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Matrix

My response to the final chapter in the book “Pop Culture Freaks” by Kidd is that the only way the media can stay on top of society is if we continue to consume what they are creating. Kidd is saying that we need to break and destroy ‘The Matrix’ so that it isn’t as powerful. This is then compared to the actual film called The Matrix where people get used for power in society because this is similar to the way that media is constructed in pop culture. Media controls us. It controls us through our interests, desires, and necessities. A good example of this is seen through advertising when sexuality is used as a desire for a specific product. Kidd wants society to become more like the ‘freaks’ that escape from the mass medias powerful schemes. He wants us to know that we can have our own opinions, our own trends, and thoughts. He actually argues that the ‘freaks’ are the better ones in society. He thinks that the people need a break from the media otherwise it will control them and they will not be the ones controlling it. My take on this is that I think Kidd is right. I do feel that society needs to relax when it comes to the next best thing. Social media easily controls this generation and we are all getting sucked into it. The media is doing a great job. But where is our creativity going? We are just waiting to see what the next big thing is when it comes to instagram and snapchat. We only live through other peoples lives instead of our own. You see people walking in the streets looking on their phone instead of looking at the world! People need to realize the social media is not realistic. That isn’t their life.

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Advice Comm 435

This spring I was enrolled in course number 435 called critical approaches to popular culture. In this communication course there were some ups and downs, but that happens in every course. I would say some of the best things I loved about this course was that is was very relevant to my life. We watched many movies, and television shows on our own time. I loved how I really got to explore what I thought about pop culture and how it applied to my interests. For example, this course left it open to you to pick a movie to write an analysis paper on so that was very exciting and enjoyable. Second was the talk back letter and you got to pick an area of interest that made you made/upset or something that you were proud of and write a letter to the company. I loved this assignment and it really made me think about body issues in society today and how they became such a large worldwide issue. Finally came this last assignment to create a Tumblr. Social media being used for class? Count me in! I loved this assignment. It made me feel creative and important and I feel like I fully understood the course. Now lets talk about the downs I had in this course. I unfortunately got mono early on in the semester. This really took a toll on my participation in the journals and discussions. I would say the toughest part for me in this course was doing the weekly journals and discussion board assignments because they are very tedious and you have to stay on top of them and with my mono I just fell behind and it was very challenging to catch up. The best advice I could give you would be to stay on top of the readings and to not miss class as best as you can. Otherwise, I loved this course!  

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The cultural Diamond is an accounting device that helps identify relationships with a cultural artifact. There are four parts of the diamond, which form each of the shapes sides. The four sides are social world, creator, receiver, and artifact. The social world is the world in which a pop culture artifact is created for example it could be political, social, economic etc. The social world explains what going on in society when the movie was released. The creator part of the diamond is the person or people that produces a pop culture artifact. The creator is not just one person. It includes everyone that took part in creating the artifact as a whole and took part in making it go live in pop culture. The receiver is the person or people who consumes the pop culture artifact. And finally the artifact itself is a cultural object the society choices to be considered ‘pop culture’. When applying the cultural diamond to my pop culture artifact of Monsters University we know that the artifact is the actual film Monsters University as a whole. The social world for Monsters University would be the fact that all the kids that saw the movie Monsters Inc. (2001) were all grown up and at the age where they were in a higher education now, therefore the movie Monsters University (2013) would fit their generation and they would still be excited to see the film even though it is animated. The creator of the film would be the director, Dan Scanlon, the cast, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren, and the producer, Kori Rae. Lastly, the receivers would be kids and the generation of adults that saw Monsters Inc. in 2001. Overall this movie made $744 million dollars and was a huge movement to the generation of teens/adults that loved the first movie of Monsters Inc.

