The Power of Media

Emotions are powerful things; they can lead people to perform kind acts of generosity, they can make people cry, smile, laugh, or even commit murder. So what would happen if someone found a way to manipulate the emotions of the general mass and use it to their advantage? The power of the media is so hard to resist because it appeals to the emotions of the general population by associating them with their products and brands, making people feel as if they can relate to the actors in the commercials a little, or maybe just envy them and the lifestyles they portray. The Pepsi commercial with Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Pink is an excellent example of how advertising companies use man’s basic desire to displace those emotions onto the Pepsi product. In his book, ‘Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs’, Chuck Klosterman looks at the subtle messages from the media influence human interactions in life. A final example of how advertising companies use human emotions to sell their products can be seen through the banned Master Card commercial.
Viewers are greeted at the beginning of the Pepsi ad ‘We Will Rock You’ with an enthusiastic crowd awaiting a bloody show of sport promised by gladiators in the Roman Coliseum. As the commercial progresses they are shown brief clips of three well known celebrities posing in the guise of female gladiators. This in itself is unusual because in ancient Rome, women wouldn’t have been allowed to participate in any of the fights hosted at the Coliseum. One could say that the commercial strives to appeal to women by providing a picture of female empowerment over the male emperor. They are angry about the fact that he covets all the cans of Pepsi and refuse to share it. This belief is strengthened when the three women (Britney Spears, Beyonce, and Pink) throw down their weapons refusing to fight, and instead start to challenge the emperor (Enrique Iglesias) with the anachronistic song ‘We Will Rock You’. This message of female empowerment is enforced at the end of the commercial when the emperor loses all of his Pepsi, and is made to look foolish by falling head on into the arena, while the three women stand towering near him in strong, powerful poses, now in possession of all the Pepsi.
While women are made to appear empowered in this commercial, they are also used as images of sexual appeal to get male consumers interested in the product. It has been proven countless times before that “sex sells”, and Pepsi re-enforces this message by making sure to capture many shots of the aspects of these three women that men would find most appealing. These include shots of their gluteus maximus’ (sometimes even shaking provocatively), some shots of their legs, but mostly shots that manage to capture from right below their bust line to their faces. The whole “sex sells” message is also re-enforced by the fact that their bodies are glistening with what could be sweat, or body oils to insinuate a more sensual image. So while women may be made to think that there is some sense of female empowerment in this commercial, the question arises that at what lengths do they have to go to achieve this empowerment? Pepsi is telling its female consumers that in order for them to get power and recognition, they must wear less and bear more; otherwise they will be ignored and powerless. The Pepsi Company is basically encouraging and endorsing the “midriff” trend started by teen pop idol Britney Spears a few years before, encouraging young girls to flaunt their sexuality because it is the only thing that will get them what they want in life anymore. In this particular commercial, Pepsi illustrates that you can only gain and keep power by owning Pepsi products, which is shown when the emperor “falls from his thrown” after his Pepsi soft drinks are taken away.
The song itself that was chosen to represent the ad appeals to the American frame of mind which rebels against any form of monarchy. It was a good choice in terms of songs that could relate to and awaken patriotic feelings in Americans. Not only that, but it was a well known song among two-three generations at least, and induced a sort of adrenaline rush in the viewer with its up beat, feet stamping, hands clapping tempo.
The Pepsi commercial didn’t only appeal to younger audiences ranging from their teens to mid-twenties though. With its historical setting and scenery in time, it provided an excuse for older viewers (mostly male) to watch all the sensual shots and get drawn into it, without giving away their true feelings. Instead of coming right out and saying that they enjoyed the commercial because it had “hot girls and nice boobs”, they could instead pretend to take a more scholarly interest and discuss the fact that the setting happened to be the Roman Coliseum, a particularly famous piece of historical architecture.
