Consumerism
1. Do you think the extreme forms of mass production that Huxley touches on in BNW are truly possible? Give evidence from our society for your answer.
2. The Merchants of Cool argues that advertising has changed from sponsoring culture to becoming culture (e.g., Sprite sponsoring a concert as opposed to Sprite becoming a component of hip hop culture). What's the difference? What happens to culture when its purpose is sales rather than expression?
3. Many media observers have claimed that programs like Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, or Gossip Girl are popular because they are reflective of teen life. In what ways are shows like the aforementioned reflective of how teenagers really live and in what ways are they distortions? Do these shows mirror the way you live?
4. Because they do so much research, media makers think they know a lot about you. Consider whether you agree with the following assertions from The Merchants of Cool: "Sex is a part of teens lives, so it better be in their media, too." "No teenager is going to be satisfied with a PG-13 rated horror film. They want to see blood and guts. That's what they want to do."
32 comments:
A few weeks ago, we talked about consumerism and seemed to agree that the society in BNW lacked consumerism in their culture. Our consumer culture consists of the media and manufactured products, but in BNW, consumerism takes the form of government conditioning. Consumerism relates to the usage of a product or possession, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that something is being bought. In BNW, the government provides all basic needs and desires to its citizens as a way of regulating and stabilizing society, including clothing, pills, and entertainment. If they had the same consumer culture that we have, the wide range of brands and products would promote competition and freedom of choice, which would “decondition” the members of society. They may not be buying anything, but they are still “consuming” or using these provided items and services.
I agree with you, Stacey; In BNW, consumerism is much different than what it is in our society. The need for items and products to appeal to it's consumers is unnecessary because it is all already decided (what these people will wear, see, as Stacey said). In regards to our society, I think that if a company were to focus on sales rather than expression, it would fail quickly; people tend to buy things because of what message is sent by them doing so. This makes it necessary for companies to have a strong way of expressing themselves. In BNW, all a company needs to do is produce the item it sells, and it is well on its way to success.
I examined questions three and four in my silent dialog. We watched Merchants of Cool in our class and while watching, I was surprised by the amount of the confidence the companies had thinking they knew how a typical teen lived. When you look at the media now, I would have to disagree. Though I believe sex is apart of teen's lives, I believe the media makes it seem like our lives are based around sex. Almost everybody in my silent dialog agreed with me. Take Gossip Girl, for example, I do not believe they portray the typical teen's life. In Gossip Girl, they go partying at bars on weeknights and seemingly are promiscuous with a new person constantly. Though it is entertaining, I doubt many teens actually live their lives that way. Everyone in my silent dialog group said the same. I think the media should illustrate more relationships with others (aka friends, siblings, etc) and show other aspects to a teen's life such as school and their hobbies. That is what we spend most of our time doing anyway. I think shows like 90210 do a good job illustrating these relationships and hobbies. Do you think the media is illustrating the typical teen positively?
Reading peoples responses to the silent dialogue we all seem to agree that popular shows, such as Gossip Girl or 90210, are all shaped by what the creators have observed from the lifestyle of their target viewers. Though the shows have a lot of fabrication and are severely dramatized for viewing pleasure, the characters and story lines are often times based on teenagers in the real world; like us. Frequently when people are obsessed with a show and watch it religiously it is because they can relate to the plot or a specific character of the show and use the characters fictional lives as advice for the real world. For instance, many die-hard Grey’s Anatomy fans consider the show as their own personal therapy session and take advice given by Meredith Grey very seriously. From watching the documentary, The Merchants of Cool, we know why people get so personally attached to shows. Before creating a new show networks and producers hire people known as “cool hunters” to go out into the real world of teenagers and learn new and refreshing “cool” ideas that will make their show a quick success. The reason for these cool hunters and constant effort to discover something new and innovative is because in our society people grow tired of the same old shows, commercials, clothing, electronics, and more. Unlike the BNW society we always want to be unique and individual from everyone around us. BNW is different from us because they are always the same, nothing ever changes and though they have trends too the trends are set by the controller and always remain the same. They enjoy having the same job, clothes and playing the same sport and never get bored of it as we would in our society. In the beginning of the book Lenina would rather follow the trend by going to play golf with everyone rather then hang out or go do something different with Bernard. They are conditioned to like the same things forever, therefore there is no individuality and everyone is equal to one another.