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I did my paper on Monsters University. Overall I learned that this movie ‘works’. This particular object is popular, it is challenging by completely going against how the average college student is represented but it also conveys an important message by showing that Mike and Sully fail/get kicked out of college, yet somehow still become a successful scare team. THIS is hard work and dedication and it truly shows us college students that even though you may know every single definition in the world, or ace every exam, the world may turn you down but don’t give up! Even if you have the best reputation and know you belong in your major and have all the credentials to prove it, you cannot just rely on that to prove your worth. The movie Monsters University strongly breaks the average representations of college students by accurately portraying that college is actually extremely difficult to accomplish and how focusing on one major or career can come with many bumps in the road. Monsters University shows that failure can lead to success when it comes to finding yourself in college. The average college student is portrayed in pop culture artifacts today by representing that the student is only entertained by the wild parties, getting to move out and leaving home, and getting to know the opposite sex, yet somehow still receiving a college degree and having a healthy lifestyle. To examine how college students are depicted in popular culture and why those representations are embraced by society I chose to take a different approach on college films and how they portray students at a University. I decided to analyze the movie Monsters University. Even though this is an animated movie I truly believe it accurately illustrates the life of a freshman finding their self in college, but in a realistic way. The real world is tough and its true people do flunk out of college and get kicked out of their major. I love how Monsters University shows that and shows the after effect of college and making your way up to your dream job! You can still live your dream when your goals fall short or do not go your way. Never give up and never forget who you are, no matter who tells you different.

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In this Business Insider article we are shown ten different types of advertisements where racism has struck. There are ten different examples of racist ads in this link but I will briefly discuss the first advertisement shown in this article that was designed by Popchips. I think this advertisement wanted to play with humor and use the saying ‘bombay’ which is a racist slang towards Mexican culture. The ad shows Ashton Kutcher in brownface supporting the chips saying they are the ‘bombay’. I feel that this article strongly represents an example of racism in advertising today.

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This is a great example of a ‘funny’ advertisement gone completely wrong. The advertiser (who happened to be black) even said this ad campaign was so bizarre that is was never meant to be taken seriously. WELL GUESS WHAT not every one in society has a sense of humor when it comes to these sensitive topics. Simply just don't go this direction in your commercials people they end up wasting a ton of money and start an outrage in society. This ad ended up being pulled.

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My critiques to these racist advertisements are that they could easily be avoided and use a different marketing strategy that doesn’t lead to public shame or strike. These advertisements lead to recall, abandonment of brand or product, or boycotting of a company. There needs to be a new standard for the advertising industry. We simply need to come up with a different marketing approach that diminishes racial stereotypes. Racism in advertisements is a serious relevant issue. Most of the time advertisements do not intentionally try to stereotype race but unawareness, and subtle attempts at humor can quickly backfire. This article also brings up the fact that racism in ads is not illegal but a public backlash could be worse to your business. Culturally insensitive advertisements need to end now. Advertisers claim that they are not even aware of their mistakes until their campaign was actually launched. We need to prevent things like this from happening. There needs to be a larger awareness that this is a real relevant issue to society. Racism in advertising has been around for a long time now, but that fact that it is still happening scares me. How is this seen as a positive to some business owners? Are they really that oblivious? There is an unbelievable number of campaigns that have failed because of this issue so stay away from it!! Go for another approach for your product. Advertisers miss the mark when they try too hard to promote peace, equality, or something else that is still a relevant issue in society BECAUSE it is still an issue! You cannot fix a worldwide issue with your product. No matter how much you want to, someone will end up offended in the end because to be honest your product has nothing to do with race or equality. Now go make your business campaign on something that actually relates to your business.

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Bradford County Education. (2016). Racism in technology advertisements. Retrieved         from http://www.bradfordcountyeducationfoundation.org/paper-template-racism-         advertisements/

This particular article highlights the many different types of racism seen in advertising. Some examples discussed in this article are the language that someone is speaking or a particular accent portrayed in an advertisement, making notice of someone’s physical attributes, and the most commonly used is stereotyping what a certain race would eat. This is shown when advertisements want to target a certain audience for their food business. Many of these advertisers end up puller their ad because of the feedback that they have received.

 Bristor, J., Lee, R., Hunt, M. (1995, March). Race and ideology African American images             in television advertising. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/ -            0000378?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

 Using an interpretive approach, the authors of this article look at the problem within a framework of racism as an ideology of the dominant white taking over the advertising industry. Their discussion of six themes identified in their analysis of prime-time television commercials serves to highlight problematic images of African-Americans that continue in advertising. The authors also suggest actions that the advertising industry can take to present more positive portrayal of minority populations. I liked this article because it shows the interesting fact that the advertising world is mostly white show it is hard to accurately portray different race and ethnicity.

 Dickerson, J. (2014, Oct 7). 6 racist commercials you can’t watch without shaking your    head. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/07/racist-  commercials_n_5947676.html

 The terrible mistake of tasteless and offensive advertising is shown in this article. Most of these ‘racist’ advertisements use offensive slang that stereotypes race and tries to create humor in the ad. Honestly these advertisements are not funny, no matter how hard they try to be. Society realizes that there is still racism around the world and making commercials trying to play humor into it does nothing for their business. One commercial shows a white man in a crowd of black people that are dancing and he actually speaks about the situation being awkward just because of racial differences, probably not a good advertisement KFC.