Chuck Klosterman’s book, ‘Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs’, looks at the media and how the subtle messages it contain influences human interactions in life. While there is a lot of material on how people allow their lives to be shaped and molded by what the media deems as normal and acceptable, there was one chapter that examined how the media had a huge influence on the people themselves. In chapter three (‘what happens when people stop being polite’) of ‘Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs’, Klosterman compares people and how they act to past seasons of The Real World. He talks about how the producers of The Real World “weren’t sampling the youth of America – they were intentionally creating it”. A few paragraphs later, Klosterman goes into detail about how before reality TV, there was never a sure fire way to figure out someone’s personality, about how when you thought you had someone figured out, they’d prove you wrong because people used to be unique and not all defined by one of about seven different personalities maximum.
“…By now, everyone I know is one of seven defined strangers, inevitably
hoping to represent a predefined demographic (pg 28)…I started noticing
the cast members on RW 3 were not like people from my past. Instead, they
seemed like the new people I was meeting in the present (pg 35)…I kept meet-
ing people who were like old Real World characters (pg 29)…”
There is a sense that Klosterman may be trying to say that the media brainwashes people to get them to act the way the media tries to sell. They may not be aware of it, but they’ll unconsciously start to recite and practice information the media has drilled into them. The habits they use when talking to people, the personalities they like to claim are unique, are all “borrowed” from what they’ve seen in the media.
“…You know things you never tried to remember…One day, you just suddenly realize
that it’s something you know. And – somehow – there’s a cold logic to it. It’s an ex-
tension of your own life, even though you never tried to make it that way (pg 28-29)…
I kept meeting people who were like old Real World characters…They play The Puck
Role. In any given situation, they will provide The Puck Perspective…If nothing else,
The Real World has provided avenues for world views that are both specialized and
Universal, and it has particularly validated world views that are patently unreasonable
(pg 29)…”
The Banned Master Card commercial is an example of how advertising companies use human emotions to sell their products. At the beginning of the commercial, the viewer is greeted by the typical end of a date scene. Boy has taken girl out for a date, boy is now saying goodnight to girl, and just when you think boy is going to kiss girl, boy does the unthinkable and asks girl to give him a blowjob. This commercial plays on the human emotions of anticipation, and surprise. There is a feeling of shock and surprise because it’s just not something expected from a commercial ad. A night out on the town ending with a request for oral sex is something that people would expect from an “adult show”, as Rogers on Demand chooses to classify porn. It is definitely a far cry from the days when dates usually ended in just a tentative kiss good-bye, or even one with a lot of tongue and displaced saliva! Needless to say, this is not what Master Card usually classifies as “Priceless”, like say, “a night out on the town ($75), or “getting the nerve to ask such a question/actually using a line like that (a $12 bottle of wine). So it’s only natural that the viewer starts to anticipate what might happen next. The advertising group at Master Card uses people’s anticipation and curiosity to draw them into the commercial by having the dialogue between the teenagers drag out a little before finally getting to the part of the commercial that is “Priceless”. Just the viewers start to think that the commercial might end with either the boy getting a blowjob, or just turned down by the girl, the master minds at Master Card throw in a twist: “…Dad says to go ahead and give him a blowjob. Or I can do it. Or if need be, he’ll
come down himself and do it. But for god’s sake, tell him to take his hand off the intercom.”
This commercial uses the human emotion of excitement. It relates to people who love the feeling of an adrenaline rush, and who like the excitement of doing things that will probably get them in trouble (or at least cause them embarrassment) if they are caught. Master Card ends this commercial with the line: “…Having a girlfriend whose father has a sense of humour: Priceless…” Master Card is telling people that if they sign up as clients, they will start to lead more exciting lives, and could possibly experience “Priceless” moments such as this.
The media is a piece of postmodern art drawn on a vast canvas that is forever expanding. Like many great pieces of art before it, it has the power to displace human emotions onto the image it is displaying, to draw in every unsuspecting victim that looks its way. This can be seen through the “We Will Rock You” commercial by Pepsi, featuring Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Pink. Chuck Klosterman also talks about how the subtle messages contained in media influence human interactions in life. A final example of the power the media has over human beings can be seen in one of the banned Priceless commercials by Master Card.

