Letter to Myself

Dear Chloe,

From the reading and writing in this class, I’ve learned a lot and grown as a person. While the readings and more importantly the essays I wrote had specific topics, they were jumping off points for me to reflect later on much broader topics. I thought a lot about morality and how I want to live my life, and I think these ponderings have lead to some useful conclusions. Additionally, as a writer I’ve learned to give myself freedom and time during my process and not to worry so much about the way things sound when it gets in the way of my ideas.

Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn really has made me think about the way I live. Usually I’m a very relaxed person and I try not to let things bother me. It’s usually easier to just not get annoyed at people or try to change their actions. For example, my dad can be very difficult sometimes, especially while travelling. He’s very slow, and takes forever to get ready to go anywhere. This means that my family spends a lot of time waiting for him. He’s also selfish and always wants to get his own way. Sometimes I get annoyed and start yelling at him and try to get him to change his ways. But this never works and I always end up angry and stressed. So I decided to not let it bother me and just try to have a good time despite being held up by him. This resulted in a lot less stress for me and made me happier.  This example represents how I generally try to live my life.

At least that was before I read Culture Jam.   This book challenged me to stop being complacent and fight against injustices. Maybe Lasn didn’t have stubborn fathers in mind when he wrote this book, but his words really struck a nerve, because sometimes I worry that I can be too easy going. It’s so much easier to be complacent. And it doesn’t make me unhappy to let others get what they want over me. However one night while deep in thought, I examined what the difference between “going with the flow” and being complacent.  One is like you're floating in a river and there's a fork in the river which both look appealing and the wind gives you a little push to the left fork. The other is like someone shoving something gross into your mouth, which by instinct you swallow. Every day someone shoves something disgusting into your mouth until you feel so full of crap that you want to burst and yet you're so weighed down you can barely move. I’m still not sure what every situation falls into or how to approach the problem with my dad but it’s definitely made me realize that I can’t always  be complacent.

Culture Jam has also made me want to distance myself from advertising. I’ve always disliked advertising, but this book strengthened my contempt and also made me realize that I don’t have to be resigned to being bombarded by advertisements. Before this class I thought that advertisements were annoying, but a necessary evil. I even saw ads as a way for great companies to make money that otherwise wouldn’t be able to. For example, I used to love Spotify a company that you can stream whatever music you like for free, in exchange for listening to advertisements. It seemed like a great answer to the problems facing the music industry because of piracy. I’d always downloaded my music for free online and felt bad about it. Now here was a way for artists to make money, even when I got to listen for free. However soon the ads became extremely obnoxious. They were loud, fake, manipulative and advertised for terrible companies like Walmart. One particularly bad ad advertised tampons by saying they were one less thing to worry about for a woman and projected the inner thoughts of an incredibly annoying woman with extremely stereotypical worries like “Why won’t Brad text me back?” and “Do these pants make my butt look fat?” Anyways, it has started to become almost unbearable and the feeling is reminiscent to how I discussed complacency being like someone stuffing disgusting things down your throat. So I’ve realized I needed to stop using Spotify and find other ways to get my music from now on.

I’ve also learned a lot about my writing process, although what I’ve learned is easier said than done.  I’m pretty sure that I am capable of writing a good essay, but I just need to give myself more time. I get frustrated easily while writing and when I get frustrated, I usually give up. But if I have more time, then I can come back to the essay later with a fresh mind and perhaps new ideas. Once you’re done with a rough draft, the last thing you want to do is go back and change things around. Unfortunately you often realize as you finish writing an essay that you didn’t focus on the right things and that the structure is all wrong. So you need that extra time to come back and change it. I also need to realize that even when I don’t feel like writing, often when I start putting things down on paper it will start flowing, and I might even be excited to try to express my ideas.