What I find fascinating is that every person who responded to my response about consumerism all agreed that the media has a significant influence on our society. Something that is important that someone said was, “We live in a world where our views and beliefs change by the mass amount of people.” This is true and our society bases each other around what other people think. I feel like this goes for a lot of different individuals. Also, after reading what people wrote, they believe people not only are influenced to buy things from advertising but they are influenced with sex and other things characters in TV shows are doing. However, I do think that many of these TV shows over exaggerate what’s really going on in teens’ lives. Yes, some teens have unprotected sex and get pregnant, and yes some teens use illegal substances. However, this does not mean all teens participate in these activities. The media portrays all teens to be like this. In other words, the media makes it like teens are all about sex all the time. In the documentary, The Merchants of Cool, the video provides the viewer to realize what shows do to make them so successful. For example, sitcoms bring in a “cool panal” to get new and different hip ideas. This may work and get viewers but I still feel like it portrays the everyday teen in an over exaggerated way. In regards to, BNW, I think it is much different than our society, regarding consumerism, because we like being different and know what different is. The characters in BNW do not know what different is. The only character who actually realizes what the civilized society really means is Bernard and he ends up being sent away at the end.
What really made me begin to think even more about consumerism is when someone said that “the media, for the most part isn’t reflecting us for our entertainment. The media is having us reflect them.” In the film The Merchants of Cool, there is a perfect example when the young girl that was merely thirteen years old was pursuing a modeling career. She was being followed by MTV’s cameras and afterwards joined in a dance party with other peers. As soon as she realized that the camera was focusing on her, she began “grinding” and dancing provocatively to become the center of attention. She suddenly transformed from an innocent thirteen year old to a seductive pre-teen who most definitely was not acting her age. It seemed that the girl was putting on a “show” for the camera; giving the media what she thought they wanted. Often times I find myself and others trying to mimic the clothes, styles, or attitudes of stars on television. It’s hard to recognize the fact that adults are actually writing and directing the story line of the entertainment that we know and love. The writers believe that they are exemplifying what teenagers are like, when really they are putting on display an extremely exaggerated version of us. On Gossip Girl, there is a sex scene, or something having to do with drugs or alcohol almost every episode, and it is extremely embellished. Teens as young as ten years old watch that show, and although being a seventeen year old, I know that is not what life is like being a senior in high school, they probably do not. I think that the media, especially shows like Gossip Girl, are causing kids to grow up way to fast in our society. There is no denying that there is sex in high school, but it isn’t even half as prevalent as most of the shows make it seem. Although I agree with all of you that the media does reflect our lives, I also believe that our lives reflect the media in many ways.
When I initially responded to the question, I had only thought about things in one way, and that’s what I wrote about in my response. I found a question that I thought was interesting regarding televisions shows and the impact they have on teenagers, and my response was instantaneous. I immediately thought that the shows mentioned in the question take a situation and make it extreme, which for most people takes away the aspect of it that we relate to. During the silent dialogue, a member of my group simply stated, “the point of these shows is to entertain” and I have to admit, I didn’t think about it that way when first answering the question. He is completely right and I agree with him, as well as still believe what I did from the beginning. Yes, these shows do influence some people and the decisions they make but there is also a line between entertainment and being a model for society. These shows are a form of entertainment, not something to model your life after, and I think people need to be able to differentiate between the two.
The aforementioned shows take the life of a teenager and make public the issues that teenagers often try to hide from their parents and pretend like aren't going on in their schools or communities. These shows publicize facts like sexual relationships in high school whether they are dating or not, underage drinking, and the reality of how much adolescents grow up in high school. Some may say that these shows are taken to the extreme and only represent a certain population, but when parents watch these shows with their children that are high school age and then sit down to talk about whether the posed situations have ever happened in their teens life, the answer is usually some form of yes. The way the material for these shows is gathered is from real teens lives, teens like to watch other teens on TV in situations that they can live vicariously through. These situations are then gossiped about within the group of friends that watched the show the night before and they talk about the characters as if they were in their group of friends. The reason to tune in next week to these shows is to find out more about these people's lives. The art of selling these shows has been mastered because teens are responding extremely well and often doing what they see done in the media.
