1. a. Facebook is a multibillion-dollar venture capitalist project, growing in obsessive popularity for users and abusers, while disconnecting us from human and environmental connection.

b. I agree with Hodgkinson’s connection between facebook and paypal, and his general view of few individuals economically gaining from the obstruction of the masses’ privacy and social dependency.

I also agree that the safest option is to remain unplugged, whether or not that will get you farther than the next facebook fanatic.

I disagree with Hodgkinson’s completely biased point of view, although he made a lot of valid points, the whole article was highly opinionated and unpersuasive to those who feel differently.

I also disagree with his completely negative feelings on facebook and seemingly cluelessness to why anyone would want to use it. I think he failed to mention its obvious advantages, and was a little predictable when discussing his alternative activities that were highly productive and offline.

2. Williams provided a well descript outline of the different tactics that advertisements use, and listed well-rounded solutions and consumer tactics that promoted smart consumerism. I think that going to Toys R Us will be a mind numbing experience, and we will be able to pick out all of the different persuasions that Williams discusses and more. Child advertising is most problematic in my perspective, because of the brainpower and psychological inadequacies that children have compared to the “persuaders” of big toy companies that are paid millions/ billions. Otherwise, I didn’t really learn anything new, but it was a more positive and constructively minded article than some of the other ones.

3.

1. I observed a lot of bias, and boldly overstated and dramatized opinions based on ads that were on the extreme side of a large spectrum and were set up for failure with her critical narration. Although I thoroughly enjoyed it and agree with the majority of her perspectives.

2. The film made me feel upset about my femininity, and for other females of the past, present and future. I think that these objectifying stereotypes will always be carried within our gender, but there’s a lot to say about how male stereotypes are portrayed in the media as well, which is another important point she didn’t focus on.

3. Kilbourne’s highlighted tactic of persuasion was humor, along with symbols, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, straw man, fear/ defensive nationalism, testimonial, repitition, either/ or, strength, scientific evidence, maybe and timing. Not to compare her to the very subject she is resisting, I just thought it was interesting since everyone is trying to get one point or another crossed, using the same tactics. Therefore, the consumer is the one who is either well or misinformed and chooses their standpoint accordingly.

4. One of the more seriously damaging effects of media that Kilbourned discusses is on female adolescence, because there are so many cases of sexual abuse and younger girls being subjected to their bodies’ development before their sexuality can catch up to them. So it’s definitely been found to be problematic for a huge percentage of that age group.

5. Going off #4, Kilbourne makes an excellent point that sexual images and the idea of sex=selling=sex is everywhere. There was one ad that she shows a clip of I think it was selling lei jeans, and I actually remember watching it as a kid in the late 90’s or so, and looking at it now, I feel it is completely inappropriate and has nothing to do with the product. I remember it airing fairly regularly, and I must’ve been watching some stupid kids show, yet there was this couple for a loonnggg commercial of kinky foreplay in nothing but jeans, and wet paint being rubbed all over his cut muscles and her slim curves. Yikes!

1. Ad Nauseam Ch.’s 5&6:

In the “Everything I know about life” section, I was blown away by the medical history, and the sheer flexibility these companies demonstrated in order to appeal to more consumption. Their willingness to endanger and completely fool their customers was frightening to me and made me trust corporations that much less. I think a good “prank” that could succeed in promoting public awareness would be to compile a magazine similar to “Stay free” that contains a smattering of these old school advertisements to reveal these companies’ historical character and superfluous existence.

I also found the psychological tendencies demonstrated in “Buyer Beware” to be fascinating. It actually got me excited about pulling similar pranks that were more like hands on media experiments. I Personally have felt uneasy every single time I go into a corporate superstore/ market. Something about the vast aisles and quantities of food, fluorescent lighting, and thinking about the people who have to work there everyday makes me dizzy. At home my family and I shop at a food co-op which is much easier on my stomach, even though there are some tradeoffs, the experience is much more enjoyable. Food is a very important thing in my life, not just another daily process that I zone out for and let any advertisements influence for their own benefit.

