that's what keeps certain websites and social media free for the most part, but I just want them to exclude me. I mean, some of the ads intrigue me every now and again but the majority of the time I just want them to disappear. Now we all know that this is one of the tactics the government uses to keep an eye on us, but aside from the government, I'm gonna need all of these other people to lose my IP address, lose my social media info so I can go back to scrolling without any interruptions. I am completely used to the ads with Facebook and Google, but recently Instagram has started following the trend and it absolutely irks my soul. It takes me so much longer to get to what I need to get to, and what makes it even worst is that I they've gotten so good at blending the ads with everything else that I get caught sometimes and I'm like, “ooh, let's see who posted this”, only to realize that it's a freaking ad. I get that this is how Facebook, Google and the others make money but I just wanna be excluded without having to give up social media. Is that too much to ask?
As someone who has grown up participating in pageants, one article that stood out to me from earlier this month was about Miss America's first openly gay contestant. In June of this year, Erin O'Flaherty made history by being the first openly gay contestant to compete for Miss America when she won the title of Miss Missouri. Her participation in this pageant is especially meaningful to the "femme lesbians" who are "often invisible in the larger context of the queer community" due to the fact that they do not represent our idea of the typical lesbian, according to James Michael Nichols, Queer Voices Deputy Editor of the Huffington Post. With all of the progress in the LGBT movement, I think it is about time we have woman who are unashamed of their sexual preferences given a voice in this pageant. O'Flaherty, whose platform revolves around suicide awareness, is proud to hold this legacy as the face of feminine lesbians in this pageant. Although I am not a lesbian pageant participant, I can easily relate to this woman. Women already face so much criticism and pressure in society to meet a certain standard of beauty. O'Flaherty was true to herself and took a very public stand for what she believed in. Although she has faced some negative feedback, she has also had a large outpouring of support. I , for one, see strength and bravery in this woman. And hope this inspires many others to stand up for themselves whether it is considered the "norm" or not.
In my Global Issues class we have been talking a lot about ISIS. Today we discussed how ISIS uses Twitter and other social media platforms to recruit people and post brutal and graphic videos of beheadings and other violent acts. This relates to pop culture because it represents the negative aspects and uses of social media. On one hand social media is a great way to stay connected with your friends, and things going on in the world. It is also an easy way to meet new people. There are plenty of good ways to promote yourself, an organization, or movement using social media. For example, the BlackLivesMatter movement has used social media, especially twitter and Instagram, to spread awareness about police brutality and killings that we may otherwise not know about. I personally have used social media to learn a lot about this topic. But, while there are good uses of social media, there are also negative ones. Such as ISIS using social media to recruit people into their violent terrorist group. Social media is supposed to be free and available for anyone to use around the world. So, I think that makes it hard to stop people like terrorist groups or hate groups from using social media platforms because technically they aren't really doing anything illegal. There are no rules to social media, so when someone uses it in a negative way, who can really tell them to stop? I guess we could delete or deactivate their account but there is nothing stopping these people from creating another one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, it seems as if there is no real way around it. How do you stop the hate without abusing someones freedom of speech and expression? Though they are extremely obnoxious and derogatory, to silence them would completely violate the constitution, which would be a whole new spectrum of issues.
DeleteSports have become a very large part of popular culture in the 21st century. Events such as the Olympics, Super Bowl, and World Cup receive hundreds of millions of viewers on television and have packed stadiums in which they’re held. Sports give us something to rally together and cheer for, especially when our team or country is playing. They also providing an escape from the daily work grind and many are held during the weekend. While sports are a big part of pop culture the athletes that partake play a large role as well. In the recent summer Olympics in Rio, swimmer Michael Phelps held most of the attention, but his teammate Ryan Lochte received some negative attention toward the end of the games. He claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint by men disguised as Brazilian police officers but further investigation showed he gave false information and the group he was with had committed acts of vandalism and defamation of property outside of the Olympic village at a gas station after a night of drinking. When these athletes make mistakes, people are usually somewhat shocked and disappointed by their behavior. But when it is an American athlete that was representing his country in the Olympic Games, people are angered that he would disappoint his fans and disrespect his country through his actions and later by lying about them. This anger lead to two men getting arrested as they went on stage during Lochte’s performance on the TV show “Dancing With the Stars,” as well as five women wearing anti-Lochte t-shirts, who were chanting “liar,” to be removed from the audience on Monday night. While these actions may not be justified they highlight how much we as a society value sports and the athletes that compete in them. These actions also show us that we look up to athletes as role models and hold them to a very high standard, especially when they’re representing our country.
