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.