Lastly, I’ve learned that I need to always be open to new ideas, but I also have to cut out the irrelevant ideas and it’s important to know when to do what. I like to think of an essay as a balloon that I’m blowing up. I put air into it making it bigger, and then when I catch my breath some of the air comes out and the balloon shrinks. I keep doing this; the balloon expands and then contracts, expands and then contracts, until the balloon is a fully sized balloon. This is what I have to do with my essay, expand and contract until it is a complete essay. In the beginning you have to expand all your ideas onto the page. And then you might find something to focus on, so the essay contracts. But as you focus on that idea, complications will arise. Does this idea hold in all cases? What are the counter arguments? Or maybe I’ll find a completely different topic. So I have to write more and expand. Then I realize that my thesis is good but it doesn’t fully capture my ideas or it’s not specific enough, but what I wrote in the second to last paragraph was a better thesis, so I have to go back and rewrite so that my essay follows the new thesis. I might have to do this ten times, but only then will I end up with a great essay (if I’m not too tired to proofread). This shows why it’s essential to give myself enough time to write the essay.

Overall, I learned a lot more than I expected to from this class. I’ve always really hated writing, because it’s very hard for me. But it’s hard because it makes you think, and there’s not always a clear-cut answer. With a math problem I know what process I have to take to get the answer, and I can always get someone to explain to me how to do it if I can’t figure it out. But writing is ultimately a personal thing.  You can brainstorm with other people, but in the end it’s your own ideas that go down on that page, and learning how to express yourself is a very important skill to have.  The harder it is to write the essay, the more I’ll ultimately learn from writing the essay. I know that I have lots more to learn, and that I will probably misstep in the future when applying these lessons, but I’ve come a long way.

Great job!

Culture Jam Essay Reflection

Writing this essay was really hard for me because Culture Jam touched a lot of nerves for me. It made me angry because I am complacent and it made me annoyed that I don't fight back against injustices. It's just so much easier to roll over and let others get their way. I think there's a lot to be said for going with the flow because if you always try to make things go exactly as you want you'll never be happy. It's important to recognize the difference between letting things happen that will make you happy and just bending to other people's will because it's easier.
One is like you're floating in a river and there's a fork in the river which both look appealing and the wind gives you a little push to the left fork. The other is like someone shoving something gross into your mouth, which by instinct you swallow. Every day someone shoves something disgusting into your mouth until you feel so full of crap that you want to burst and yet you're so weighed down you can barely move.

From writing this essay I learned that sometimes you feel like you have a writers block so you're too scared to write, but sometime once you start reading over what you already have and start with small changes that something will start to flow. So again it's good to start early so that you have time to let yourself flow. Also sometimes I'm afraid to edit because I know I'll hae to make major changes and some times delete most of what I have, so instead of deleting first (because that's scary to see a blank page again) add what you think you need and then when you have way too much writing you can delete what you don't need. It's pretty much the same thing but much less scary.

Culture Jam Response

Culture Jam Response

Swimming pools represent key failings of American culture. They symbolize the American dream, along with the family, the house, the white picket fence and the golden retriever. When we picture our future swimming pools we see summer afternoons barbecuing with the family and relaxing with floaties in the pool. We tell ourselves to work hard so we can achieve this level of comfort and happiness. Some of us will fail and lament the life we never got to live, while others will achieve this dream, only to be too busy to actually enjoy the swimming pool. Several of my family friends have spent tens of thousands of dollars building swimming pools and maintaining them, only to have the pool sit empty day after day, its obnoxiously blue water glinting at them as they sit inside working -- a reminder of the excess of wealth they possess and the lack of time to enjoy it.

In Culture Jam, Kalle Lasn heavily criticizes American culture and consumerism. He believes that consumerism is at the heart of what’s wrong with America today, and it ultimately causes unhappiness in most people, because advertising brainwashes people into wanting things they can’t have or things that won’t actually make them happy. He believes corporations are the ones to blame and that individuals must take back power from corporations by .