In the movie Merchants of Cool, they mentioned that the media puts sex on television because it is part of teen’s lives and teens want to see that on TV. While thoughts and ideas of sex are part of any teenager’s life, I believe that the media raises the bar with every new show. When people turn on the TV, they want to see something new and the media needs to capture the audience. By showing a 15 year old boy footage from MTV’s spring break wet tee shirt contest, they have gotten his attention and his shown him what he wants to see. I think that the media exaggerates the amount of sexuality that the average teen has in his or her daily life. I don’t think that any 15 year old guy has that type of sex in his life but the media still feeds it to him and increases his want for more. Another way to capture any teen’s attention is with blood. To someone that is 13-15 years old, the idea of going to a PG-13 movie is something childish and they want more. They want to go see something that they can’t have and R rated horror movies are just that. From a business standpoint, exaggerating the truth and showing kids more than they have ever seen is a great idea. It is something that will keep viewers coming back for more.
reading all the responses in my silent dialogue, I saw a pattern in the thoughts of my classmates. We all agreed on one thing that is the media does not control the teen. Mass production benefits from teens strongly, the companies join together to form monopolies and use teen fads as a way of making good money. In almost every aspect of consumerism teens are the target are for buying. An example would be in The Merchants of Cool, the theme shows us that when shows like Dawson’s Creek and 90210 came out sex became more prominent among the teen culture. An outsider may argue this is completely true, but being a teen I believe that sex has always been a part of teen culture and shows like these just made it acceptable to talk about it openly. The documentary of the teen’s culture does prove that in order to have business with teens buying products they must be discrete. They believe the object of making money is convincing teens they control the next thing, but the grey area comes when you look at the root of media. The media only exists to make money and convince people what to buy, without buyers they would have no point. In conclusion, it is fair to say the media does not control the teen.
I agree with what everyone else is saying regarding the extent to which tv shows like Gossip Girl portray teenagers lives. I do watch the show, but not because I can relate to the characters or understand their lives. I watch it for the opposite reason- I am entertained by observing the lives of people that are so different from myself. Gossip Girl does not portray the average teenager's life in any way. In fact, I often forget that the characters are supposed to be in high school since they look and act like they are so much older. I believe shows like this are successful because it is human nature to be curious about the glamorous lives of the rich and famous. Unfortunately, young teenagers who have not reached high school yet have no way of knowing that this show does not show what high school is really like and as a result, will try to mimic the lives of these unrealistic, though interesting, characters. I think we are going to see high school students in the next few years trying to mature faster than ever.
I thought it was interesting how one response to my Task A thought noted that part of the reason American girls are stereotyped as “easy” is because they are displayed that way through the media, and, whether its true or not, American girls have to live with the stereotype. When I apply this thought to the original prompt, which stated that media makers think they know a lot about you, it made me realize that this is probably true. Media makers do know a lot about the American teenager because they are the very entity that creates the stereotype. Whether we should or shouldn’t, people look at the media as an accurate portrayal of reality. Therefore, if girls are displayed as easy in the media, society is going to accept that as the norm. This principle is seen in Brave New World, with hypnopaedia acting as the media. The Director, explaining hypopaedia to his students, sums it up, stating, “…the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too-all his life long” (Huxley 28-29). Like the media, hyponpaedia is broadcasting a subliminal message to society, training them to believe that this message is reality, and thus making the message reality.
I completely agree with Stacey and Melissa's viewpoint on consumerism being government-determined, and that brand names and different types of things are avoided because they could possibly decondition BNW citizens. I think it's interesting that contrary to our belief of deconditioning, some BNW passages conclude that these people are so brainwashed that different types of products won't appeal or decondition them. This is shown when Lenina is showing Fannie her new belt, and Fannie solely reacts happily but not enviously. This proves that although extreme consumerism would decondition probably BNW society, citizens are so adjusted to what they have that they have been taught not to envy others, so small 'cool' things like belts and clothing don't stand out because no one sees anyone else as an individual.