The last 5 short sections of the book were my very favorite, even though I enjoyed the whole book thoroughly. I love the guerilla anti-ad techniques, they were a riot. It reminded me a lot of a history teacher that I had in high school who first introduced me to media literacy who I admired a lot. Our school was located down the street from a gorgeous private park in the gramercy area of manhattan, and one of his many playful “fight the power” suggestions was to superglue the key holes so no one could get in, since not everyone is allowed. One kid who dropped out of my high school in one of the lower grades was apparently influenced by him in the wrong way, and took things too far. As a fore-warning… http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/teenager-is-arrested-in-may-starbucks-bombing/

My question is… How do we get rid of the stock market, so people don’t have to be brainwashed into consuming towards the solution for their never ending and meaningless insecurities and “maximizing profit for the shareholders”?

My question is… Why don’t these ad pranks happen more often? Are people afraid of the corporations? How do we overcome the fear?

2. How twitter will change the way we live

Twitter will change the way we communicate, organize, network, share, search and consume collectively in a live up-to-the-minute coverage of the world and humans living in it, especially the celebrities.

I agree with the different concepts that Johnson describes about twitter, specifically that it is more relevant and up to date because of it’s fundamental system of “reader-like” information.

I also agree that “it is strangely intimate, yet celebrity obsessed” which can be applied to “popular” kids as well, and is a complete distraction and waste of time.

I disagree with Johnson’s overall positivism. I think this type of media just promotes advertising motives, and is a self-centered world, where people are just going become more isolated and insane.

I also don’t think that twitter will succeed in ways that will promote the right kind of changes, because just like in China, the government has control over political movements, and since they banned it, it is now just that much harder for them to organize.

I am not using twitter, because I am using face book less and less, and don’t have enough time to distract myself further. After reading this article and watching that silly video, I am much less inclined to even dabble in that world. It seems surreal and awful. More extreme versions are W.O.W. and “second life”, both are really crazy.

3. The Merchants of cool

- Teens run today’s economy, spending $100 billion a year plus another 50 from parent’s “guilt money”- Growing up in nyc, I saw this happening around me all the time, and all of the ugly consequences.

- Culture spies, study teen behavior of consumption and try to keep up by imitating what the “cool kids” are doing- the ethnography screen part was scary because it was a first hand account of a human studying a consumer in order to make it consume more, while it seemed like he was just being really nice and like a curious friend.

- As soon as marketers discover “cool” it’s no longer cool- I think this is true for a small percentage, but I feel that a large portion of consumers will dwell in fads for longer periods, especially those in rural or suburban areas.

- I thought the midriffs and mooks sections were pretty accurate, and I think its crazy that there is such a big gap between the sexes and their advertising influencers even after all this time. It’s just less obviously stated than in the older ads that were in Ad Nauseam.

- I think the most interesting point that was made was the idea of media as a reflection of teenagers’ lifestyles, and vice versa. It made me feel like out entire culture revolves around this connection with media, and that one couldn’t succeed without the other, which makes me feel like culture was much more meaningful in the past, and now its cluttered with people and too many problems, so we need these distractions in order to believe we can achieve happiness.

Environmental Art Proyecto

Inside the box: a plastered explosion of cut-out advertisements, cluttered, in-your-face. Highlighting a laptop in the centralized bottom with .coms emphasizing commercial motives of confusing emotions that the ads portray. Combining images of greasy large portions of fried food and sex, reflected with images of bewildered and unhappy child models.

Outside the box: spray-painted natural colors, with wild animals in natural environments. Simple beauty of MN.

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Hello Everyone, my name is Faye and I’m from Brooklyn, New York, but have also lived in Seattle, WA as well as Japan, where my father is from. A fun media experience I had during my holiday vacation was going to watch a conversation between Naomi Klein and Raj Patel at the New York Society for Ethical Culture. I went with my whole family and boyfriend on this really cold night, and it was free so there was an incredibly diverse and dynamic audience that was really fun to be a part of. Afterwards we ran into a few people that we knew and had coffee and it got me pretty pumped to come back to UVM this semester. Otherwise we did a lot of outdoor activity so not a lot of media was involved, and I just wasn’t too impressed with Avatar. One thing I like about media today is the sharing capability, and the ways in which it can bring any number of people together to share an experience in real life. One thing I don’t like is its unhealthy addictive tendencies that seem to mesmerize the masses, and how people create more “relationships” with a screen than they do with real faces. In the future I have a vision of either becoming an outdoor educator or an artist of some kind or both or a professional surfer.