Gender Roles in Jersey Shore and Guys with Kids

Losing Weight and Social Media

I’m going to go back a little bit to the food section of the class. Specifically, Brian Stelter and his “Twitter diet”. As I was reading that article, I was immediately reminded of my roommate, who made a commitment to lose weight at the beginning of the year. There wasn’t really one driving factor in her decision to lose weight; she just said she was tired of being overweight and wanted to feel better about herself. She would sometimes keep a blog about her eating and exercise habits, and for the most part the responses to her efforts have been very positive. There’s been some occasional mean comments from trolls who have nothing better to do, but the positive comments far outnumber the negative ones. She’s had a few bumps in the road, such as a sprained ankle this past September, but she’s persevered and there’s nothing but progress since the beginning. She even ran her first 5K last month, which a year ago she never thought she could do! Now she has lost over 60 pounds, and is well on her way to losing even more by the end of the year. Her self-esteem has improved dramatically, and she almost seems like a different person, both outside and inside.

The major difference between my roommate’s weight loss story and Stelter’s story is that my roommate hasn’t really used Twitter very much to document her progress. But she has used a blog, and she still has developed a following of people who support her, both online and in the “real world”. Both stories are great examples of how social media can create a support system when it comes to losing weight. As Stelter said, this isn’t about narcissism; it’s about telling the truth, which isn't always easy to do, especially online. Stelter owes a lot of his success to his Twitter followers, just like my roommate appreciates comments on her blog about her own weight loss goals. 

"Pretty"

Watching "Codes of Gender" in class really got me thinking about how advertising seems to amplify gender norms: men are strong while women are weak, men stand straight and tall while women are canted and off-balance, etc. I was especially surprised by the appearance of female athletes. These women are strong and masters of their sports, but in photo shoots they're barely clothed and still use those awkward, submissive positions in order to appear "normal" in society. It's almost like they're saying, "I may be a strong, powerful woman, but I am still a woman. See, look, I have boobs! No threat here."

For example, we have race car driver Danica Patrick and "Biggest Loser" trainer Jillian Michaels, women who are no doubt strong and tough and would probably snap any man in half, but they were also the "spokeswomen" for GoDaddy.com, a web hosting service so unordinary that the only way they can get attention is through scantily-clad women and NSFW ads that you can "only see online because they're too hot for TV!" 

Seriously, what does this have to do with web hosting?

Or you have Anna Kournikova, one of the best tennis players in the world, reduced to a simple love interest in an Enrique Iglesias video. 

It's kind of scary to think that the only way these strong women can appear "normal" in society is by emulating the traditional stereotypes we see in advertising: sexual, weak, submissive, childlike, off-balance, lost in their own world. It was discouraging, to say the least. 

So I decided to try and find any advertising that subverts this idea. And I think I've found one. 

"Pretty", a Nike ad released in 2006, follows Maria Sharapova as she prepares for, and ultimately competes in, a match. Everyone she passes sings part of "I Feel Pretty", from the musical West Side Story. She ignores them all as she leaves her hotel and makes her way to the stadium. As the match begins the entire crowd is singing, but Maria returns a serve with a powerful yell, and the singing is silenced. 

I freaking love this commercial. Nike effectively shows that Maria should not be judged by her appearances; all that matters is her performance on the court. She may be beautiful, but she's an athlete first and foremost and is meant to be respected and appreciated not for her body, but for her athleticism. 

This is not a Nike commercial that is meant to sell a product. (Yes, she is wearing Nike clothes, but you can barely tell unless you're actively looking for the "swoosh" logo.) It is meant to sell the idea of athleticism and "girl power" (Hmm, selling an idea… sound familiar?) It also apparently got a lot of awards, and it's not hard to see why.

In a world where women in advertising are anything but powerful, it's nice to see a subversion every once in a while. 

Pitbull, Walmart, and Culture Jamming

This past summer, Walmart had a rather unique contest to promote these new Energy Sheets, which I'm assuming are like Red Bull in Listerine strip form.  They announced that they would send Pitbull, a popular rapper of questionable quality, to whichever Walmart location received the most "likes" on Facebook. This seemed simple enough: corporate marketing through social networking. Nothing new. 

What could possibly go wrong? 

And then along came David Thorpe and John Hendren, of "Something Awful" fame. These two aren't exactly Pitbull fans, and wanted Pitbull to get as far away from them as possible. So they encouraged people to like the most remote Walmart location: #2711 on Kodiak Island, near Alaska. 