I agree with what everyone has said so far. A good topic was brought up in the graded discussion my group had on Friday. I made the point that our society is addicted to the sexual related drama in television sitcoms. For example, in Grey’s Anatomy, the show insists on keeping a love story between all of the different characters. However, what would happen if they stopped the romance side of the show and kept it all about doctors lives in a hospital? The amount of viewers would decrease a great amount. The media knows what people are looking to watch and pushes the limit as high as possible to see what they can get away with and how many watchers they can get. Does anyone think our society can a draw a line with this? My discussion group believed it was tough to achieve.
i definitely agree with colin, we as a society are so addicted to television that we begin to relate our lives to the lives of the characters on the show. We feel like we are so close and related to them that we have to live out our lives the way the characters do in the tv show. While trying to find sources for my research topic on consumerism, i was able to find an article about a woman who wanted to live her life based off of Barbara Streisand, which tells me that people can easily be too consumed by the people they idol or the tv shows they watch.
i agree with stephanie about how i also really started to think about how we are conditioned in society.While they believe in Ford and not God, as they're conditioned to believe, we have a strong belief in religion and God has a huge part in our lives, no matter what religion you are. I think the media also can take things a little too far with religion and other troubling things in the world. The media makes us believe that stuff in the world is much worse than it actually may seem
Colin makes a lot of good points in why we are so influenced to be mass-consumers. The media, the people around us, and the American lifestyle promote extensive spending for a certain look and feel to life. However, I disagree that Brave New World differs here. The same way that we have been conditioned to consume, the people of Huxley's civilization are mentally programmed to like certain things in order to consume. Though the methods by which we have consumption ingrained in us differ, both our civilization and Huxley's consume because of extensive conditioning.
In response to Jessica’s post, I do not think that the media is portraying teens’ lives accurately. I think it takes the most interesting and newest aspect to our lives, sex, and blows it out of proportion. We then are fascinated by this new level and we get hooked into watching it. The media likes to give us the shock factor so their show is all we talk about, “Did you see what so and so did on last night on Gossip Girl?” The media has been most successful when focusing on topics that are easy to take to the next level.
I agree with what Stacey had to say, and I have some ideas to add on to it. I think in BNW there is an advanced type of consumerism that was created using the basic laws of economics. This type of consumerism cuts out the mundane aspects of consuming like currency and gets straight to the important part of consuming, the actual exchange of goods or services. When a society is consuming lots of goods and services, it is good for that society’s economy, which boosts the overall standard of living. The society in BNW has created a type of consumerism that allows for these exchanges to take place very often. Although there is not the same level of competition or marking that we are used to, it is technically the perfect society because the highest level of exchange is always taking place without any diminishing marginal utility.
In response to Annie's post, I am in complete agreement with her. Although there may be some aspects of the show that would be found in our everyday lives, overall the shows are out there for entertainment and are not concerned with portraying accurate lifestyles. The shows that are directed towards the youth in America are designed to produce the highest ratings, not the most informative episodes. When shows start to lose their appeal, they bounce back with a shocking twist in the story, no matter how unrealistic it may be.
In response to Stacy's post, I don't think that the consumerism in BNW is that much different than in our society. i think that Huxley was trying to make the point that our society is too obsessed with "new things". He portrays the people in BNW and the society itself as a working machine. Huxley basically takes our system of consumerism and takes out all of the inefficiencies such as marketing and prices, things that could cause instability and "unfairness". I think that this heightened consumerism is extremely prevalent and can be seen in our need to get the newest ipod even though we have one already, a new phone every 6 months. Our culture and economy is driven by consumerism, and I agree with the comment above that BNW has gotten to the point where there is the highest amount of exchange of goods and services without morals, and I hope that is not where our society is heading, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Consumerism was one of the topics that interested me during our class discussions. I agree that within BNW they do not allow consumerism, because they don't want anything that could keep them from doing theirwork, or getting of task. For example, in my class we talked about if in BNW socities if there was anyway that they could have such as person as Shakespeare. In my opinion they would not be able to. I believe this because they are not allowed to write about anything creative that will distract them. They wouldn't allow this because they wouldn't want anyone to think about ideas or subjects that are not already set up in their society. Consumerism in their society is seen as a bad, harmful thing. For example, Helmhlotz gets sent to the island for being too smart and creative. The controllers were afraid that he would bring consumerism into society, and that would cause them to worry and wonder about things that aren't allowed in their society.
