Reflection on media

If I am being completely honest I am still on social media way too much. Because of my excessive use of social media, this has lead me to become a procrastinator. I do not want to be a procrastinator. I hate the stress hmaging on my back constantly. So after watching and consuming the idea of social media made me decide to confront myself with the idea of getting off of social media. Of coarse I am not talking about become cold turkey with it yet it had made me actually do something about it. I took off all the notifications on all my social media so I will not be tempted. I can say that this has worked very much. Also I don’t watch television anymore, not because of this class, but because television just doesn’t amuse me anymore, it’s a bore. So when I do see commercials it is when I watch movies. When I see the commercial I just want to unpack it by using my critical thinking skills. I would like to say that I am more aware of the techniques the advertisers se to attract more customers, especially car companies. They use the appeals very much to get their point across.
    Now I am trying to balance my school work and the media, so far it has been beneficial towards my grades and my procrastination. Yet it isn’t that I want to be completely finished with social media after I’ve been explosed to everything. It’s is just that I don’t have the attention to give it. Although I will keep up on my media literacy because at my age o need to be able to use social media responsibly and to my advantage. Or else they will destroy me. Well not that dramatic, but they will abuse the fact that don’t understand it. Just how they do to old people. Begging an educated consumer helps me saves money and time. So I don’t fall into advertiser’s traps. Also with the Video about girls and how they are seen as sex symbols, and that I should never consider myself imperfect and lesser because of the color of my skin and gender and the shape of my body. I should be judged for my personality not my image. Especially when doing one of my recent media blog about women role models in the early 2000‘s, how that doesn’t mean I don’t have any now, but nevertheless, I should be my own role model and girls should do the same. The blogs have gotten closer with the realization and truths about the media. So just media in general is the same, they use the same techniques and same celebrity endorsements. So if after gaining all of this knowledge about the media and I still get tricked, this is all on me. However I highly doubt that would happen to me.

How woman are degraded

As I said in my last blog, women are used as sex symbols in the media, and when we are talking about the media that includes all platforms ranging from ads to Instagram to music videos to commercials and videos. And women are being degraded on each play form, you see a girl  practically naked on Instagram with men who are well over the ages for 40 liking and commenting sexual things. When I’m watching a music video, all of the girls are wearing bathing suits and are dancing around the singer to promote his video, and guarantee likes and views. This light porn is used everywhere, I wish I could say that it is just that one music video (LINK#1), yet it is used in movies and commercials too. When advertising, let’s say a burger, there this a women eating said burger yet she looks naked, and ordinary objects like fruit are used to cover her boobs and butt,  so it seems like she is walking naked in a farmers market, I know right disgusting. I wish I would be making that commercial up yet I am not, look at LINK#2 and it is a Carl’s Jr.’s burger, where the burger doesn’t even get introduced until the last couple of seconds. Their marketing technique is so unoriginal. This technique has been used hundreds of times with hundreds of the same girl look alike. They all fit the  description of blonde, blue eyes, really big boobs, a slim, skinny waist and a big butt. Not everyone can look like that.
So because of videos such as Carl’s Jr. are setting the standards for girls and their body. I understand that this isn’t as bad as a problem as in the early 2000s where girls were only things with a pretty face. So when men and boys see women being treated like this sex symbol, it makes them think that it is ok for them to do the same. Let me tell you right now that IT ISNT OKAY! Women need to be respected, it so disgusting that 1 in 4 women are in a abusive relationship. This is because the media shows women as objects and it’s okay to use them for your own reasons. ALSO NOT OKAY!
This nation full of teenagers, is degrading women and killing their confidence. Now there are so many self-conscious people in the media just going by in life by posting nude (well practically, come on) pictures on their Instagram with a sexual caption, this is porn, if it’s not I don’t know what is. I am not trying to say that it isn’t their right to post pictures like that, I am trying to say that it’s hard to do that when there are men and boys out there who comment nasty and disgusting things. The degradation of women is more instense now that we have Instagram and Snapchat and so many social platforms, it makes it hard to live a private life. Before it was just in magazines, now it is EVERYWHERE. I can’t scroll on celebrities feed without seeing nude pictures with degrading comments down below. I wonder how they feel as people being brought down. I wonder if they have self esteem issues and they are suffering like the rest of us.