Diving Bell and the Butterfly

A split second can be all that it takes to forever alter the course of our lives. In the movie Diving Bell and the Butterfly this is proven when Jean-Do (previous editor of Elle Magazine) has an unexpected stroke while on the way to a movie with his son. He survives with only the use of his left eye, and with the help of his doctors, creates a system of speaking with other people. Throughout the remaining two years of his life Jean-Do's recounts on his life previous to his life altering stroke, and what it was like to be trapped inside his own body, were recorded and published. The movie Diving Bell and the Butterfly gives some insight on the process of Jean-Do's book, and gives viewer's a peek of what he must've experienced in his rare condition.



While in the hospital, Jean-Do is visited by a few of his friends and family. There is one character in particular who has some advice for Jean-Do on how to deal with his 'imprisonment'. He tells Jean-Do "Find that thing inside you that is human and hold onto it...". The term human can be defined in many different ways. The dictionary definition of human states "any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae characterized by superior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage." I don't agree with this definition of the term human. There can be people who've lost their ability to speak or walk (like Jean-Do) who would still be considered human. To me, to be human is to have an awareness of life and what it is to be alive. So even if you've lost your sense of sight, hearing, or you can't walk, as long as your mind can still think intelliglbe thoughts, and your lungs can still breath, then you're human.

I think the thing inside us that makes us human varies depending on the individual. It could be our memories, the people we cherish the most, or the ability to distinguish right from wrong. I think for most people, the thing inside us that makes us human is our ability to feel emotions. We can feel many emotions ranging from happy to sad. An example of this would be when Jean-Do felt he would rather die than continue living caged up in his own body. This is becuase he was feeling an emotion commonly known as dispair. He might've also been feeling angery and bitter at his situation, and he had choosen to give up on living. The thing that makes us human is being able to interact with other people, otherwise we'd all bottle up our feelings and forget how to socialize with others. I think our ability to socialize with others is what makes us human becuase it's often the source of our emotions, and if we didn't have any emotions, then we'd all be like robots.

There are a few things that seperate us from animals. One of the major differences between us and animals is our need to believe in something with a greater power, something we call god. I think religion seperates us from animals because I've never heard of animals practisings rituals or going to church/mosque/temple ect.

An example of this from Diving Bell and the Butterfly is when one of Jean-Do's doctors take him to sunday mass one day, despite the fact that he didn't want to go. Another example would be when he remembers a trip his girlfriend dragged him on so that she could drink some holy water and buy a madonna statue/night lamp thing. Even though Jean-Do wasn't really a devout man, he still stated that he didn't feel right having sex while the statue/night lamp thing was there.

Another thing I think seperates us from animals is the fact that we live by a mostly universal set of laws. Many countries have an agreement that you shouldn't kill another human being, and that you shouldnt eat another human being. I don't think this rule applies to animals because carnivorous animals kill other animals (of other species and sometimes of the same) and then feed on them.

The Merchants of Cool

In an attempt to understand the popular cultures of teens, the video The Merchants of Cool look at marketing companies and how they create and sell trends to teens. The video looks at the relationship between the two groups (marketing companies and teens) and how they both have a certain amount of influence on each other.

Who defines cool? Is it packaged or bottled in an assembly line somewhere? I guess you could compare the creation of trends and what is cool to a production company that's always changing the product they produce to appeal to a certain fickle costumer. In the case of The Merchants of Cool, the production company are the marketers, and the fickle costumer are the teenagers. Companies produce images and trends that are adopted and practised by teens. That is until a trend starts to get old and stops being something that was exclusionary, something that defined and seperated them from the cultural norm.


"...The desire to be cool is - ultimately - the desire

to be rescued. It's the desire to be pulled from the

unwashed masses of society. It's the desire to be

advanced beyond the faceless humanoid robots who

will die unheralded deaths and never truly matter, most-

ly because they all lived the same pedestrian life. Without

the spoils of exclusionary coolness,we're just cogs

in the struggle..." (The lady or the Tiger, Chuck Klosterman)

So in a cycle of producing trends, adopting trends, and then abandoning trends, the question, do teens drive what companies sell, or do companies drive what teens buy, arises. There is certainly an amount of reciprocation in the process, a sort of give and take relationship by both sides. When it comes down to it though, I'd say that teens drive what companies sell. It is true that without teens companies wouldn't know what to sell, and that is why there are focus groups to single out and zone in on the ideals of coolness by the select few they view as trend setters. However, while that may be true, it is also true that most teens wouldn't be able to pick up on these trends without the marketing companies paying the media to advertise their products taken from teenagers who have deemed them cool. An example of this would be the MTV show, TRL. Videos are voted on and played depending on the level of their popularity. The thing about TRL is that not just any video can be voted on though, it is most likely a video that was paid by marketing companies to be debuted. You can only want what is there is, and marketing companies use this to their advantage to make sure consumers know and see their products among the many others.