I agree with Becca’s insight on consumerism. While we may not have a hypnopaedic machine whispering, “the more stitches, the less riches” into our ears when we are children, our society gears us towards consumerism early on. Our system of capitalism forces businesses to constantly progress in the short-term in order to stay alive. To stay competitive, they flood us with advertisements beginning at childhood to buy biggest and shiniest distractions. The result is a more superficial and less intelligent society.
I definety think the extreme forms of mass production Huxley writes about is possible. He did a great job of making the world very believable.The way the controller goes into talking about the war's and the poison gas, and how everybody just got sick of it. This allowed Ford's ideas to take root. The people became less educated in less awareness and society was removed from things that could spur new ideas. Ideas that contradicted with the BNW societies ideals. Shakespeare, religion (excluding Ford's), emotions. Anything that the government demend harmful to its people. Thus creating a society that is never unhappy. No one ever complains. No one ever fights. Everyone just enjoys each others company and takes soma. And with the people so heavily conditioned in it now its near impossible to change them back.
yes i do believe is possible
to address question 4,the meadia is selling sex for one plain and simple answer, sex sells! not only are they selling things to teens but they are also seling things to young kids. dolls such as bratz are showing an unrealistic view of how they should look. they also buy makeup and other beauty things to look and act like they are more grown up than they are. this forcing them to grow up years before they should. causing kids at arround 11 years of age to start having sex. and seeing thier idols act a sertain way makes the kids act the same way. after all, kids learn from example.
Adding to maayan's earlier post, I strongly agree that the way society sells sex and makes it a normal part of our lives, is just unbelievable. I can not believe how normal it has become for young teens to freely express their sexuality and be sexually active before even entering high school. Waiting until college, seems suddenly "uncool". How and when has this new trend emerged, making young kids suddenly act and look a lot older than they actually are? The sad truth is that the trend is probably not going to suddenly stop, but much rather continue.there is a high chance that In five years ten year olds will start to have sex which might result in even more teen pregnacies. This eveolution is definetly not a good one and one that parents should be most concerned with.
i completely agree with alex! if this continous, then younger and younger kids will start to explore their sexuallity and our society will start to be like BNW. i feel that one if not the only way to help prevent this is that parents have to actually sit down and talk to their kids about sex and other topics that every parent dreds to talk about however awkward it may be. it is also important not to lie to your kids about sex. if you were to tell them the truth about it, they will be able to come to you in the future so that you know when they do start to be sexually active that they are safe with what they do. granted, all kids dont really want to talk to their parents about sex but i feel that this is one step that needs to be taken so that younger and younger kids dont start to have sex before they are ready, mentaly, physocaly, and socialy.
What is seen on television has a huge influence on kids becoming sexually active at too young of an age. Censorship on tv is becoming more and more lenient. It is crazy what is shown on regular network shows these days. One can see a sex scene in almost every episode in some of these shows. When kids see young kids on tv doing these things they begin to think its cool and its ok to do it themselves. Parents are having less control about how their kids get exposed to sex. Instead of having a talk with your kids, your kids can go watch tv for a few hours. To help stop this problem from growing censorship on sex should becomemore strict again. It wont be long until our society becomes like the BNW society with young children be sexually active and it being ok.
I completely agree with everyone with the media selling sex on tv. More and more I turn on the tv and see shows and all almost every show is teenagers and sex. Now if a teenager sees other teens on tv having sex they will think its ok to have sex. Its the same with BNW they have younger kids having sex, but the kids don't know what normal standards are.
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