LINK #1

LINK #2

Missrepresentation

The lack of women “role models” in the early 2000s brings me to wonder how did so many women who went through that time survived from the Media and became so empowering today. Girls were brought up to think that you need to have a waist of 25” and a size D for boobs. So when they realized ( realized meaning that they were told ) that they didn’t have a skiing waist, they immediately thought that they aren’t enough and they have to do something about it. It isn’t their fault that society taught them through the media that you must have the ideal body, but with no brains  because don’t be a smartass. Women in this time had no role models growing up, so they looked to the media to see what they should look up to. And what they didn’t see is independent, successful women. They saw girls and women being used as sex symbols in movies, commercials, and television. This lead to women being self-conscious about their body. According to the “Miss representation”, “78% of women by 17 are unhappy with their body”. How are so many people unhappy with their body? Well the media had told them that their body should look like Britney Spears. When in reality only Spears can look like Britney Spears. So when girls try to look like the Midrift of their time they pack on a pound of makeup on their faces and wear clothes that reveal way too much for their age.  They do this because they were brought up to be sex symbols. When women are in movies and commercials they are portrayed as these sex symbols, not a women. Their sole purpose is for the men’s body, and they exploit so many people that audition just so they can be “famous”.
To me all of this infuriates me and makes me disgusted. It also makes me sad, to think of so many girls that struggle with eating disorders and health issues just because they want to look the complete opposite of who they really are. Most get plastic surgery or Botox to look the way they want. This makes girls think that it is ok to alter your body for a man’s desire. Because they were taught that the only want to make it big isn’t by going to college and becoming a congresswoman, it is by becoming thinner to be recognized and getting double D’s. Yet not have too much sex and date too many guys! Oh no, that means she’s a slut!!!... no that’s not what that’s FREAKIN MEANS! That means she is confident with her body, HER BODY, not someone else’s body. It’s because she owns herself, just like the other Million women out there.
Without these role models like I have today, girls struggled to become successful. This is why only “17% of the Congress is Women” only...seventeen...percent. >:(. So that means the other 83% is male. The United States is so far from other countries who have had a women for president.
I wish I could say that women back women up, yet the media turned some women on each other and uses “catfight” as a headline. Women degrade one another, and it is so much harder coming from a women that you are fat.
Now it is 2019 and we are so far from the 2000s yet we aren’t barely scratching the surface to put an end to women being sex symbols. Women are coming out as being raped in the 90s in 2018. These huge rallies for women are becoming more likely to overcome their problems then they were in 2005. 2019 is a whole other chapter of a book written by women this time.

Can you Identify the techniques your favorite brands are using?

All brands have different techniques that they use in order to get their consumers to buy their goods. Some brands will for instance do need to nurture as a way to get you to buy their stuff. Some of the  brands that I like definitely use the circular reasoning technique. However a lot more of the brands that I like use autonomy. I know that a lot of the brands that I like are also liked by a lot of other teens around my age. Because teens are always finding ways to try and stand out using this technique would be the best idea. I for sure always want to stand out or have something bring on that catches everyones eye. Also I know that brands are able to make a lot more money with this technique because there are always gonna be teens, especially teens that want to stand out.
For these reasons if I were to ever create a product I would try to sell it to kids using this technique

Frontline Making cents out of teens:Merchants of cool

In the class video we watched earlier this week they showed teens who were being marketed to through aspects I had not yet know about before.  However there was one thing that especially caught my eye and made me more intrigued in the video. In the video there was discussion about
"feedback loop". This is when companies or brands change to the way they see people dressing or acting and will try and have the same aspects as those people. After watching the video aspect I was really able to notice  some of the brands that I like using the same kind of technique to try and get me to buy their stuff. When brands do this they are able to insure that people will buy their stuff because they are producing the stuff that is in or popular at the time. This technique is very smart but does not last long because once consumers know that companies have caught on they stop liking it.

Sicko Mode

Travis Scott is the 27 year old rapper from Houston, Texas that is soon to have 6 of his own Nike pairs of shoes. The first pair released back in 2017. Since then he has re-released the Air Force 1s that he has and made 4 other pairs of shoes.  One of those pairs was released in 2018. Another one released on May 11, 2019 with two pairs still not yet released but set to release later this year. I was unfortunate to not be able to get a pair of the retro Jordan 1s which retailed for $175.  If I were able to get a pair of these shoes, then I would have been very happy with myself and would definitely have resold them. I would have sold them because On Stockx these shoes are going for more than $1000 and I would have been able to make more than $800 off of just one pair. These shoes even sold for $3000 back in March when there were less of these shoes available. What made it so hard to get a pair of these shoes was the fact that they only made 20,000 of them and many other people like myself wanted these shoes like I did. But now I plan on trying to cop the next pair of Travis Scott shoes that are set to release later this month.

