Amos Metacognates Via His Keyboard: Media Blog Reflection

As I sit here typing my reflection, trying to figure out what I can say that will have the right blend of thoughtfulness, self-awareness, and humor as well as sufficiently addressing the prompt, I realize that this assignment helped me understand media in a way I would not have expected. Even as I type these sentences, I am trying to create something that is true to myself but in a good way, just as advertising executives all over are constantly trying to construct messages that people will respond to in a positive way and learn to associate with the right product. (This sounds like it's trying too hard to be "deep." Oh well). 

Even though the project was for me to learn from and even though I probably enjoyed my posts a lot more than anyone else, just about every sentence I wrote was partially an attempt to project an image of myself that I like. Is this relevant to the reflection assignment? Maybe. (That was actually my thought but also a way of showing that I can use abrupt transitions to create a not-stiff style while also showing that I am not bound by the directions I received). 

One of my other goals was to make people read about running

That aside, how does the media I consume impact my life? Once again, I think I'll enjoy using my previous blog posts to answer that question. (Just for my own benefit, I promise). The style (titles and number of parentheses used especially) I decided to employ was based on other things I have read on the internet, although at 9:42 p.m. I am realizing that I am not actually sure which sites gave me my ideas. Anyway, it's a reminder that we imitate the things that we see in the world, and if my blog is imitating others odds are I imitate things I see in the media in other aspects of my life.

I haven't payed meaningfully more attention to stuff I see in the media as a result of keeping this blog--there's so much it's just a matter of sifting through it all--but it has changed the way I look at it. I now naturally look for the appeals and needs we discussed in ads and sometimes try to figure out what it's really saying rather than just realizing it's trying to sell something and moving on. As a result of practicing I've probably gotten better at figuring out who is sending the message to whom, and I've also gotten better at noticing something in ads--coming up with some observation or analysis that I would not have before. I think that's kinda cool.

Cantona is saying something about media here. Can you figure it out?

In my first blog post, I talked about how media was banned at my preschool. After this semester, I feel the same way about that policy I did at its outset: probably a good thing. When you're a little kid (and later, but too late for that now), limiting your media consumption is likely going to help your brain and sense of self develop, although a childhood without Harry Potter is a sad thing. The story, the main characters' growth, the importance of love, the beautifully, tragically, perfectly woven-together character of Professor Snape--but I digress. Ultimately, just as I did last sentence, you are going to end up in a world with a lot of media, and you had better be able to understand it, because it is learning to do a creepily good job of understanding you.

Is It Okay to Like Something That Is Sexist But Only Kind of Because It's a Joke?

One thing that made me sad while watching Miss Representation was the inclusion of a few clips from Wedding Crashers in its montages of sexist depictions of women in movies. Why? I liked the movie, and having to see it as part of a problem that harms everyone in our society made me feel less good about that. However, this is not going to be a blog about the faults and virtues of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson: this is about BroScience.

BroScienceLife is a youtube channel dedicated mostly to humorously giving advice on gym-related things for men. If you like crude male humor and lots of gun sound effects or want to understand this post, I recommend you watch some of the videos. They're all basically the same, and I find almost all of them funny. However, none of them are helping to fight harmful gender stereotypes in society.

In keeping with the timeless tradition, everything BroScience determines to be bad is also womanly, as nothing could be worse than to be less of a masculine man, and virtue and muscle building are synonymous. Just as the media tells men that women are pretty objects, BroScience tells men how to become objects that appeal to other objects. However, it's all satirical--kind of.

While BroScience videos may give advice to gym-goers, their actual purpose is to be funny. While some of the tips may be useful (as a non gym-goer I have no idea) the majority are ridiculous, or at least not advice the vast majority of people would ever take. Still, the channel never acknowledges that it is a joke and its creator presents himself as a stereotypical gym bro--I think in the end it does support the problematic confines media pushes men and women into.

The normal reaction when something you like, such as BroScienceLife or Wedding Crashers, shows itself to be somehow not good on a societal level is to display enlightened false consciousness--the "I know it's bad but I still like it" approach. This attitude is all over the place, and I think it is part of the reason that the way the media treats gender roles is still so bad. When lots of things that are funny, entertaining, interesting, etc are also sexist, we tend to emphasize the positive qualities, and thus there is no pressure to change because as long as you can make 'em laugh you'll be fine. This phenomenon is a very hard one to break; telling people to not watch things they would enjoy does not generally go over well.

