Hip Hop

The video we watched in class was eye opening. Music is a fascinating topic. Most everyone has some type of music preference. It is interesting to watch opinions change over ones lifetime. For example many children start listening to kid and Disney songs. Then they grow out of that faze and typically are heavily influenced by family and friends. They will listen to what every the parents, brothers, or sisters are listening to. After that faze most people start to find opinions in music. Most people will discover who their favorite band, music, genre etc. After that a person typically matures and changes their music preference once again. Watching the hip-hop video I was thinking about the age group of people that listen to that type of music. I am not sure but I would guess it ranges somewhere around 17-35? I have found not a lot of young people like that style nor do older adults. I personally do like hip-hop but I find the background and the typical artist fascinating. The need to fit in as a tough black male artist is overwhelming. It would be nice to see more diversity especially in the music genres. We need to get over the cute blonde for pop stars, the cowboys in wranglers for our country stars, and the black male with tattoos for our rap and hip-hop. Music can make people feel and act certain ways. I think if we had more diversity in the music industry there would be more listeners to different types of music.

Valentines Day

Don’t get me wrong I had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. It was full of fun activities, good food, along with good company. Every Valentine’s Day my husband and I have a little tradition of doing some of the same things. It is a fun relaxing day of all of our favorite things. What is not so fun is what it does to the bank account. I cannot believe how much we fork out on these made up holidays. I heard in my marketing class that more couples break up the month of February than any other month. This got me thinking of the expectations that people have. My teacher previously worked in the candy/chocolate business and what better time to buy chocolates than for your special someone. And if you don’t have a special someone it is a good time to spend money on yourself. This holiday has people buying gifts, doing activities, and going out for a fancy dinner. What a great hallmark idea. Spending hundreds because it is a day we are supposed to express our love for the people that matter most in our lives. Advertising and society play such a large role. The United States has another holiday to celebrate and of course to spend. I find it so fascinating how much we drop to make these special days worthwhile by spending. If you are not spending then you have to deal with the potential break up. Breaking up over not saying I love you with gifts and goodies on one day is crazy. People should look at their relationship on all the other days to see how much someone cares about or loves you.

You choose.

When I was searching in the gender ads I came upon some pretty rediculas ads. I was shocked just seeing the categories genderads has. It sad that we can classify so many bad things in our advertising world. My first example was this Bed Head product called dumb blonde. I find it sad that companies can label their products these negative conotations and figure out that it sells. They have a product and then a picture to accuratly represent the product. What is this really saying for females?

I am asuming that this is a very old advertisment. And that ketsup would not think about putting an advertisment on like this in this day and age. It so degrading to think that they are advertising that women are so helpless that they once upon a time could not even open katsup. Really? I understand that some of the jars, platic, and wrap are not always the easiest to open. But seriously it is not the impossible.

I went to another section on the genderads and found this under the noramlized woman. It was sad for me to find that this close up ad of this face needs to be displayed as needing all of these different things to be pretty or even normal. She has a stunned or even a dumb face on which does not help the cause for women. Making women and men think tha women to be normal should own all these products and change their appearance to a superficial look. How do we always end up falling for this stuff?

Defining Ourselves

All this talk about what people do to define ourselves has got me thinking. I am going to disagree with some of the comments that people have made in class on how it is not important. Defining ourselves is important I have lived 21 years and have continuously been attempting to develop me. It is a lot of work to create a good identity that everyone can recognize you with. I have found very few people that are similar. We are all so unique and I find it important to know who I am. This is different than judging someone on what they do or believe. I may not agree with everything someone does but in the end it doesn’t matter. When I have a baby girl chances are there will be overwhelming amounts of soft pink. I am okay with that. It does not mean that she won’t have cute yellow, green, even blue outfits but what she wears should clearly define that she is a girl. Frankly I don’t want their identity mistaken. Identifying yourself as female or male should be encouraged. Men and Women are not the same. We use different products go to different bathrooms there are differences. Not understanding where you lay in society can create large amounts of confusion. I do not see anything wrong with creating a “girl” identity for a baby girl. To me it makes sense.

I will take three...

It was a good discussion in class about the advertising world. I took some classes that have helped me understand the underlying meanings in advertising. What they do, use, portray, can get us off the couch and into stores purchasing products. I mean seriously millions of dollars for a 30 second clip during the super bowl game. It makes me wonder how many consumers it would take to drink 2 million dollars of coke or whatever the product is. Are we that heavily influenced? Well unfortunately yes. So many times I have watched good products go away. Just because there is a really good product it does not mean it is going to sell itself. There is a purpose for advertising it creates feelings and expectations when buying products. It is interesting to me concepts such as satellite radio. People are willing to spend a lot of money on something that is virtually free just so they can avoid advertisements. My husband and I purchased this XM Radio and we were shocked to find they had commercials in it. Yes there were far less than the typical radio stations but we paid for this to avoid commercials! I was very disappointed as a consumer. It is a tricky game that they play. They do not have enough commercials for us to turn the product down or stop making payments on it but it does make me cringe every time I hear one. It makes me wonder in some of the magazines I purchase if they took out the advertising would it be empty? A mere 5-10 pages of information with a couple pictures that relate to the stories. I would be curious to find out what percentage of magazines is advertising. Advertising and marketing can really influence the minds of its consumers. We need to be careful the products and things we are paying for.

girls in the media

Today’s conversation really got me thinking about girls in the media. I refuse to think that a white male started this awful trend and everyone is following and accepting it. Obviously not everyone views women as objects rather than subjects. It makes me question how different America views women compared to the rest of the world. In India, Russia, and China do they consider their women as objects and mere bimbos? I refuse to think so. I think values have shifted a great amount over the years. Although women have more opportunities than ever before I do not think that we are using our abilities to their full potential. Changing the stereotype is hard to do after falling deep in to stereotypes for several years. Women are reaching out to everything including doctors, large corporations, to even attempting for president. There is a change in the world but media is slow to adapt. We are not finding these powerful leaders on TV or the radio. But it makes me question our society as a whole. Would we really watch unattractive women work hard on reality TV? One might hope so but I doubt it. We have a need for unrealistic perfection on television. This need is driving America to one of the biggest problems.

please do not judge me

Being honest I am a type that could be easily stereotyped. I am a 21 year old, blonde, from San Diego. People may have an impression based on those few words. I could be viewed as a young girl, who may be looked in the world as less smart because of my hair color. I am from a fun party town which may be assumed that would make me a partier. Now if I mentioned a few more words to talk about me. I am a married, Mormon college student. Those words bring out more mature, responsible feelings. If I had mentioned those three words the first time a completely different image may come to mind. We use stereotyping for several different reasons. Understanding who someone is can be complex reasoning. This is why we use stereotyping. Many people view stereotyping as negative. When it is used incorrectly it can be found offensive and inappropriate. Lets be honest not all African-Americans listen to rap, wear bling, and are criminals. Our society portrays different categories of humans in various lights. Media plays a major role in stereotyping. The media has the ability to reach millions of people. In result people are informed about society with specific knowledge and biased beliefs. The best way to avoid stereotypes and biased views is to do research. Having the ability to choose what to believe in can be powerful. Not assuming all that you hear is factual will help break some of the stereotypes. Research what the media has to offer to give yourself a better understanding of the subject and the other side of the story.