I want to hear what you guys have to say...

class was chaotic today. There are clearly two sides to our debate and our class is split among those sides. I think people had valid points for both sides of the argument, but i don't agree with everything that was said. Not to be a Debbie downer or anything, but to me the reality of it is that we don't have much control over what is happening with our information. Maybe eventually companies and marketers won't have all our info, but i don't see that happening anytime soon. There are two sides to this argument and people are really set upon their beliefs...this clearly is a touchy subject because it is a very personal one.

I don't like knowing that companies can have (or some might say, Take) my info from me, but at this point, it's inevitable. It sucks, but that's the reality of it. Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean that i am hiding something or am exploiting myself on the internet. Fine, let the government see my info and track me and see what i do. But marketers..that's another story.

Yeah sometimes it is convenient to have an ad pop up that is relevant to you, but long term? ...does anyone else keep thinking about Brave New World? When we talk about advertisements there is a lot to consider. For starters, techniques of advertisements. One technique of marketers includes creating an insecurity in the consumer. For example, there was a commercial for Invisalign (the invisible braces) and it showed an adult woman going on a blind date and she arrives at the restaurant to meet her date and when the person believed to be the blind date smiles, we see a mouth, full of a bunch of metal, then all of sudden, the camera cuts to the actual date and when he smiles, there is no metal, because he is wearing the Invisalign braces. Needless to say, the woman chooses the man who has the invisalign braces, because obviously they look better on a grown man than the metal braces do. What the Invisalign commercial did was plant the idea into our heads that if we are an adult and want to get braces we better get the invisalign ones or we won't be attractive. The advertisement therefore manipulates the consumer into believing that we can't risk looking bad with braces, so we should purchase invisalign braces.

^i know that's a bit confusing and wordy but my fear is that overtime marketers will manipulate us with their advertisements...it will just happen over time. Maybe im jumping to conclusions but what if 20 years from now all these ads have caused us to become completely different people? What if they take from us our ability to think for ourselves and be individuals? Advertisements plant ideas in our heads...some will argue that advertisements convince us (conciously or subconsiously) to buy into a particular product or trend. Products, trends, they define a culture and it is through advertisements that we purchase certain products or buy into particular trends. A lot of people are influenced by advertisements.

The more you see something, the more ingrained it becomes in you. The more you think about a particular thing, the more you start to believe it. For example, if you think positively, eventually you become a positive person.


In general, what do you think? Do you think we define our culture? or does our culture define us? And does our culture define the marketers /advertisements, or do marketers and their advertisements define us and our culture?


-Adrienne