Olivia's Output

     My absolute favorite TV show is “The Ranch”, a show about a small family living in a small town and the crazy experiences they go through.  The show stars my favorite actors, Ashton Kutcher and Sam Elliott, who I find hilarious.  I have been watching the show for a while, starting it way before I took critical thinking.  Though as I have started to expand my awareness of media, I have noticed the ways the show advertises certain products.  The products shown on “The Ranch” are mostly drinks, including Pepsi, Corona, Bud Light, etc.  The products are incorporated in light hearted scenes and never leave the center of the frame. The drinks labels are easily recognizable and a positive comment about them is usually said.  These ads have subconsciously affected me as my mom will ask me what to get at the store and I reply with a Pepsi, not knowing why I am craving one.  I now notice every time a product is advertised and it is interesting to me that I find at least one ad in every epis

     According to Miss Representation, media is a friend to none.  Media is a harmful drug, one we know can hurt us, but still crave it so consistently.  Media impacts both men and women, though at different levels, creating unrealistic expectations girls and boys feel they need to reach in order to be accepted by society.  Media builds these expectations by generalizing an entire population of young people into one being who they project on screens internationally.  The documentary goes on to say that media has created a national problem, a generation infected with self objectification and degradation towards women.  Though I agree with this, the filmmakers of Miss Interpretation failed to correctly prove these points.  They relied on false cause to portray points like: women are raped because their rapist is a man who had grown up on video games that degrade women, ignoring that fact that there are just some really bad people out there. Though, the filmmakers clearly portray the ulti

     Another subject addressed in PBS’s “Making Cents out of Teens: Merchants of Cool” was how brands attracted teens to their products.  Brands compete to find and make the newest “cool” or trend.  A trend that brands can always trust is sex. PBS believes that teenagers are obsessed with everything having to do with sex.      Big television companies rely on the appeal to attract and target teenagers. They tell women that they should be proud of being a sexual object, using cliques disguised as empowerment. In reality, they are making all girls look down upon themselves for girls as young as 13 can't walk out of the house without a full face of makeup and perfect hair.      Brands think that we are obsessed with sex because we are teenagers, but the sexual appeal was something created by media, something that we have been weaned on since we hit double digits. The appeal hurts girls and boys who don't fit its stereotypes and creates unrealistic expectations for those who do,

     PBS’s “Making Cents out of Teens: Merchants of Cool”, discusses why brands pursue the teenage population and how teens obtain and spend money on those brands.  Today, teens hold the majority in the world's population, making them one of the biggest targets for brands.  Brands sell new things everyday to this huge group of consumers, a group not yet old enough to hold an income that can provide for all of their spending.  PBS thinks the only way teenagers have this money is they are given it, out of guilt or annoyance.  They believe that parents who can not be apart of their child's life enough feel guilty for not being there, then look toward money to “make-up” for their absence.  Money given out of annoyance is happy money, money given to a child to keep them content.  Instead of having to deal with your child's emotions you buy them a purse or the newest soccer cleats to keep them smiling. Money is a bandaid in the eyes of PBS.      I have definitely been given mone

    Challenges over social media have been the biggest rave for a number of years now. Starting in 2014 with the ALS ice bucket challenge, a harmless challenge used to raise money for the ALS association, has made a dangerous turn as the audience craves more “interesting” acts today. With the past year, people of all ages have begun to consume tide pods as a dare. Youtube stars take bites out of these laundry detergent packets, encouraging their viewers to do the same. In 2017 over 10,570 cases of detergent ingestions were reported to Poison Control in America. Tide pods contain chemicals that are not meant for consumption, chemicals that can easily lead to death.      This challenge horrifies me. I cannot understand why someone would want to eat a pack of dangerous poisons. What scares me most about the life threatening dare is how big it has become. I caught my younger brother opening a pack of them a few months ago, a ten year old boy was about to risk his life for a couple of view

     Stranger Things is one of Netflix's most popular shows and it has been since its release in mid-July 2016. With every episode and season published the audience has gotten to watch the characters develop and the actors grow. People have fallen in love with them, so much so it is kind of creepy. Last year, 27 year old model, Ali Michael, posted a very controversial picture of one of the shows stars, Finn Wolfhard, who was then 14 years old. The picture was captioned “Not to be weird but hit me up in 4 years @finnwolfhardofficial”. Within minutes of posting Michael received immediate backlash from the 700-800 million users on instagram. People from every where were naming her as “disgusting and gross” or as a “pedophile”, arguing that if the gender roles were reversed, it would be on the front page of every news article in the country. After the uproar, Michael wrote an apology that satisfied the audience as it has now almost been forgotten.     I, on the other hand, have not fo

     With the expansion of my studies concerning media, my use of media has been changing. The most explicit change that has occurred reflects on my growing awareness of the false realities that brands promise us. I have stopped buying into the idea that certain products will bring me happiness or change me into my dream self. I have learned  that I can love without a Subaru and I can go as far as I want in life without a Ford. Brands tell us that they are the key to what we need and crave, ultimately telling us the biggest and greatest  lie we have ever heard. I now know that Maybelline cannot trick people into thinking I was born with a flawless face, as they tell women everyday that with their product others won't be able to tell if “She's born with it” or “maybe it's Maybelline”. My happy place is at home with my family, not at a loud amusement park with kids throwing up at the end of every ride. Media awareness has allowed me to see past the faulty hope that brands say

     Brands occasionally lose product towards controversial messages portrayed in commercials. In 2017, Pepsi released a commercial that depicted the white supermodel Kendall Jenner solving racism with a can of Pepsi soda. The commercial depicted Kendall joining a crowd of protesters, then handing a can of Pepsi to an officer. The officer then opens the can and takes a drink as the crowd goes wild, cheering and celebrating as it seems that the 12oz has ended a problem that has lives for centuries.  With this commercial Pepsi told its audience that their product is the key to racially based police brutality. National outrage and uproar came with the publishing of the commercial due to the ignorance the brand showed to the thousands of groups and movements, such as Black lives matter, that have spent decades working to solve this societal problem.      Dove has faced a similar controversy.  In 2017, Dove received the most attention for a commercial that many saw as explicitly racist. Th