So while a trend may truly be exclusionary for a while until marketing companies discover it, it's only a matter of time before the companies repackage it and make it their own, offering yet another chance for those who stand outside the borders of being cool to cross the boundaries and ascend into exclusionary coolness.

Sometimes teens catch onto the when the media is trying to "brainwash" them though; it's happened with Sprite and their commercials using athletes to tell teens not to listen to athletes telling them to buy their products. In a world where everyone is following the mass of society and mainstream culture, there are groups of teens who strive to be different and not confirm to what society expects them to be. An example of this would be the rage band Insane Clown Posse and their fans.

The band's lyrics goes against the media and say that they'll never sell out to it. In The Merchants of Cool video, fans of the band say that the band's music provides them with a way to break out of mainstream culture and show that they are different. To them, the band is one of the only things that can truly be calssified as exclusionary coolness because the media hasn't gotten a hand on it yet.

I think Insane Clown Posse used this idea of exclusionary coolness to their advantage. I assume that they were informed on the fact that marketing producers were constantly on the lookout for trends by teens who could spread them. They probably also knew that the more exclusive their music was to certain groups of people, then the more buzz there'd be about them. I think the band Insane Clown Posse set a trap using exclusionary coolness to lure in producers and marketing companies. It took some time, but they're bait was taken and they were signed to a recording company. Of course I can't be sure of this unless I were get a verbal or written agreement by the band, but this is only a guess. If it was intentional, you've got to admit that it was pretty smart.

"...The impact of this understanding comes later in life,

usually college, and usually around the point when

being "weird" starts to be periodically interpreted by others

as "charming" and/or "sexually intriguing." As noted

earlier, kids don't really understand the naunce of cereal

advertising until they reach their twenties; this is when

characters like the Trix Rabbit evovle into understated

Christ figures. And though the plot is not purposeful

on behalf of cereal makers, it's also not accidental..."

(The lady or the T

Exclusionary Cool

"Chuck Klosterman looks at Cereal Commercials to view how the exclusion of Cereal Mascots from participating in the activites of the main stream (i.e. the kids in the commercial) subtely influences our society's definition of cool from a young age. For Klosterman, to be cool in this society something must be exclusionary."



Klosterman's idea of exclusionary cool is something that we desire, something that we want so much it drives us crazy because we can't get our hands on it. Exclusionary cool is something that is semielitist; for something to be considered cool, it should be hard to find, but, at the same time, it has to be something that could've been found by anyone who was looking something like it. An example to ilustrate Chuck Klosterman's definition of exclusionary cool would be this excerpt from chapter ten of Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs (The lady or the Tiger).

"...We persue that which retreats from us, and coolness is always

a bear market...It drives us, for lack of a btterterm, coo coo...there

is no hard-and-fast clarity about what qualifies anything as cool. It

needs to be original, but only semi original...A cool image also needs

to be semielitist...what you display should be extremely hard to find,

yet could have been theoretically found by absolutely anyone six

months ago..."

Exclusionary cool artificially creates a demand for products because it gives off the impression that a particular product is only being made up to a certain amount in quantity. The less of something there is, the harder it is for you to purchase it when there are a lot of other people who desire the product too, and the more it makes you want it. If there is only a limited number of something, people get the impression that it's cool and exclusive, and they want to be a part of the limited number of people who own the product. There are a few examples from society that could be used. One would be the Wii. Only a certain number of the gaming systems are made annually, and they do sell fast becuase they're considered cool, so if you want one, you have to get to the stores right away before they run out of stock. This can be compared to this passage from chapter 10 of Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs:

"...Time and time again, commercials for cereal assualt children with

the same theme: A product's exclusivity is directly proportional to

its social cachet..."

An example of exclusionary cool at Churchill is the Prom Commity. As far as I know, only members of the graduating class are allowed to join (or at least that's always what they imply in the announcements each year when they try to recruit new members). All year before prom they organise several foundraisers (mainly bake sales and such) to help raise money for their prom. It only adds a sense of yearning among many to join and help to plan the prom for that year, but they hold off on hopes of joining until it is their year to walk across the stage in the auditorium and recieve their highschool graduate diplomas.