ReplyDeleteDancing With the Stars arrest - https://youtu.be/K0Vt5AsbAQs
I agree, i think sports are a great way for people of different backgrounds to come together. I also agree that American athletes are judged more harshly when they make mistakes and fans of theses athletes tend to act out, sometimes irrationally, when they disagree with the mistakes the athletes make.
DeleteI agree, I feel like athletes are just as important as movie or television celebrities these days and have such a large impact on society. In the specific case of the Ryan Locate thing though I feel like it was such a scandal because of how he twisted the story and it made the whole team look bad in the eyes of some. I think our society should value athletes more than people that are famous for insignificant reasons like reality tv stars.
DeleteTelevision shows have been a necessity in human lives since basic cable became available to us in the 1920s. Since the 1920s, the kinds of shows that have been aired on television have changed over time. The most beloved, but kind of obsolete, television shows are sitcoms. Dictionary.com defines a sitcom as a situation comedy. When looked at carefully, these sitcoms were a reflection of the situations faced at the time. “The Brady Bunch” (1969-1974), revolved around a blended family and how they overcame rivalries among each other and transgressions within a blended family. Around the 1970s, blended families were on the rise and this show reflected the trend that already existed during this time. Another show called “Good Times” (1974-1979), reflected the hardships and realities of African-American lives in the 1970s. The 1970s was the time where new policies were created to help African-Americans and allowed more African-Americans in politics and entrepreneurship. However, “Good Times” reflects the lower class attempts to conquer poverty. A more recent example of a sitcom today is “The Carmichael Show” (2015-), which focuses on topics that we are faced with every day. The range of topics the show can cover are as wide as terrorism, religion, underprivileged youth, and Donald Trump. Today, we live in a culture that is more accepting of viewpoints and “The Carmichael Show” reflects the world we live in presently. Sitcoms have always informed people of the situations that we face in our varying cultures. However, sitcoms have been able to balance hard to hear facts with comical humor that keeps viewers engaged and informed.
ReplyDeleteI agree that television shows accurately reflect the world during the time they are produced. It is cool to examine how these sitcoms and shows have changed over time as the values and actions of society changed as well.
DeleteAs many of you know, Apple recently released ios10 to the public. After months of anticipation and various rumors circling around what new features would be included, we are finally able to update and see for ourselves. Personally, I am usually always excited for these updates because it’s almost like getting a brand new phone except you save a good $200 to use on things that matter, like food. I only recently downloaded it a few days ago and after a good 20 minutes of use, I concluded that I do not like it. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some perks to the update like the new design and the new easy access to all the funny gifs on imessage, but everything else is just so extra. For example, what the actual hell is the point of the little drawing option in imessage. I really do not think that it is necessary to send a “fireball” with the tap of my finger to the person I am messaging. Another thing that pisses me off is the way that banners work now. Before this update, when you received a notification while using your phone a little banner would drop down and you could either EASILY swipe up to get rid of it or swipe down and type your message. Now, not only can you not swipe up without struggling and wanting to throw your phone out the window, but also if you swipe down it no longer just shows a simple message bar but it brings the ENTIRE conversation up into the bubble. To sum it up and end my rant, just like the new iphone, the new ios10 update was extremely overhyped and kind of completely unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a lot of the apple updates hardly improve anything. They change a few small things and usually its not even what the customers wanted. I will not update mine to ios 10 because I don't think it is worth the space it will take up, but I agree it is unnecessary.
DeleteI haven't done the new update yet but after reading this I am kinda scared to. You are right about the new phone and update being overhyped!
DeleteYou honestly just deterred me from wanting to update my phone even more.
DeleteAs many of you may have heard, a gas spill has occurred in Alabama. This is a really big thing because automobiles are a large part of pop culture. This past week we have seen a huge shock in this area, especially because the metro Atlanta area gets its gas directly from the place that had the spill. They actually spilled nearly 250,000 gallons of gas. It has clearly showed how lost we are without our vehicles and our ability to go places because nearly everyone is freaking out about the entire situation. Everyone hears one little thing about running out of gas at the pump and instantly everyone is up and running to fill up their cars and gas cans. It actually has cause things to escalate because this causes the gas prices to skyrocket at an even faster rate and even causes some of the gas stations to completely run out of gas from the crowds of people. Some gas stations have even began to limit the amount of gas that its customers can actually buy at a time, like a gas station near my house that will only allow you to make a 10$ purchase. Honestly, I believe the attachment that people have to their cars is what caused this to rise to this point as fast as it did. People instantly freaked out because they thought they may not be able to get gas for their vehicle, which is a life changer for most people. This would really affect everyone who has to drive extended distances to get to work or get to school like I do and even I had thoughts about that. Overall, this has really just showed how important the ownership of automobiles is to people.