Is BroScienceLife a major contributor to the problems in our society? I can pretty confidently say no. Is it doing a little bit of harm? Harder to say, but I would lean towards yes. Those questions tend to not be too hard to answer, but the third--do I still want to watch it?--and how we go about answering it is the key. I don't want to have to not watch things I like because they're sexist even though I know I probably should, and that attitude is part of what allows the problems discussed in Miss Representation to persist. Curse it all.

What Does that Can Say? Whatever, I'm Thirsty

At McClatchy's international day on Friday, one display towered above everything else in the ROTC quad: a blow-up Coca Cola can with a little twist.

At first, I thought it was just a blow up Coke can (I blame the b for really looking like a capital c), but that didn't make any sense even if it was 100 degrees out. As commercialized as our world may be, you don't advertise soda at schools, and the person holding up a Soda Kills sign tipped me off. After a little squinting and tilting my head, I figured out that the can said Type 2 Diabetes, and it made a lot more sense. However, I still had a few questions.

Part of me thinks displaying the bottle was a smart tactic. Anti-soda advertisements cannot outnumber soda ads because you cannot sell anti-soda and finance advertising with your profits, so piggybacking on a soda ad makes sense. If you can have just enough of a presence that people think of the diabetes can whenever they see a real Coke advertisement it is possible that people would consume less soda. It's also an ad itself, reminding you of the dangers of sugary soft drinks, so ideally it works both as a message in itself and a defense against Coke's messages.

The part of me that wanted a soda even after seeing the can is a little more skeptical. I don't drink Coke very often, but I've had it enough and seen enough advertisements that seeing a giant Coke can on a hot day makes me a little thirstier. Obviously the point of the ad is to look like the ones we see all of the time, but I wonder if it is a little too similar. The bright red color and curly script appeal to the need for aesthetic sensations the same way a real can does, and the writing is so similar it would be possible to not even read what it says.

I also think that my initial reading of the can might reveal another problem with the message. Coke ads are all over the place--I'd be willing to bet that everyone who reads this blog will immediately recognize what the image is parodying. As a result, it seems possible that the altered can will just blend in with the vast number of normal ones we see all the time. At this point, just about everyone knows soda is bad for you, so saying so on the bottle won't surprise anyone for more than a couple of seconds, and I worry that because of that reality (or not reality, but I'll assume I'm right) the ad will not be able to break through and be memorable to people who aren't always on the lookout for something to write a media blog about.

Thinking about the can also made me wonder how effective advertisements against any given product can be. It seems an inherent disadvantage to have to show the thing you want people not to buy, because there's probably already an ad for the product that uses similar images, and trying to break out of that trap often leads to over the top ads. The documentaries we've watched this semester and the bit of research I've done indicate that no one really knows how much advertising helps sell products, so I'd guess the same is true for ads trying to hurt products.

It was also ironic that around 20 feet away German club was selling root beer floats.

Hillary Clinton and the Female Politician's Double Bind

While discussing the coverage of Sarah Palin during her vice presidential run, Miss Representation featured a clip form a Saturday Night Live sketch that imagined Hillary Clinton and Palin coming together to call out the sexism both had faced. Here's the whole video.

Although I am not sure exactly what the makers of the documentary were trying to show with this clip, I think it shines a light on how the objectification of women we see in the media hurts female politicians no matter what route they try to take to success. After listing off a few of their political differences, the fictional Palin and Clinton take turns listing off the sexist insults that have characterized of both women's campaigns--sort of. Tina Fey/Palin recalls being called "pretty" and "attractive," among other things, while Amy Poehler/Clinton lists off some less kind words. There's plenty of other stuff to analyze, but I found this part most interesting.

The contrast between the language thrown at the two women is partially meant as a joke that brings out the frustration the writers believe Clinton must have felt; she was the more serious politician and faced more sexist vitriol, yet this imaginary event showed her and Palin as equals. However, much as I dislike Palin--I'll never forget hearing her say in 2011 that Obama could be reelected because the majority of the U.S. is made up of takers--but comments about her looks do represent a problem. Miss Representation shows the extent to which women in movies and TV are attractive, shallow people, so if all anyone can say about a female politician is that she is attractive, odds are that politician will not be getting respect. No one would want the generic pretty girl character as president, so if they see a candidate that way, they are probably not going to vote for them.

Images of media hurt Clinton as well, in a more obvious ways. When we are constantly seeing images of beautiful, digitally enhanced women in the media, a normal looking woman like Clinton becomes an object of ugly, sexist vitriol. TV and movies have told us that women should be a certain way, and while being that way may not make you presidential, diverging from it makes you someone to be avert your eyes from. As the documentary points out, women beyond their twenties who are not incredibly attractive are typically not shown, and when they are, if they are ambitious, they are mean, annoying people who must be humbled in the end. This is not an easy image to overcome, and I wonder how it may be affecting this year's election.