Response to Trix Commercial

Before yesterday's class, I would've just looked at this commercial and said "So…they do animal testing???” I wouldn't have looked too much into this commercial because I wouldn't have thought there was much to interpret. After an insightful class discussion however, I have now read in between the lines of the commercial.

One thing I've found is that the characters in this commercial represent society (in 1991). In the early 1990s there wouldn't have been as much racial diversity in societies as there is now. Back then, the majority of the population was Caucasian. This is represented in the commercial because all of the characters (the three children, and the cereal promoter) are all Caucasian. Sure there are children of other races in the background, but they're more like scenery decorations than actual characters.

The lady (the promoter) represents a dominant position in society. She has power, but she doesn't come right out and say "Hey you! Buy Trix cereal because I tell you to!” Instead, she sort of subtly guides them in the direction she wants them to go. Kind of like little Bo Peep and her sheep, only I imagine the promoter would have a lot more success than Bo Peep.

A message that was being transmitted through this commercial is that cool, happy people get all the good things in society. If you fit in with the rest of society, then you deserve some Trix. The cereal company was using the method of "less products means more demand" by telling the children in the group that they'd get free cereal if they could name all the flavours in new Trix cereal (which were all pretty easy, but not one child managed to get it).

Another message that was being transmitted in this commercial was that smart people are not wanted as consumers. The rabbit was smart, and that was why he couldn't get any cereal. The consumers don't want smart people to tell all the dumb, gullible people any factual reasons as to why they shouldn't buy their products. They saw the rabbit as a possible hindrance to their sales, so they "got rid of him" by refusing to give him any Trix. Not a smart idea, because what if the rabbit is really vindictive and decides to get revenge?

The Meaning of...Meaning

The dictionary definition of meaning is the significance of something. I think that meaning is the answers you get for all the things you question. When you seek meaning, you're seeking to understand something that is unintelligible to you. This is why you hear (and read, and see on tv) about a lot of people searching for the meaning of life. They're not sure about their significance and purpose for living.
I think this is the definition of meaning because you never hear someone ask for an explanation about something they already know (an example would be a math teacher asking for someone to explain algebra to them). Another reason I believe this is the meaning of meaning is because in media (commercials, adds, ect.) there is always a message advertising companies want to get across to consumers. Most of the time the message is something along the lines of 'buy this product' or 'your life will be so much better if you get this'.

My Outlook on Life

I'm told there are two ways to look at life: everything is random, or, everything is connected. I myself have never given much thought to the issue before. There are times when I do believe that everything is connected by some invisible thread of fate, and there are other times when I think that we are alone in this world, that there are just coincidences, and that not every little encounter has an impact on our futures.
Those thoughts of being alone are probably just brought on by those random times when I wonder what goes on in everyone else's minds, and I realise that I don’t know as much as I think I do about those that are close to me.
So I’d have to say that I believe that everything is connected. When I think about the millions of people on this earth and their lives, I can't help but imagine the Moerae (the three sisters from the Disney movie Hercules, who decide human fate) and their pieces of string that represent the individual lives of humans. I imagine all our lives as a big ball of yarn that's managed to become tangeled together. While I do imagine that everything in life is connected, I do not believe that it's predetermined. I think that every choice we make, and every person we have the pleasure of making an acqauintance with, has an impact on our lives in the future. It is my belief that our lives are shaped by the lessons we learn from our own experiences, and those that are taught to us by the people we meet.
Part of the reason I think this way about life is because of all the times I've heard theories about alternative universes. Just imagine if there were alternative worlds where different versions of us went through the same experiences we did, living through all the different scenarios of 'what if' we've all asked ourselves at some point or another. I think that would truly be something worth seeing if it were true.
I also don't believe in predetermined fate or destiney because who would've been the one to determine the path our life leads for us? If there was such a person, I don't think he, she, or it would have the time to personally plan and plot out several million lives. Besides, humans are unpredictable by nature; what if one of us threw a wrench in all the planning? What would happen then? Surely our lives couldn't all be that dependant on each other.