The Persuaders

Recently in class we have all watched The Persuaders, a documentary about the power house companies and how they make their advertising stand out to the people who should purchase their products. Our generation was born right in the middle of this advertising craze, we have grown up while always being surrounded by advertisements. Having being cluttered with all of these advertisements, we don't really have a strong reaction to them all that much, because they are just advertisements and there is nothing much else to it. Persuaders, though, argue otherwise; they claim there is almost an art to advertisement. Persuaders are trying to create a new world, meaning, and identity for the consumers, so they claim. But how? I kept this in my mind the entire time watching this documentary. 

The Persuaders have now been able to stop with so much broadcasting and are now able to also narrowcast; we see it all the time. We will have ads alongside a website of clothing brands and shoes we like. The Persuaders have now learned everything about us, pretty creepy.  The Persuaders say that their advertisements are "helping us find meaning" and "filling holes that weren't filled before". They kept on saying these positive things and how advertising is opening up our minds, but they still didn't explain HOW these advertisements were opening our eyes.
These Persuaders want to give us the impression that they are filling our needs, but they don't actually want to fill the needs, they want us to think that a product will help us, so that we keep buying it to keep us happy. They have people stuck in this circle of misleading lies just so they can get money. Yes, it is true that some products do completely satisfy our needs, but most do not. So what's the point of them? It's not to help us, it's to help the big name brands get even bigger.
After watching this documentary on how these peoples' mindsets work, it makes me feel stupid for falling for their tricks. Really? Your commercial is going to make me feel connected to you emotionally? Is your product really going to give me a new world, meaning, and identity just because you say it will?
I think we all get way to wrapped up in what is popular and what will make us better that we begun to not gain identity from these advertisements, but lose it.
We all become this group of people who all shop for the same thing and wear the same clothes, have the same world that these Persuaders have shown us.
Where is the identity in that?
These people are not making us be our own self, they are turning us into one, big money-spending race that doesn't know an better.

We need to take a step back and realize,

it is just an advertisement and that is all it will ever be.

Words that Control YOU.

This was a commercial came out a while ago, but it is just a small view of how someone can take an original story and twist and turn it however they want.

Left: "We wish you a scary Halloween!"-Pepsi; Right: "Everybody

wants to be a hero"-Coca Cola

The Pepsi brand made a commercial to make fun of Coca Cola, so Coca Cola went ahead and took advantage of the picture and made it to support their own brand whilst still making fun of Pepsi.

I know this commercial was not to make people aware of how people can change stories completely, but that's what it is showing if you look deeply enough.

If this technique is being used in something as simple as a soda brand commercial, then how could it not be happening everywhere else in social media? It is sad and confusing to not have just the straight up story.

This technique was used all throughout the presidential election, which just really sucks for us Americans. Personally, I don't want the story to be morphed so that it appeals to me or to other crowds, I want it to just be the bland, boring truth.

I am sick of word play.

With all of this media and advertising around us, it is hard to tell what it right and what is wrong anymore, because we aren't just surrounded with ONE type of same flavored soda, or ONE type of presidential email scandal, but we have words that make one better then the other. An email scam on one site is an email problem to another. Words have become so powerful in media to the point where they make one thing into two or more different stories, just so they can please different crowds.

We need to look beyond the power of words that appeal to us and just try to understand the story for what it is, not for what we want it to be. 

Lack of Amenity Towards Our Identity

Media is all around us; our generation was born and raised off of it. We haven't exactly had a day without it.
A friend once told me that the season we are so attached to our phones is because we were born and we grew up with it always at our hands. They compared it to how a child goes to their teddy bear for comfort, but eventually they need to grow up and not depend on it anymore. Metaphorically, our phones, TVs, and tablets are this teddy bear, and since we have not been separated from it from when we were little, we constantly feel the need to have it at our side or in our pockets.
After hearing this, it made me realize how truly attached I am and how others are to their devices, and it is true that it is a way to find comfort. Besides the fact that electronics are fun and what not, they have given the 21st century a way to escape from reality without moving. I personally do go to my phone to sometimes just clock out of the world for a bit and focus on things I like or would want for myself. But when is enough enough?
We have become so wrapped up in social media that we have began to loose our own identity and we all become some weird human race that all like the same thing. Don't get me wrong, there are some that really just don't care about what people think and just be themselves, but most, some even without being aware of it, try to do what makes them fit in, even if that means that you have to hide some of your favorite things so that you will not be judged by others for it. Social Media is beginning to loose its encouragement for individuality and is beginning to just shape us all into the mold that it wants us to be.
I do love Social Media though. I know that it isn't necessarily benefitting me in anyway, but I still like it. Why though? I do not really know. Maybe because of the whole teddy bear thing or that it does show me what I like, but it also shows me what I should be in order to "fit in". I have to buy certain shampoo's to make my hair beautiful, certain clothes to make me look fashionable, eat certain foods to have a nice body.
It becomes tiring.

Yes, it is true that in today's day and age that we have been encouraging all body types and how everyone is beautiful and what not, but we still see these kinds of advertisements everywhere we go.
I feel like most people today think that they are their own individual, including myself, but when we look beyond it, I believe we can see that we are sucked into this constant need to be someone better then who we are because that is what Social Media wants us to do. They want us to give them money so they can sell more, so we will buy more, and it just continues in this big ol' circle. All they care about is that they are making money, not that we are loosing our identity.

Twitter Trump

So, following the presidential election, I have been paying attention to President Trump's recent posts and with all do respects, I think it is completely stupid to have a candidate let alone our president using social media.
On one side of the argument, I do understand why Mr. Trump would want to use social media alongside of his presidency, but I do not think he should have one the way he uses it. I believe he uses it  to keep the youth of America up with what he is doing. I think that that is a smart move in some situations because he wants to appeal to as big of a crowd as he can. I believe he also uses it to summarize a main idea in which he isn't trying to get across, for the people who do not want/ can not read or comprehend largely written articles explaining the President's next move.
Despite these advantages, I think the way Mr. Trump uses his twitter is ridiculous. He uses his twitter as a 'social media' and as a news report. He is our president for crying out loud! He needs to be more mature about his posts. I am not saying he should not have fun and what not, but he is now a sting political figure that America is depending on and the ways he uses and things he says on social media is completely inappropriate for the position he is in. If he really wants to comment and share his personal life I think he should have another account for that, because when all that junk is mixed in with the important presidential stuff, it doesn't make me or others think that he is serious about his new position. For example:

Here we have Mr. Donald J Trump commenting  on Arianna Huffs "unattractiveness" and how her husband left her and how that was "a good decision". Hopefully you see what is wrong about this. He is supposed to be a respectable figure in today's society, so why is he going around and saying stupid things like this?
At the bottom of the picture above, there is also a tweet connecting former President Barack Obama to the gas price levels and how we should "fire Obama". This tweet shows what little respect he has for, at the time he tweeted, our President. If he is going to run for President, he needs to treat the president the way he would want to be treated as one.
Again, all do respects to Mr. Trump, but the way he uses social media is completely inappropriate and hopefully he will realize that before fully taking over America.