Pop Culture

Nowadays, popular culture is taking over millennials lives by storm. There are many controversies on whether this is creating a positive impact on society or leaving a scar. By definition popular culture is culture based on the tastes of ordinary people rather than an educated elite. By examining the popular culture of a generation or a country in itself, it can really communicate a message about the values and ideologies of that group of people. The representations that we might see in a western community might be completely different that the media representations that you might see here in the UAE. For example, in advertisements or reality TV in a western community will be most likely to show less traditional and custom content than an Arab community.

This relates back to the idea of becoming what you consume in the media. Thus, the popular culture is a representative of that community. The pop-culture that is being heaved at young minds is causing them to flourish in a world of synth culture. Synth culture is media that is in-authentic or “not as it seems”. This can cause real harm to the youth. While watching a documentary we got to see what goes on behind of the scenes of a public figure’s social media account. It was really interesting to see that they actually hire companies, this company in particular was called “The Audience”, and these companies run their social media accounts of hopes of attracting a bigger following. To reflect upon that, it is really eye-opening to me and many to see our favourite celebrities’ accounts and realise that it truly isn't them that you are interacting with online. Yes, their content may be authentic, but they certainly are not the ones posting and running the account. That pops up the question of how authentic is the media in representing culture and how real is the content that they are throwing out into the world. For example, the Oreo cookie participated in many social and political messages to gain a bigger following. In one of the posts on Facebook, the Oreo cookie had rainbow filling to represent that it was with same-sex marriage. Just by that one post the shares and likes increased by thousands. This one cookie became revolutionary. Many of the times when industries want to advertise their product the will those same viewers to their advantage. When advertising “The Hunger Games”, they essentially had competitions between the viewers on who could effectively advertise it the best. This shows that advertising schemes between these industries can sometimes question the authenticity of popular culture as a whole and jeopardise it into becoming harmful, and damaging to society.

Target Audience

There is a quite a shocking difference in both the ads that are posted above. Even though this is the same campaign that ran at the same time, both pictures take a completely different side. It is clear that they were trying to target different genders in each add promising the other one some sort of dominance or authority, if they take part in their challenge. They use the need to dominate to draw in their audience knowing that using diction like "rule" and "first" will attract people with the need to gain power and be in charge, ultimately coming up on top. If these ads were to be separated it would be very easy to come to the conclusion that these ads were using sexist strategies when in reality they are just appealing to their target audience. The men’s slogan, “One more thing for men to rule,” is juxtaposed with the women’s slogan, “Ladies first. Men second.” While both ads are attracting the need to dominate the ad directed towards men can be considered as pointing to the frequent dominance of men beyond this challenging Nike ad. 

Do You Think That Advertisers Have a Moral Duty to Avoid Stereotyping People?

To add to the array of controversies that this world I have come to spill the beans about what I think is quite the important subject to discuss and open conversations about. Advertisements have been part of my life and I’m sure a lot of other people’s lives for as long as we can remember. Wether they were there to advertise meat to the American citizens during the world war or to promote the upcoming movie of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”, ads were always a way to communicate a message. The underlying goal of all ads and commercials is to persuade individuals into buying the product or buying into their ideas. They were never there for people to go to when they needed a source of information or education. Advertisements are displayed in the media, and mass media has allowed them to be ubiquitous. During our day the amount of times we might see an advertisement is not countable. You’re driving in the highway and you see a McDonald’s billboard, you’re on the bus and you see a Louis Vuitton poster, you walk into a building and you see an etisalat ad, worst of all you go to the cinema and you sit through an hour of commercials before your movie starts. By living a life where you see an ad every where you go and at any time, it is safe to say that ads have the ability to manipulate pupils into buying their product with minimal effort. People usually are blinded by this and are tricked into these advertising regimes of white literally drilling images and slogans into our minds. This can easily change our state of mind and sometimes even opinions on the world we live in without us batting an eyelash. This is where one might find it very dangerous if advertisements where to send out “fake news” and spread stereotypes and hate dissemination against racial and gender groups.

Therefore, what can and cannot be presented in an advertisement has to be taken very seriously and sensitively. So to answer the question, yes I do strongly believe that the publishers of said commercials have the moral duty to ensure that their work is appropriate for the viewers. To keep a somewhat balance on our society and contribute to spreading love not hate, ads that present false representations and offensive assumptions about race, gender, age, beauty, and so on, should be taken down immediately as this will lead to a divide in society and more present discrimination. It is crucial that advertising discourages and not encourages discrimination, it being such big platform. By having such a big effect on our society it is our duty to ensure that this effect leads us to a better tomorrow.

Ad Analyzation

These advertisements that are presented above reveal a lot about todays society. All four ads have a very similar message and instil the same principals in young children’s minds. As you can see the toys that are intended for females (in all the ads) hold quite the different role than the male. In the bottom pictures you can see that the girls are always given the lower status. In the picture on the left the boys are given the role of the doctor while the girls are given the role of the nurse. The picture on the left the boys are given a medical centre kit while the girls are given a beauty studio. On the top pictures however, come from a company that likes to place “It’s Girl Stuff” and “Girls only” tags on their cleaning product and cleaning trolley toys. These toys imply that all girls can achieve is a broomstick. Also that cleaning and housework is also intended for the female gender and it is not the responsibility of man. These companies are trying to attract young girls to their products by brainwashing them to believe that these are the roles that they are only able to achieve. They show the world that all girls are good at doing is looking pretty and mopping floors. From a young age girls are being taught to only work behind the scenes and get constantly discouraged to pursue an academic role. This reveals that our society still has a lot to improve on in terms of creating toys that boosts young girls confidence and fits them into academic roles. Society still holds these ideologies that woman are the weaker gender and are not able to carry a high status. These beliefs can not and should not be passed on to younger generations.