    While commercials and corporations are annoying and often despicable, free speech is a right and don’t think we can stop advertisers from making whatever ads they want, and we can’t force TV stations to play Lasn’s radical messages. Lasn’s criticism are accurate, but some of his solutions are too radical. Additionally he’s very passionate about this cause, but it’s unrealistic to expect everyone to take it up as their own cause, because it’s not the only issue in the world or the US. The most important thing is that people are educated about these problems so they can decide how to live for themselves rather than let corporations dictate their desires. Additionally there are some concrete things we can do, some at a government and legislative level and some at a more private individual level.

The first things we should do  is continue to educate people about the dangers of over consumption and the different ways that advertisers try to brainwash us. After we are educated, individuals have the responsibility to make sure they live responsibly in this increasingly commercial world. We might not be able to act radically, but we can make sure that we do use our commercial interests to support ethically sound companies and ones that don’t use brainwashing advertising techniques. We also have to cut down on energy consumption and try to reuse rather than constantly buying new things and contributing to waste. We can also cut down on TV watching and make an effort to connect to nature.

The second is related to Lasn’s idea to make corporations more responsible for the laws they break. We could make shareholders personally responsible but this might be hard because they could claim to not have known anything about the transgressions. What I suggest is actually holding the corporation responsible. If a corporation is found to be breaking laws or violating human rights then it should not be allowed to operate. Existing as a corporation should not be a right but a privilege. But maybe this will be hard to pass in our free market loving society. Instead the government can  give tax breaks to corporations who meet certain human rights and environmental standards and heavily tax the ones that don’t. Also if we create a world wide organization that will impose heavy tariffs on corporations who don’t meet the standards it will make it in the corporations economic interests to act humanely.

However, the existence of corporations at all poses a problem. As soon as a corporation exists, the goal is to make profit. The leaders of the company are incentivised to make money by the shareholders and the shareholders don’t feel the same sense of responsibility. So maybe we should make shareholders more responsible. Maybe the whole problem is with the stock system, which is where citizens gamble with large companies that have huge effects on our world, rather than thinking about how these corporations act. If we can’t get rid of the stock system all together we should definitely completely restructure it. Right now the disadvantage to going public is that you have to release financial information so theres even more pressure to make profits every quarter. In addition to this companies should have to release information about all their decisions and exactly how they are making their products and where they are being made as well as the benefits and salary they offer to all their workers. They should release information about who they are giving money to for advertising and product placement as well. The more transparent companies have to be, the more ethically they will act.

The third thing that will help to combat consumerism and advertising is something that Lasn is already doing -- ad busting. We need every ad to be analyzed and shown for what it really is. The facts need to be checked and the truth needs to be shown. And not just the hard facts that the ad gives because ads tend to be very vague. Ad busting needs to show how the subtle connections that ads try to draw are not true. A good example of this is the Inhumane energy campaign that was a response the Chevon’s human energy campaign that attempted to show how ethically and environmentally sound Chevron was. Inhumane energy disputed all of Chevron’s claims with specific events that showed how Chevron had messed up. If ad’s facts are checked and manipulative ads are exposed, then advertisers will be pressured into making truthful and helpful ads.

We can also approach the problem from another angle. Advertising tries to plant ideas inside our heads so that we will buy products, but it does this by exploiting our already existing weaknesses and desires. In Discipline and Push-up: Female Bodies, Femininity,  and Sexuality in Popular Representations of Sports Bras Jaime Schultz examines the problem of over sexualization of females in relation to sports bras, and how this has shaped the image of female sexuality. From reading this article, one can see how advertising and the issue of female sexualization have influenced each other. This article talks about the response Brandi Chastain taking off her shirt to reveal her sports bra when her team won the World cup in 1999. Even though this was common in men's soccer the media oversexualized this event and cheapened her athletic victory. Schultz uses this as a jumping off point to talk about how sports bras marketing has developed from about function to being about a woman's sexual attractiveness. However even before the age of consumerism, women’s undergarment were used to control women and try to mold them to an image of ideal femininity. Schultz give a history of women’s undergarments and at one point describes the corset: “Corsets reached the pinnacle of their populrity in the Victorian Era, when they served to discipline the entirety of women’s torso’s including the hips, abdomen, and the breasts” (Schultz 6). Before advertising had taken over o completely, the corset was used to confine women and make their bodies look as men wnted the to. This was because sexism already pervaded the culture before advertising took over. Sexism and the over sexualization of women has always pervaded our culture so perhaps it would be wise to dig deeper than just advertising when examining and looking for solutions to these types of problems.