ReplyDeleteYou do have a point on how our actions may also be the reason behind prices rising on gas prices but I feel it is also because they have to get rid of the gas as soon as possible and since it is a need for vehicles to get to places except for those that aren't eco-friendly,the prices rises up.
DeleteMore times than not, pop culture is the repetition of contributions made by previous generations. In one aspect, however, pop culture seems to be evolving, social roles. Every few years our societal beliefs become more liberal than the years before. For example, a century ago, most women were confined to whim of their husbands and fathers, not really expected to have a job, education, or an opinion. But that was the norm, a part of the social expectations created in pop culture. Today, on the other hand, it’s the total opposite, women are expected to have much more freedom. We are socially expected to have jobs, use our talents, and attain more prestigious titles. A contemporary example of this is Hillary Clinton. As we all know she is running for president, something women a century, let alone half a century ago, couldn’t fathomed to do. Despite her politics and views, she’s a great example of how far women can go despite traditional standards, which is fantastic. The question that arises however, when is the stopping point for the liberal agenda? Once women finally gain the social and economic equivalent to men, then what? As history has shown, time and time again, our believe system only progresses, seldom, if ever have our view ever receded back to conservatism. So what next? Do we teach the next generations that females are superior to our male counterparts or do we simply stop progressing all together? Or should we set limits for ourselves and put in place a glass ceiling so that we at least have something to strive for in the future. In a way this idea seems barbaric but what other options are there? Ideally, we could say that once equality is reached, genders could stop competing and exist in commonplace, but then again when in history has that EVER happened? Are we bound to compete against each other forever or is equality inevitable?
ReplyDeleteEvery since we had our discussion in class about gendered, populist, and elitist advertisements I’ve been seeing so many kinds where I can actually point which one is which. I saw a Chevrolet ad with a salesman, John whom gives the mother and her two kids and other families a scenario including an explanation of two vehicles abilities to safeties driving. One vehicle was “…a Chevrolet Traverse that provides a five score overall vehicle on safety and offers that are available active safety technology to help drifting apart slaying other lanes intrusions and collisions with vehicles that are too close to the front and the Honda Pilot doesn’t.” With this in mind the families automatically want to choose the Chevrolet because it appears to be more safe than the Honda. I believe that this is a Men’s Women and Women’s Men advertisement because it fulfills the fantasy of security for every common families that wants the safest vehicles. It somehow makes the families feel a brief vulnerability when the salesman tries and tell them that they have to choose the Honda but after he expresses that he was joking there was a sense of relief. It involves lust and admirers from the women and male dominance from the men in the families in approving of some aspect of the Chevrolet Traverse. I would like to say that this is a populist ad instead of elitist because it transforms the product into signs of belongings, utilizing common icons available to everyone.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. The ironic part is that car advertisents are usually assumed to be geared towards men (open roads and powerful engines) but this one takes another approach. By noting safety as the subject of its commercial, the ad leans more towards women who are wanting to keep their kids safe.
DeleteWOW OKAY IM SO MAD BECAUSE I JUST TYPED AN ENTIRE RESPONSE AND CLICKED SIGN OUT INSTEAD OF PUBLISH. WHY IS THERE NO AUTOSAVE OR CONFIRMATION OF DESIRE TO SIGN OUT UGH okay here we go, take two.
ReplyDeleteI figured this week for my post I would talk about what i noticed in commercial advertisements, seeing as to how I'm a lazy bum and spent my weekend watching and accidentally analyzing what feels like hundreds of commercials. First up, (I wrote so much about this commercial two minutes ago I'm beyond mad that it all erased) is a commercial for splash-less bleach. The subject of the advertisement is an African American female who is slightly overweight. She is depicted on at a red carpet event with the "paparazzi" announcers raving generously about how good she looks and how she's not splashing her bleach (what?? Why, who on earth needs to pour bleach on the red carpet: illogical). I believe she this whole picture was made in light of the whole “oscar’s so white” escapade, and also in support (or to gain customers who support) the positive body image movement. The lady, who’s very average name I have already forgotten, appeared to be a very average woman who was REALLY excited to pour this bleach. This seems to be a strange mix of elitism and populism, seeing as to how she was on the red carpet all dressed up but doing a house-wife thing.
Next up is a Rowley’s/Checker’s commercial. We see a punky young blonde eating some messy chicken nuggets. The strange thing is that the announcer, though female and speaking in first person, is almost obviously not the same girl (the voice sounds much older). This just made the whole sexualization of messy chicken nuggets even more ridiculous.