Class video

In class on Friday we watched a video about how certain brands are able to keep up to date and even set trends. One way that they did this was by creating focus groups with "popular" people and asked them a whole bunch of questions about what was popular and what things are cool and what aren't. I thought that this want that effective of a method because this isn't always true and it is hard to get the true opinion of everyone. Another way that these brands were finding out what was in was by paying a $10,000 monthly membership to a website that claims to have the common trends before the people even realize it. What the website did was show pictures of random people with a common sense of style and put those photos on their website for the brands to see. I think that this is crazy for these brands to pay so much money, but yet again when these brands create a product based off this they make a lot of money

Are dogs or cats better

When asking a friend as to which is better, a dog or a cat, each person will have their own conception as to which is better. However I am here to tell you what the right answer to that question is.  I chose to write about this because there are some people that are unaware of what should be the easy answer to make. Some people for some odd reason feel that cats better that dogs, the people that feel this way are wrong. The right is answer is that dogs are better than cats and I have evidence to back up my answer. Cats are small and have very limited talents. Where as dogs can be trained to do all sorts of things like hunting or detecting when someone is anxious. But dogs are not limited to being able to learn just those two things, there are dogs that are trained for blind people, drug sniffing dogs, truffle sniffing dogs, and even able to give cpr. There are things that cats can do but dogs can do all of those things too. Cats sleep for a very long time each day renderings them to be very lazy. Some people might say that cats can be trained to do stuff like dogs can but no cat can be as good as a dog. By this proof it is safe to say that dogs are the better species when it comes to a dog or a cat.

Can Money buy Happiness

This may be a touchy subject to some, however I thought it would be a cool topic to talk about. Can money really buy happiness? Some people might say hands down yes of course money can buy happiness. When you have so much money that you can buy whatever you want you are guaranteed to be happy. But I say otherwise, money has its limits and not all things can be obtained with just money. Yes you can buy lots of nice cars, houses, fancy dinners, and whatever exotic trip you want but nothing will ever be enough. You will establish a desire for more things with higher and higher prices. But once you have so much you will stop appreciating all the small things, like getting ice cream with a family member or loved one. Everything will just be taken for granted because you have no worries now that you can have whatever it is that you want. From time to time something will put a smile on your face and make you happy but that wont last. Science says that happiness can only be bought up to a certain extent. After you make more than $75,000 for your annual salary then your happiness from which is bought by money will have peeked and will only level out from there. So to conclude yes money can buy happiness, but not for a infinite amount of time.

The World of Shoes

    Shoes are something that we use everyday and some would even consider them to be a basic need. However there is a world of shoes that has yet to be discovered by most people. If you ask five different people what they think of shoes they will all give you a different answer, this also goes with asking some people whats the most they would be willing to pay for a pair of shoes.  Within this world there lives people who are willing to pay an observed amount of money in order to buy certain pairs of shoes. Some shoes will go for more than 20,000 dollars on certain reselling sneaker websites like stockx, goat, and grailed. All of these sites are places where people go in order to buy and sell shoes. The shoes that are bought are shoes that were already bought by people but resold for more money. Some people don't understand why this is a thing or that it is unfair. However when you want a pair of shoes that sells out in under a minute people will flip the price and raise it up a lot knowing that there are many people that are willing to pay high prices. Also people will sell shoes that are a lot older which is why they are able to sell them for more because they are no longer available to buy. But this is the live of many people. there are people that will camp out over night in order to get certain pairs of shoes knowing that there are people that will want to buy the shoes from them. Not all shoes are this hyped but there is a world where these shoes are able to exist.

How Companies are able to target consumers

      All ads no matter the brand have the goal of getting you to buy more of whatever they are advertising. Not all brands are able to get you to buy their stuff but there are hidden tricks as to how these brands first intrigue you with their ads. There are things in ads that you ares sometimes unable to even notice that are out there in order to get you to feel more compelled to get the product. Take for instance this Snickers bar commercial. At first when you see it you think it is funny that they miss spelled things in order to convey the problem to you of what happens to you when you are hungry. However this is a technique that helps them to gain more costumes that wouldn't normally buy the product. This ad gets to you as a physiological need because you want the product more because it is a food. Another technique that they use in this ad is Plain Folks. In this ad they say that it is hard to spell when you are hungry and even spell Snickers wrong on the wrapper. This sentence goes with their commonly known phrase "You're not you when you are hungry" which conveys to customers who know they can be hangry when they don't have food. At the same time in this ad they are using Simple Solution to get customers to want to buy more snickers. They claim that once you eat a snicker you will be able to spell right again once you have ate.
     Not all ads try to get you to buy their goods the same way that snickers does, but the next time you are watching a commercial or looking at a ad try and look to see how they are supporting their product in a deeper way.