Who cares about votes?

Hillary Clinton has gotten a lot more votes than Bernie Sanders, and yet she is losing the social media primary by quite a bit. Demographics certainly play a role in this phenomenon; Bernie's supporters are generally younger (promising everyone free college will do that) and thus more likely to express their voices over the internet, but I think gender may play a role. We have no shortage of old, white-haired male heroes--Dumbledore, Gandalf, and others--but powerful women in their sixties? Not many. As a result, even for people who support her policies, it is not as easy to get excited and rally around her; the media has not given us many leaders who look like her, so it is hard to no how to go about supporting one. The fact that people are voting for a female candidate shows that we have made progress, but the way social media has discussed the election may be a sign of our lingering prejudices.

The Generic Attack Ad Strikes Back

Darrell Steinberg may have the most money in the race, but he is not immune to attack. When I got home from school today, these images were awaiting me (or really my parents because they can vote, but they already did so whatever. I can pretend.)

If the purpose of advertising is to provoke an emotional response, I guess this one worked in a sense because it made me laugh a little. I don't think that was the intent. It felt like a half-hearted imitation of the political attack ads used by local and national candidates all over, with the same appeals and fallacies but somehow lacking punch.

The first accusation is of a category I think may be required for these types of ads: Political Junkets and Gifts. There is a little facts and figures appeal in there, but it falls down under closer examination. In many contexts, $23,000 is a lot of money--you could buy a car with that--so presumably whoever made this thing hopes people will see a candidate who took that much money as corrupt. However, in the context of gifts and travel expenses over the course of his 6 years as Pro Tem, $23,000 is not much; a couple trips or so. In addition, I wonder if anyone really pays any attention to attacks like this one when they have become so omnipresent; every political attack ad seems to make the same claims about candidates' acceptance of various things, so can you really differentiate them that way?

The next attack was an excellent example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in real life. Even the most hardcore cultural relativist would be hard-pressed to defend a culture of corruption, but do they really have anything here? There have in fact been 3 Senate Democrats charged with crimes in recent years, two for fraud and corruption, but drawing a line from them to Steinberg is tricky business. The assumption we are supposed to make is that everything that happened while Steinberg can be blamed for everything that happened when was the leader of the Senate, but no reason is given as to why. The actual argument: Steinberg became Pro Tem, bad things happened, and thus Steinberg caused bad things to happen. Yikes.

I didn't find the back side quite as entertaining, but its claims did not escape my skeptical eye. My favorite is the tying of McKinley Village to increased carbon emissions. For about a second, it makes sense: people will live there and drive there, something people did not do when it was a bunch of grass next to the highway, so there will be more carbon emissions, right? Actually, that doesn't even sound very convincing. Unless McKinley Village is actually going to create new people and cars that otherwise would never have polluted anything, it is not going to increase emissions. In fact, infill projects that allow people to live close to where they work, rather than long drives away in the suburbs, should decrease fossil fuel emissions. The ad has to use vagueness to try to connect Steinberg and pollution because if it were to fully explain its argument it would not make any sense. That's probably the case for a lot of ads. 

One common theme in the documentaries we've watched in class this semester is the overload of media messages in today's world and the need to stick out in one way or another. Try though advertisers might, it is not easy to get people's attention for very long with an ad, and something tells me this one is not destined to break through. 

Archery is Cool, But Not Quite As Cool As I Thought It Was 2 Hours Ago: Lars Andersen and the Need to Satisfy Curiosity

A little over a year ago, while browsing youtube, I came across a video called "Lars Andersen: a new level of archery." At the time, I did not new what the level of archery Andersen purported to replace was, but given that it is an olympic sport I figured it would be interesting to see what a new level would entail. I was not disappointed.

A deep, gravelly, very serious voice narrates the video, which intersperses clips of Andersen doing amazing things with pictures and occasional videos to back up its thesis: that Hollywood archery is a lie and Andersen is bringing back the real thing. I found it almost mesmerizing; the dramatic voiceover, historical references, and incredible trick shots were entertaining from start to finish. I felt like I had gone from knowing nothing about archery to being right on the cutting edge. I did not forget the video, but I didn't think much of it until this morning when it popped up on my computer. I decided to watch it again because I remembered enjoying it the first time, but something was changed. The first video youtube suggested I watch next: "A Response to Lars Andersen: A New Level of Archery" by a channel called skepticallypwnd. I had been fooled.

