Tuesday, February 16, 2010
What I Never Noticed Before...
While reading "Feed", I was not really able to relate to the idea of constant advertisement. However, when I watched The Merchants of Cool, I realized that I was wrong. There are so many things in today's society that focus on ads and who to gear those ads towards. The clip that I found most interesting was "The MTV Machine". I remember watching TRL when I was in middle and high school, but never even noticed that EVERYTHING is an ad. I really enjoyed watching when an MTV exec went to "a typical teenager's" house and conducted research. I guess I never really thought that TV stations such as MTV had to do research and found it interesting that company's think of children and teenagers as customers. Now, I understand why MTV was so successful. However, it is scary how much advertisements and TV shows effect our society today- shows such as "Jackass" and "Real World" are entertaining to watch, but they dont necessarily send the best message to teenagers.
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Its interesting that in Feed they dont have a second thought about what they are exposed to. Kind of like today how we dont realize just how encompassing the advertising is. Like in MoC they mention that the 'mooks' and 'midriffs' are archtypes that dont really exist in real life, thats why I dont worry about the 'message' they are trying to sell so much.
ReplyDeleteWhen you bring TV shows like MTV's "Real World" and "Jersey Shore" into the conversation, it really shows the type of thought MTV put into how they want to represent youth culture today. These are prime examples of "mooks" and "midriffs", even though they aren't "scripted" persay. MTV spends countless hours picking the casts for their shows, and as much as they want it to portray true culture of today's teenagers and young people, it doesn't. These "actors" are paid to be on the show, and they are paid to cause drama, party, and have sex.
ReplyDeleteThe Jersey Shore boom right now is a perfect example. People see this show and teens see them partying every night and people like "The Situation" caring about nothing except which girls he can bring home that night, and they think about how that guy lives the life. It is a totally unrealistic lifestyle to represent... I mean, who has time for gym, tanning, and laundry every day, while working what, 10 hours a week? This is a great example of the archetypes MTV spews out to the mass media culture, and we eat it up.
But keep in mind this was aired in 2001. Now MTV is trying to revamp its image. With shows like the Buried Life, My Life as Liz, Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant. Sure they still have some of the old standbys but if we look at every network we would see shows that we do not want to be tied with.
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% that shows, while advertising themselves to young adults, do NOT always display the best example as to how a teenager should act. I guess this goes back to the whole "feedback" loop thing, but I do wish that marketers would start to sway the popular norm for teenagers to get a little "cleaner" per say. I feel that shows like Real World and Jackass are to the edge of the extreme as to what normal should be, however people are watching and being influenced by what they are watching. The more they see something the more normal it becomes.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Brett, I DO worry about these teen archetypes because, though they are not fully realistic, I have witnessed young adult emulate these teen pop idols. I am a camp counselor and the amount of girls to bring skirts to camp and wear makeup in an effort to 'be more like Miley Cyrus' at the teen dance nights is, in my opinion, worrisome.
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