Finally there is aa commercial for Cheetos where two families with some sort of ethnic background race towards the last bag of Cheetos. Their nationalities don’t actually matter to the content of the commercial itself, however I like to note it in any advertisement so I may see which big name corporations are accidentally offending America by either typecasting or leaving out one race in favor of another. For instance if one family was white and they got the Cheetos first, people would assume an underlying message of superiorty, etc. Chester the cheetah and the store attendant are later shown watching the families go and share dialogue about a secret stash of Cheetos. The store attendant appeared to be half black and half white, which seems like an impressive attention to detail on the part of the advertisers when casting their commercial. The end.
I would have never thought about the connection to the "oscars so white" controversy. Good Point. They are using bleach to make a social statement. Shows how pop culture has underlying messages everywhere,
ReplyDeleteAs we all know an oil pipeline busted over in Alabama a couple of weeks ago. It is interesting to me how the media chooses what to talk about and what not to talk about. Media groups are very fast to talk about how we are starting to see gas shortages and rise in prices but none really saying why this is happening. I had to go on line and read about what happen and to find out why gas was at a shortage. Maybe I missed it the last couple of weeks but I didn’t hear anything about it. Pop culture has as big role in what the media talks about. The media will talk about what is going to get the biggest up roar out of people and the most views. Not really talk about what the cause is of the up roar or problem. Alabama and parts of Georgia are in a state of an emergency. Did you know that? We will start to see many gas stations with out gas really soon if they don’t get this pipeline fixed. I didn’t until I starting researching the oil spill. The pipeline busted and over 250,000 gallons of gas was wasted in Shelby County, Ala. This pipeline is shutdown until further notice or until they get it fixed. This pipe provides over 50 million people gas each day! Everyone better go fill up with gas!
ReplyDeleteI hope this counts for my post, because it is more of a story that I feel could relate. This past week I had to participate in court ordered mandatory community service (I accidentally ran a red light). It was just me and four other roughly nineteen year old boys. We spent a long time together that day so eventually we had to start talking. We started talking about what type of music we listened to. I said I liked dream pop music, and the other responses were Hip Hop, Country, Electronic and R&B. We all listed off some of our favorite bands and songs. We recommended music to each other, and talked about what this music meant to us. One of the boys in my community service group said that he listens to hip hop music because he grew up on it. He stated that he related to it, and that it distracted him from his family problems. The boy who said he like country music told me it was because he grew up in the country and worked at a farm to support himself. I found it really interesting how much we all agreed on, even though as people we did not have so much in common and claimed to like all different genres. Music is a huge part of pop culture, especially for younger people. Just talking about what we liked and why brought us all closer together. It definitely made the nine hours go by a lot faster.
ReplyDeleteI really like this post! It is the perfect example of how music brings people together. You all had different tastes in music, but through digging deeper and explaining your tastes, you all were able to bond. I think that's a beautiful thing!
DeleteSo because the reading we had talks about data mining, I thought my blog boat should be about it. Now I know that I'm not the only one that absolutely hates the ads generated because of data mining, I get that that's what keeps certain websites and social media free for the most part, but I just want them to exclude me. I mean, some of the ads intrigue me every now and again but the majority of the time I just want them to disappear. Now we all know that this is one of the tactics the government uses to keep an eye on us, but aside from the government, I'm gonna need all of these other people to lose my IP address, lose my social media info so I can go back to scrolling without any interruptions.
ReplyDeleteI am completely used to the ads with Facebook and Google, but recently Instagram has started following the trend and it absolutely irks my soul. It takes me so much longer to get to what I need to get to, and what makes it even worst is that I they've gotten so good at blending the ads with everything else that I get caught sometimes and I'm like, “ooh, let's see who posted this”, only to realize that it's a freaking ad. I get that this is how Facebook, Google and the others make money but I just wanna be excluded without having to give up social media. Is that too much to ask?
As someone who has grown up participating in pageants, one article that stood out to me from earlier this month was about Miss America's first openly gay contestant. In June of this year, Erin O'Flaherty made history by being the first openly gay contestant to compete for Miss America when she won the title of Miss Missouri. Her participation in this pageant is especially meaningful to the "femme lesbians" who are "often invisible in the larger context of the queer community" due to the fact that they do not represent our idea of the typical lesbian, according to James Michael Nichols, Queer Voices Deputy Editor of the Huffington Post. With all of the progress in the LGBT movement, I think it is about time we have woman who are unashamed of their sexual preferences given a voice in this pageant. O'Flaherty, whose platform revolves around suicide awareness, is proud to hold this legacy as the face of feminine lesbians in this pageant. Although I am not a lesbian pageant participant, I can easily relate to this woman. Women already face so much criticism and pressure in society to meet a certain standard of beauty. O'Flaherty was true to herself and took a very public stand for what she believed in. Although she has faced some negative feedback, she has also had a large outpouring of support. I , for one, see strength and bravery in this woman. And hope this inspires many others to stand up for themselves whether it is considered the "norm" or not.
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