Advertising

Advertisers often trick us into buying things we don't really need. They use different techniques that appeal to our needs and wants. Techniques such the need for affiliation, the need to dominate, and the need for escape. They advertise these to certain people depending on their gender, needs, and wants. The need for escape can be presented through an advertisement for a hotel or cruise. The need for sex is usual geared towards men through nearly naked woman. This is an advertisement that can be a little bit sexist and often persuade women, and men for that matter, to think a certain way. Ads that are trying to sell a car will usually have a man surrounded by a lot of friends and women representing the need for affiliation. After seeing that ad you'll think that if you get that car, you'll be popular and have a lot of girls all over you. Advertising is definitely an art that many have perfected. After seeing ads for clothes or the newest apple product, I'm automatically thinking I have to have it. These ads create myths that make you want to buy their product, but that's all they are: myths. Just because you have that car you may not have all those people always surrounding you; just because yo're on that cruise doesn't mean you're escaping anything. I find it funny how people, including myself, buy into this kind of stuff just because it will bring us something we think we need. There is nothing stronger than the need for something we don't necessarily want and vice versa.

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If you love shopping as much as I do then you know it just takes one look at a clothing ad and bam you're in your car driving to the mall. These particular ads are for Abercrombie and Fitch and what isn't to like about it? It persuades me because the clothes are cute and it's the kind of clothes I like wearing.  Plus, you know, the cute guy in the ad doesn't hurt to look at and we all know that cute guys are going to be in the store as well. The girls in the first ad look content and "cool" if you will. Who doesn't want that?  These clothes are definitely not something that I NEED, but I sure as heck want them. This ad is saying that you'll have the "hottest looks" out there if you buy from Abercrombie and Fitch. No where else can even compare. Honestly, maybe you will or maybe you won't, this ads spells it out for you though, and it's persuaded me that they have the "hottest looks." Yes, they're expensive, but to them there shouldn't be a price on fashion. I personally already love A&F and shop there anyways, but seeing these ads makes me want to go to one of their stores and buy up the place more than I already do.

The Journey of Pop Culture

      Before reading this article I didn’t realize that popular culture hasn’t been around that long and even when it was discussed in earlier years, it was frowned upon. This is really weird to me because in my opinion popular culture is everything a society bonds over and unites as a culture with. Reinhold Niebuhr thought that television was a threat to our culture and even went as far as comparing it to the threat of atomic weapons; which is pretty extreme to me because although it may have some negative impacts, such as kids always watching it and being exposed to things that they shouldn’t necessarily be exposed to, its used not only for an educational purpose but also an entertainment one. It makes since that it wasn’t until the 1960’s and 1970’s that people started experiencing popular culture because that’s when the British Invasion and all these new tv shows/radio shows came to our attention. These things were considered popular culture because the masses like it. I found Sklar’s quote of “ The movies were the first medium of entertainment and cultural information to be controlled by men who did not share the ethnic or religious backgrounds of the traditional cultural elite” to be very interesting because it puts how the class divisions were back then into perspective.  Then to push the envelope even further, Robert C Toll  provided a new look to Minstrel Shows. Minstrel shows meant to kind of made to make fun of the way african americans were treated by white people and how african americans really lived in the US. So, not only were they used for entertainment, but also for an educational purpose in how they were treated. Over all this article was fascinating to me because it explained so much about the journey popular culture has taken from being something frowned upon to something that plays a major role in society and culture today.