 Malone, S., Baysinger, T., (2017, April 5). Pepsi pulls Kendall Jenner ad after social         media backlash. Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2017-      04-05/pepsi-draws-outrage-for-ad-depicting-kendall-jenner-at-protest

 This article brings attention to the most relevant advertisement in the media that promotes racism speculation and negative attention to the Black Lives Matter movement happening today all around the world. Pepsi tried to create an advertisement commercial that promoted peace and unity. Instead this commercial created an uproar in society for the actions that were showed in the advertisement. Kendall Jenner was shown walking in a Black Lives Matter march as she steps to the front when they are stopped by cops and she hands them a can of Pepsi and the cops ‘fist bump’ her as if everything is now okay and there is no reason to protest anymore because of the can of Pepsi. This downgrades the movement and shows that a can of pop could fix and supposedly end racism in society.

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The topic that I chose to write my project on is racism in advertising. This is the most relevant topic due to Kendall Jenners commercial with Pepsi that aired this past month. I can highly say that I see this all the time in the media and I am very emotional about this topic. I don’t understand why advertisers are still using this as a way to promote their products or get societies attention to help their business. I just do not see this as a positive way to get a message or product across the market. Race is a very sensitive topic to society and in some way shape or form you are going to hurt someones feelings. Instead of your advertisement being pulled, like Pepsi’s did, I feel that advertisers should avoid this area of interest. Relevant advertisement in the media that promotes racism speculation and negative attention to movements happening today all around the world is a big issue in pop culture. Advertisements tend to take a look at how racism and stereotyping is advertisements have changed over the past years. Exactly how did this start and how is racism becoming used as an advertising strategy? The main cause is the mass media with its obsession for continually wanting to define its target markets by skin color. These advertisements lead to recall, abandonment of brand or product, or boycotting of a company. I wast my topic to show how there needs to be a new standard for the advertising industry. We simply need to come up with a different marketing approach that diminishes racial stereotypes. Culturally insensitive advertisements need to end now. Sadly most of these advertisers were not even aware of their mistakes until their campaign was actually launched. Even the use of cartoons in commercials can be used to portray racism without using different colored skin. Accents are often used in advertising.

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Autobiography picture

HELLO! My name is Taylor Tachovsky. I am currently a senior at North Dakota State University studying Management Communication with a minor in advertising. I would say that pop culture has a significant impact on my area of interest; therefore it has an impact on my everyday life. In the advertising and marketing world we have the power to shape pop culture. Many pop culture artifacts are represented in advertising campaigns and form an opinion for society. My experience with pop culture has been a rather negative one. In this generation social media is everything. Social media reflects your image, your popularity, your self worth, your intelligence, and your worth to society. I have become surrounded by pictures of vacations and snapchats of people at parties that I don’t even care about, yet I feel left out. This generation thrives solely off of social media. That is how we view each other and if you don’t participate in it, then you don’t exist. About halfway through college I lost myself. I lost myself because I became so invested in other peoples lives and what was going on through social media that I forgot to live my own life. Sadly, I don’t feel like I am the only person who has become lost in social media. I see commercials that are now promoting social media apps and they show a family sitting at the dinner table all on their social media and completely ignoring each other. This is pop culture. This is the norm. How did we get here? I will admit I am very fascinated that the world now has a digital life to it. But when did our digital life become better then our real one? Pop culture has shaped me into someone who I didn’t eve want to be. We see these role models on ‘instagram’ who are out there getting over one thousand likes from people that they don’t even know and they strive off of that. That is their world. When did that become who we all want to be? How come pop culture shows that as a role model for young girls who just got an instagram and are worried about taking the best selfie and having their crush like it. I miss the old pop culture. I miss when going to the movies was considered a date instead Netflix and chill. I miss when little girls wanted to get the coolest American Girl Doll instead of wanting the new iPhone 7. Why did society have to change into this new pop culture artifact? I am scared for what the future holds. We have become so selfish in using social media. I just hope this generation learns to live in a different form of ‘pop culture’ and to follow their hearts instead of following the newest instagram model. The good thing is the pop culture is always changing. The people decide what becomes an artifact and what doesn’t. SO people I am encouraging you to put down the phone and pick up your life just like I did!