Look at the bright side.

Many people look at media as a bad influence, media floods your eyes, keeping them away from the important information. I think theres a gold lining with media though. Advertising informs you of many things, new technology like the mac commercials, new fashions like the advertisements in magazines (ex. Vice, Beautiful Decay, Juxtapoz) and new releases with CD’s or DVD’s. Keeping you up to date even when you don’t realize it.

You could be out buying a computer, and the guy at the shop tries to sell you a pc thats on special. From so many computer advertisings you could easily tell if the dealer is trying to pull a fast one on you or not. One of the ways advertising helped me, was when I go shopping (I’m a Bargain shopper) I usually find myself scrolling through the rows of shirts and jackets in our local Value Village. From the fashion ads I see in the magazines I knew what was a good deal, or sometimes I find myself picking up shirts that look like the shirts I’ve found in the magazines and end up really enjoying them.

We’re going to have to deal with advertising since its not going anywhere. So why not benefit from what you see almost everywhere, and take advantage of it.

Blood on our hands.

Many people can find it easy to point fingers at advertisers and the media for polluting our minds, but have we ever sat down and thought that maybe we’re also the ones to blame? Theres many clear ways to see how we might be directly influencing people just like media (ex. What we listen to, what we watch, and what we wear). What about the other ways that aren’t so clear to us? Like what we avoid listening to, wearing, and watching. Or how about the ways we portray ourselves in our everyday life.

We don’t think about it but what we might avoid comes from the media too, since we don’t want to fall into a certain stereotype, (ex. wearing chains and our pants really low, people might think were into rap music and all the associations tied to that genre). This can be the media’s blame since they perpetuate the stereotypes and make us look at people who dress a certain way and assume they are as the media portrays them. Making us avoid that look ourselves unless we want others to associate us to that genre. The same principle can be connected to every aspect of our daily lives (ex. what we eat, how we do our hair, even how we speak).

So maybe we too are the ones to blame, falling into these different types of genres. Not Because media told us to, but because media told us not to.