I didn't really want to watch the response, but I realized that if I was going to write a media blog about the video, I needed to have both sides. I slogged through 15 minutes of rebuttals to Andersen's video, with the conclusion being that while the guy can certainly shoot, he is no revolutionary and his claims of historical support are flimsy at best. I finished the video and wondered how I had been fooled in the first place. I tend to be skeptical of anyone saying that there is a better way to do something than the way everyone else is--articles about how "high intensity interval training" is superior to all other methods drive me nuts--yet I did not conclude that this video was probably a little off. I think it shows the power of the need to satisfy curiosity.

Archery is perfect for satisfying this need, as for me it is shrouded in multiple layers of mystery. As a combat discipline it is a relic of a time of knights, castles, Mongols, and a host of other cool historical things packed with fun facts. A glimpse at what exciting things people did back then is always interesting to me. In a more modern context, it is equally opaque to me; I have no idea what qualities allow an olympic champion archer to be so much more accurate than an amateur. As such, seeing something that addresses both mysteries arouses my curiosity, and my lack of knowledge about the subject means that I have a harder time discerning what is true and what is false.

I suppose advertisers already know what I so sadly discovered today, because if not I would not have learned about the need to satisfy curiosity as a basic need used by commercials. However, I think my foray into archery through the ages reveals a problem with the appeal: it takes a special medium to deliver on it while avoiding skepticism. Andersen's video was cool, based on a subject I knew nothing about but had interest in, and perhaps most importantly was not trying to get me to do anything. As far as I could tell, it was a guy who had spent years researching and practicing his craft spreading what he had learned, so I had no reason not to believe him.

Creating those circumstances is near impossible for advertisers, but I think there is one way they can, and perhaps do, achieve it: perfect product placement. If a company could seamlessly integrate its product into a something like Andersen's video, my experience tells me it could probably be very effective. However, I have no idea how they would do it, and watching The Persuaders gives me the feeling that they have tried. My only suggestion to companies would be to look back in time: perhaps somewhere deep in the historical record is the forgotten technique of perfect product placement.

When Worlds Collide: the Comment Section

On Wednesday, the New York Times published an article titled "Bernie Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in the Homestretch". People freaked out.

New York Times articles about Sanders tend to attract droves of commenters, but this one managed to stand out; by the time the moderators closed the comments section there were 6,430. Why? The article's title was a little misleading. While one could certainly draw the same conclusion the headline expressed, this article was a news story, not an opinion piece. It was saying that Bernie Sanders' campaign had said it was fine with harming Clinton's, but its only actual quote was a senior advisor saying that he was "not worried about"the possibility of hurting Clinton this fall.

So many comments!

The difference between the quote and the headline was not a huge one, but it was enough to confirm a number of peoples' suspicion that the entirety of the media is conspiring against Sanders. It also gave one person a chance to warn against "the grand Clinton family traditions of giving everyone a free puppy while they ravage the economy" and another to remind us that "it is obvious that it should be a Bernie/Hillary ticket," with the former being the president and the latter his running mate. In fact, it seemed that for every comment criticizing the article's language there were another 4 stating the poster's opinion with no reference to another comment.

The comment section on this article, as well as just about every other political article by as big of an entity as the Times, shows just how differently people see the world, and how impossible it seems to be for them to communicate. Normally, the commenters who squabble with each other would never come into contact with each other, but online forums change all of that, and as a result vitriolic, ad hominem-filled arguments that could never have happened before take shape. However, I wonder if the internet does more to bring people of opposing viewpoints together than it does give people the support they need to become sure of the opinions they ride into battle with.

New York Times comment sections and those of other major news outlets may be vast, but they do not account for the majority of comments posted online. My forays into Instagram's "Explore" page have allowed me to discover a multitude of political accounts with relatively large followings who share pretty similar opinions. Some express opinions one could always find broad bases of support for, but others push beyond what would previously have been possible. Pro Bernie accounts can now bring together hundreds of people who think he will win 75% of California's votes, anti-Bernie accounts bring together people who think that he is an evil communist, and anarcho-communist accounts bring together lots of teenage boys who favor overthrowing the government and allowing the proletariat masses to seize the means of production.

In any given area, none of these opinions are likely to be widely held, but when you allow everyone with a cell phone and a shared belief to communicate, suddenly fringe opinions can seem not only right but downright mainstream. As a result, when one migrates from an area where debates feature two sides that the majority of the general population would disagree with and people generally agree with each other to an area where a sizable chunk of commenters disagree with one's basic principles, things get heated. The more you break up people within a certain group, especially large ones like Democrats and Republicans, the easier it is to forget that other large groups even exist, so coming into contact with them can be shock.