        In response to Culture Jam this shows another way in which consumerism changes the way we view ourselves and can create unhealthy ideas about body image. However what this showed me is that the problem is not created by consumerism but rather accentuated by consumerism. Sexism has existed for thousands of years before this age of consumerism. Consumerism only gives a new outlet for the sexism. Targeting marketing is a good way to combat sexsim, but it’s also important to educate individuals so that we don’t perpetuate sexism ourselves.

    One of the most important things that needs to change in our culture is transparency. In Salespeak, Roy Fox tells a fictional story about a world where consumerism has completely taken over daily life and education. Immediately we can tell this is a strange world because the main character is named Pepsi. Then Fox goes on to say that “most of what happens to Pepsi in this scenario is fact” (Fox 7). The creepy world he described already exists, and Fox gives examples to show this is true and although it’s  not as apparent, consumerism affects us just as much as it does Pepsi.

Its scary to realize that consumerism has seeped into our culture without our realizing. In some ways this hidden consumerism is almost more scary than the blatant consumerism within the fictional story. At least when you know what ads are being used on you, you can try to differentiate your own thoughts from the ones that they are trying to force on you. But when it’s so hidden and subconscious you start to not know why you want certain things and whether they are really things you should aim for or just desires placed in your head by corporations. That’s why we need things like adbusting and forcing corporations to be transparent so we know how they are trying to influence us. If we’re aware of the methods they’re using, it’s easier for us to sort out our own desires from the ones they try to force onto us.

Kalle Lasn, the author of culture jam, started the occupy movement and by examining the death of that movement, it helps explain where Lasn goes wrong in his thinking. In “What Happened to  Occupy?”  Doug Rossinow examines why  the occupy movement ultimately failed. Rossinow says the occupy movement failed because it didn’t have any concrete goals and was more about celebrating activism than achieving anything. But the article also gives another view point, that protesters ultimately can’t do anything more than spark a movement towards change. It has to be the government and politicians who do the real work. This feeds into Lasn’s idea that people are complacent and think that whatever they do won’t really have an effect. Most people don’t bother protesting or getting angry because the system of corporations and the government have all the power. He suggests that we act radically and fight the system. This contradicts with what Rossinow seems to be saying -- that we work with the system to influence our government. Both advocate for progressive change, but that we get them in different ways.

Both Rossinow and Lasn have good points and by compromising they can work together to achieve real progress. It’s never a good idea to give up and say that by protesting we can’t achieve anything. Protesters can make really positive changes, and often leaders of cultural movements can become politicians themselves. Being a politician is ideally about speaking for the people and leading them in the right direction so in some ways protesters are the ultimate politicians. However, it’s best to work within the system, rather than to try to “jam” the system as Lasn wants to do. There are many legislative changes and legal things that we can do to change the culture rather than just mindless and directionless anger. Each of us needs to work to become active and engaged citizens who are mindful of their own power and corporations power within culture, and people who are especially bothered by the problem can try to achieve some of the solutions detailed in this essay. Consumerism is an entrenched part of our culture but if people are able to step free of the ideas that advertising has placed within their head, they can direct culture in which ever way they desire.                                                     

Works Cited

Fox, Roy. “Salespeak” Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture. 6th ed. ED. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper-Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. 155-167. Print.

Lasn, Kale. Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge-and Why We Must. New York: Quill, 2000.

Rossinow, Doug. What Happened to Occupy. Christian Century. 7/10/2013, Vol. 130 Issue 14, p22-27. 4p.