Frontline Marketing Documentary

      Overall I really enjoyed this Documentary. It showed me many methods of marketing that I had not yet been introduced too. For this reason I felt that the Documentary was a powerful piece of material. From the Documentary I was able to learn that in oder to create something that you want people to buy you have to create something that appeals all peoples interest. For instance when creating a airline you need to create a image for yourself that lets your customers know exactly what you stand for. This in turn creates a larger amount of customers because of how many people will like the image that reflect upon yourself. I was also able to learn that in order to create something that will last you have to be willing to take risks that may not always pay off. Like for instance Song airlines put out commercials that didn't even hint to the fact that they were a airline. This was a risky more that would have helped to pay off extremely had it worked. Because of their bad idea to try advertise their airline without actually showing a plane they got them very few costumes and  caused for them to be around for less than 5 years. The last important thing that I learned form the Documentary is that focus groups are a great way to understand how the public feels about a certain thing. This is because with focus groups everyone is aloud to say exactly what ever they want that expresses how they feel about the certain thing.  Once you have everyones say about the thing you are then able to modify your product before releasing it to the public to insure that more people are going to like what it is that you are putting forth.

Two articles with one topic but with different writing methods

With relations to a fire burning down part of the Notre Dame Cathedral two articles take similar approaches to discuss what exactly happened.  The first article from CBS said that the fire was may have been caused from a computer glitch however more than 40 people are being questioned. The article went on to say that more than a billion dollars has been donated in order to help rebuild the Cathedral. While on the other hand the other article by ABC takes a different approach to talking about the fire at the Cathedral. At first they talk about all the good things that the fire fighters have been able to with relations to the fire. This includes discussing how the fire fighters were able to save Jesus' thorn crown from being burned down. They also first included the fact that after four days of fire fighters working on the fire they have successfully been able to stop all of the burning points of the fire. However They say differently a computer glitch "may" have played a role in spreading the fire. Through this they further more show their different style of writing by ending their article with an incomplete thought. This is different from the first article because in the first article they directly said that the computer glitch had been caused by a compute glitch where as the second article says that the fire wasn't started by the glitch but spread because of it.

Politics and the English Language

I agree with most aspects of what George Orwell has to say about reading and writing through the generations. I feel that over time some people have become worse with their writing skills, but others have definitely become better. Over time people have become lazier when it comes to their writing. I also agree with him with the fact that "language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purpose". I agree with this because our idea of what is the right and wrong way of writing is all determined by what we read and how we see other people writing. When we see other people writing and we like the way they do it we will try to do it in the same way. however when we like someone else's writing and it is actually not a good way of writing this makes our own writing worse. This in turn leads for people that like our method of writing to start writing in the same bad way that we are. For these reason I agree with what George Orwell says in his writing however I feel that he does contradict himself in his own writing. At certain parts of his own writing he does stuff that goes against everything that he believes in. This causes me to become partially confused to whether or not he understands what he is even saying.

How does Social Media impact you?

When you think of social you probably think of twitter Snapchat and other platforms like that, but there is more to social media then just that. Social media is something that controls a big part of my life for the better and for the worse. When I think of social media I think of any platform where you are able to communicate with other people. It is helpful when it comes to being able to talk to my friends that I don’t normally talk to much at school as well as help me to communicate with classmates when I need help with homework. But social media does have its negative effects. Some nights I will stay up to late on my phone looking at social media causing for me to lose valuable hours of sleep. Other times I will say just five more minutes of looking at Instagram which leads to me spending 30+ minutes on my phone procrastinating and complaining about how much homework I have. With me I feel that social media also helps to catch up on people’s lives or create friendships with people that you’re too awkward to talk to in person. But the effects that social media have on people is a problem that is a worry for future generations. As I look around the world I see that children younger and younger are beginning to start social media before the “required” age. This problem is leading to younger people becoming reliant on social media much faster. This in turn effects how they think based on what they see online. To conclude I am worried that as time goes on future generations will become worse and worse as their range of thinking lessens due to over exposure to social media.