The store's Facebook page ended up getting more than 60,000 likes. (A quick Google search shows the population is only around 6,000.) #ExilePitbull became a trending topic on Twitter. And the island town ended up winning by a landslide. 

There was some doubt about whether or not Pitbull would actually go to Kodiak, but out of a sense of good humor (or maybe just his contract) he ended up going to Kodiak after all.

So is this an example of culture jamming? I think it could be. The people behind #ExilePitbull used the corporation's contest and turned it against itself, thereby sabotaging the point of the contest. It's along the same lines as the the "Dub the Dew" campaign, which ended up spiraling out of control because people on the internet kept coming up with offensive and ridiculous names for Mountain Dew. 

You never know what could happen if you get the internet involved in a campaign. 

Children and Brands

It’s official: corporations are evil geniuses.

At least I think they are, having read this week’s articles about children and brand awareness.

Making kiddie versions of adult products? Retail field trips? Exposing children enough so they can make assumptions about brands and the people who associate with them? All of these are done in an attempt to build brand loyalty at an early age, so that when they grow up and they have their own money to spend, they might as well spend it on the same products that they’re familiar with.

It seems kind of wrong. But it works.

It reminds me of a paper I wrote about the popularity of fast food back when I took ENG 104. One of the reasons why people enjoy fast food so much, I hypothesized, is because companies like McDonald’s suck you in as children and keep hold of you for practically your whole life. Everything about McDonald’s is tailored to kids: the food, the toys, the play areas, the bright colors, the charming characters. (“Charming” is completely subjective.) You automatically associate McDonald’s with happiness and good memories, even after you’re too old to eat a Happy Meal. But you can still buy Happy Meals for your children. And the cycle begins again.

Of course, this isn’t just limited to fast food. Noel Paul’s article mentions crazy-colored Heinz ketchup, Tommy Hilfiger clothes on dolls, kiddie versions of magazines, and Harley Davidson toys for tots. Joanne Bichman, HD’s VP, doesn’t deny what her company is trying to do, saying that they’re trying to “imprint” kids “with the positive aspects of the brand.”

You become a lifelong customer without even knowing it, which is actually pretty scary if you think about it too much.

But some might even call it genius. 

KONY 2012 (or, Why I Agree With Gladwell)

Biz Stone and Malcolm Gladwell both give valid reasons in their articles as to why and why not, respectively, big social movements can happen with the help of social media websites like Twitter and Facebook. Gladwell argues that social media is based on "weak ties" and therefore cannot provide the discipline, strategy, and identifiable leadership that large-scale movements need to actually cause changes. Stone says that such an assumption is "absurd" and that Twitter can unite people "in a common goal". Both writers make good points, but in the end, I have to side with Gladwell on this one.

Gladwell points out that quite possibly the biggest social movement of the last century - the sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement - happened without Twitter and Facebook and other social media sites. The four teenagers who started it all did it because they knew each other directly and related to each other, and were therefore motivated by each other. The event spread not by social media, but by good old-fashioned word of mouth. Gladwell says that such a movement would be impossible today, and I can't help but see where he's coming from.

Case in point: Kony 2012.

For all three of you who don't know about this "movement", Kony 2012 was created by Invisible Children to bring awareness to Joseph Kony, a war lord who used child soldiers. The original video, directed by Jason Russell, has over 80 million views on Youtube, and everyone was hyped about it. People wanted to donate the money and buy the bracelets and spread the word about "stopping Kony".

Even Ball State had its own Facebook page (which, I'll admit, I was a part of for a brief period of time).

However, the hype quickly fizzled. There was backlash about IC's funding and where it was going. A video of a nude Russell yelling in the streets went viral. I left the Facebook group because the constant arguing was getting annoying. And Cover the Night didn't get quite as much attention as people were hoping. (Sure, on campus there would be a sticker here, a poster there, but it was hardly "covered".) And of course, we haven't caught Kony.

What does this say about social media and social activism? Why did this get so popular, and then fade so quickly?

People want to be a part of history as it happens. I think that the people involved genuinely believed that this could lead to something amazing and beautiful and world-changing. They believed they were good people just by sharing a link and spending a few bucks. We want to believe that something like this is our generation's Civil Rights Movement or Vietnam protest. And then when it fades, we wait for the next big movement and jump on in.

You'd think that social media would be what unites people for a cause, but it doesn't. As Gladwell said, social media "makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact." That's why Kony 2012, while popular, ultimately failed in its mission. We were aware, yes, but we didn't actually do anything else.

Gladwell would not be impressed.