Schultz, Jaime. “Discipline and Push-up: Female Bodies, Femininity,  and Sexuality in Popular Representations of Sports Bras” Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture. 6th ed. ED. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper-Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009. 155-167. Print.

Advertising Essay Reflection

Ad essay reflection
From writing this essay I've started to think about the hypocrisy of myself and almost everyone else. We talk about how terrible corporations are because they destroy the environment and use sweatshop labor and commit other human rights violations but we still continue day after day to buy their products and support their acts with our money. Buying their products is equivalent to casting a vote for a politician. In this capitalist society perhaps it's even more important. I wish I could say that I will stop doing this, but what corporations is so much easier and convenient than bucking the norm.

Time after time, I learn the same lesson from writing an essay and then promptly ignore it the next time I write it. I need to give myself more time to edit. I feel like I was really approaching something good with this essay(the ideas above), but I didn't have time to turn it into a coherent essay.  It ended up that I explained my best ideas briefly in the end of the essay when they should have been the essay. And I knew this as I submitted, but I was too frustrated with it to go back and start again. But if I'd given myself more time, then I would have been able to look back at it with fresh eyes and make it really good.

An Analysis of the Emotional Appeals in a Cheron Advertisement

    An Analysis of the Emotional Appeals in a Chevron Advertisement

When people talk about “big oil” they generally aren’t speaking favorably. However, in one of its ads, Chevron draws attention to its status as big oil with the statement, “Big oil should support small business,“ and then “We agree” written below. This appears to be a transparent advertisement that is trying to acknowledge Chevron’s role as a big oil company, but in fact the ad has deeper underlying motives. Chevron is trying to step away from its own image of a big evil corporation and give its customers the illusion a partnership exists between them, and that individual’s criticisms can affect Chevron’s actions.

At the surface, this ad portrays honesty and forthrightness.The ad’s overt message is to debunk the criticism that Chevron doesn’t support small businesses. The ad is a two page spread. The right has a criticism of “big oil” and the left attempts to debunk it. On the right is the statement, “Big oil should support small business. We agree.” It is written in large, capital, black letters and it is underlined in red. We agree is also written in red. The intense contrast of red and black with the large,  bold letters gives the ad a sense of abruptness as though Chevron is not shying away from the issue. Chevron instead directly addresses a criticism that people have of Chevron. When talking about the campaign Chevron Vice Chairman George L. Kirkland said “We want the world to know that we're just like you and me. We've got problems and challenges, and we too make mistakes, but we're telling truths no one usually tells, and looking wide-eyed into the future." Clearly the attitude they’re trying to convey is truthfulness.

    On the left page of the ad is dominated by a picture of an African woman in traditional clothes who represents small businesses. In the bottom left corner it says:

Every day, Chevron relies on small business around the world.

Electricians. Mechanics. Manufacturers.

We’ve spent billions on local goods and

services last year.

               And helped thousands of entrepreneurs get ahead with microloans.

              We’re helping small businesses thrive.

              Because we need them.

             Just as much as they need us.

             Learn more at chevron.com/weagree.

They are ostensibly being clear about their message -- that Chevron supports small businesses. On the right they show a criticism and on the left they show how the criticism isn’t true or how Chevron has changed to address the criticism, whichever way we choose to interpret.

    However, Chevron also exploits our subconscious desires for autonomy and domination and gives us the illusion that we are in a partnership with big oil, but we really aren’t. In “Advertising’s 15 basic Appeals” Jib Fowles details the different emotional appeals advertisers use to sell products. Two of these are powerful in Chevron’s ad -- autonomy and dominance. Although autonomy is typically associated with someone who is more isolated from society, Fowles says, “The focus here is upon the independence and integrity of the individual” (24). People want to feel that they aren’t a slave to society and large corporations such as big oil companies. In the Chevron ad this want is combined with the desire for dominance: “the the craving to be powerful” (Fowles 23). People also want to feel like the decisions they make matter, and that they can make a difference in the world.  This ad appeared in the New Yorker so these values are probably especially important to the viewers of the ad who are probably  intellectual adults who consider themselves socially conscious and would like to make ethically sound decisions.

Chevron wants to make it appear that their customers have more power than they actually have so they downplay their own dominance. Ironically, despite their unsubtle association of themselves with big oil, Chevron actually attempts to distance themselves from big oil in this ad. They try to appear less powerful than the giant corporation that they are. The right side of the ad is very simple with block lettering on a plain background. It looks like this ad could be a poster that someone prints at home and posts on their local bulletin board. At the bottom of the ad Steve Tomkovics, the president of S&S Supplies and Solutions and Maria Lindenberg, the chief procurement officer of Chevron signed their names. This gives a human feel to Chevron, like they are a business controlled by two moral individuals rather than a large corporation that operates on the whims of the market and its shareholders.

Chevron also wants to show that individuals outside of the company also have power to affect the company. The image they convey is of a partnership between Chevron and small businesses, as well as between Chevron and its customers. In the ad it says, “We’re helping small businesses thrive.  Because we need them. Just as much as they need us.” The words “just as much” convey a sense of equality. This creates the sense that Chevron and small businesses are working together, rather than that Chevron is the big evil corporation controlling everything. More subtle though is the idea of the partnership that Chevron has with it’s customers. Together, Chevron and it’s customers decide how to act ethically and contribute to the world in the best way.

However, the ad doesn’t give concrete evidence that Chevron is actually responding to its customer’s criticisms and  contributing to local businesses like they say they are. They claim that they “rely on small businesses around the world” but this could easily mean extract cheap labor from developing countries rather than actually enrich a vibrant local economy like the image they present to us. The text isn’t specific, and the image of the woman on the left misleads us by vaguely representing a set of values that Chevron might not actually hold.

Chevron's human energy campaign shows how advertisements can use images to link ideas to products even if a logical connection doesn't exist. One of the ad's from the campaign shows an African woman smiling confidently into the camera. The message that Chevron is trying to convey is that they support small businesses. Ostensibly the woman pictured looks like an artisan who represents the small businesses that Chevron supports. However, in small letters in the bottom left corner, the ad details that Chevron supports electricians, mechanics, and manufacturers. While this woman could be a member of one of these professions, that's not the link that the image is trying to create. But even if the connection doesn't make sense, the image still makes an impact on the viewer. In "Advertising's Fifteen Basic Appeals", Jib Fowles says, "there is no real need for the linkage to have  a bit of reason behind it" (2). Fowles shows how successful advertisements can create a connection between an idea and a product that aren't necessarily related, with just an image. This is being done here in Chevron's human energy advertisement.

    This ad offers a source of appeasement to purchasers of Chevron oil. Even if they don’t completely believe Chevron’s message, they can believe they are making a positive change or at least not hurting the world by buying Chevron oil. Perhaps the next time they have to get gas they will pick Chevron as the best of a bad bunch and feel a little bit less bad about themselves for wasting gas and supporting unethical companies.  

    Despite this, the small individuals really have no effect on the big companies. The big oil company hasn’t actually changed but is just manipulating images and vague statements to make it seem like they have. This is a bold campaign that ostensibly directly addresses the problems that exist within Chevron, but instead it just serves to cover up Chevrons mistakes and cloak their unethical decisions with seemingly ethical decisions. What these advertisements really offer is a cop out to Chevron’s customers that they will be very willing to take. Because even though we know that big oil companies like Chevron commit human rights violations and destroy the environment, we still continue to fill up our cars at gas stations without fail. We may read an article that will make us shake our heads in despair about the evils of the world, but we won’t even change our daily habits because cars are convenient and easy. So even though Chevron has been under a lot of heat recently, we are very happy to accept the illusions that they shove at us in this advertising campaign, so we can continue on about our lives contentedly believing that we are doing what’s right.