Commodity Activism

For my last blog post I would like to talk about consumer culture and how trends affect the way our lives basically are run through commodity activism.

One of our assignments covered this topic really thoroughly so I want to draw off of those ideas and add on more that I had not been able to prior.

“We live in a society where market values spread without limit, in which we are branding and selling ourselves along with everything else, including public office.”

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“Consumer culture is a form of capitalism in which the economy is focused on the selling of consumer goods and the spending of consumer money. Most economists agree that the United States is a consumer culture. A significant part of consumer culture is an emphasis on lifestyle and using material goods to attain happiness and satisfaction. Businesses large and small can capitalize by focusing their marketing on this culture”

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Sarah Banet-Weiser wrote a book called Branding Consumer Citizens: Gender and the Emergence of Brand Culture. It is really important to dig deep into the Dove Real Beauty campaign because it displays one of the best examples of commodity activism.

“Commodity activism reshapes and reimagines forms and practices of social (and political) activism into marketable commodities and takes specific form within brand culture”( Banet-Weiser, 16).

At first I was kind of confused on what could be an example of this until I read further into the article and reading other examples I found online. The thing I love about taking these kinds of classes through my major is because it forces me (in a good way) to understand how marketers work and target us. Social movements are a HUGE money bringer to companies, if people see you are supporting a good cause or trying to support a type of change that has a big number of followers you are set. It is kind of like when all that stuff with United Airlines was happening, other airlines were so quick to jump on it. Like for example Southwest had a slogan for a little while saying “We beat our competitors’ prices, not you.” Which got a lot of publicity and people were so supportive and called them bold and the better brand.

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Same with Uber, a lot of backlash with them has been happening recently about their policies and how they do not really care about the safety of their passengers, or have a good enough background check, so a lot of people have dropped them and have gone to taking Lyft instead.

 

This Dove campaign, whether they firmly believe what they say or not, bashing stereotypes and putting up the idea that people are beautiful no matter what they look like makes consumer believe they are this company with a high regard for their customers and people.

“Commodity activism takes shape within the logic and language of branding and is a compelling example of the ambivalence that structures brand culture. This kind of activism not only illustrates the contradictions, contingencies, and paradoxes shaping consumer capital today but also exemplifies the connections—sometimes smooth, sometimes contradictory—between merchandising, political ideologies, and consumer citizenship”(Banet-Weiss, 17).

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“The Persuaders” examined a lot of important topics regarding the different marketing practices that have been influencing our culture and politics. It was really interesting to think about how advertisers used to only focus on what the product or item did but now it focuses on not only that but also what it means and believes in. Products have to have a moral standard now or else people wouldn’t necessarily want to purchase that anymore. This documentary focus on the bottom line that marketing agents encourage us to buy not necessarily an item but an identity. It ends the documentary with a discussion about politics and how there are strategies geared towards that in their own way.

 

Commodity activism is always going to be something in our lives and will only continue to be used to get consumers to buy things as times go on.

 

Visual Activism

The biggest source of activism in the world of media and any type of advertisements is quite clearly influential for obvious reasons. Tons of controversial issues are put to surface daily, whether about race, gender, or other issues such as the environment or politics. Visual activism is important because it is all around us and controls us in a sense.

“Anonymous took the best out of the possibilities afforded by the remix culture and the web in order to create powerful images and symbols that stand for the collective as well as its campaigns. For instance, Gabriella Coleman (“Aesthetic”) affirms Anonymous “would be far weaker as a phenomenon without the masks, without their fantastic art work, without those videos”, and adds that “Anonymous is a faceless phenomenon that is everywhere represented via their artistic output”. Thus, the importance of the visual identity created by the collective is part of its power.”

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It is all about that type of enforcement and execution of your ideas that become appealing to people. It usually is when those ideas are against the usual status quo that people first begin paying more attention, then slowly more do, and more, and then it turns into an army backing up an idea or movement. That also means there will be opposers to this army, so there stands two armies, each with their own ideals and unwillingness to agree. That’s how life goes. And that is where visual activism becomes stronger. Figures and posters and rallies and conferences to exemplify these ideas made by whoever believing in whatever, and here we have propaganda, advertisements, rallies, protests, etc. It is all a cycle that will never end because let us be real, no one will ever agree on anything.

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Nicholas Mirzoeff’s book called “How to See the World” brought this idea to a new light to me. I never really heard the words “visual activism” before reading it, but there are so many forms related to it. Mirzoeff discusses a lot of concepts of how the media and other bodies of movements are correlated and kind of redefine the way we look at the world around us.

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Propaganda’s purpose is to demonstrate a certain idea or concept and compel people to think they are right. Whether they are right or wrong does not necessarily happen because they get their message heard and people begin to talk about it even more. Mirzoeff also states how visual thinking is related to visual activism which in turn has that aspect of representation. Mirzoeff also talks about how space can be used a type of medium because it had this meaning that seems to resonate and inspire people to feel a certain way towards someone. Space does not necessarily physical, though, as Mirzoeff explains how cyber-space presented a platform that allowed people to overcome physical prohibitions (Mirzoeff 262).

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Mass media also helped catalyse the adoption of ideologies via “diffusion of the news by Facebook and other forms of peer-to-peer communication” (260). I like these quotes by him because it does get that point across about how the society we live in is so driven and compelled by these types of messages. It also really brings the ignorant people to a new light on a lot of issues they probably never even bothered to understand because it was in a different type of mindset than their own. Mirzoeff also states that, “In the face of domestic censorship and international ignorance” (Mirzoeff 267), who is trying to ignore it, and why should we look.  You must take up a cause, deciding how you will express it, and considering how your campaign will be received (261). “Who are you claiming to be, and what are you claiming to stand for (Mirzoeff 274)?  There is definitely potential for your campaign to encounter criticism in regards to your representation, demonstrated by the “artocracy” (Mirzoeff 261) movement.” These really represent the ideas that are presented by visual activism, at least I feel like they are.

 

 

At first I was kind of confused what visual activism really meant because I felt like it was pretty straightforward, or at least it was supposed to be. But in the end it means so much more. It talks about how we base our entire existence in a way because just looking at something like that in a certain way may change the whole way we live our lives like what we talk about or where we go.

 

 

“Effective visual activism is decided by your ability to express and depict your opinions to solidify the importance of your cause.  It will evoke thought; these thoughts will inspire belief of your cause; the belief inspired will incite others to act; and action makes an impact (Mirzoeff 274).”

 

 

Source:

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. How to See the World. Great Britain: Penguin, 2015. Print.

Sports and the Media

Sports. It is probably one of the most influential spectator events in the world. Football, Basketball, Soccer, etc., each fan base is growing larger and larger and the media in sports uses its influence to draw attention to them. One big aspect of sports and sports popularity is social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, even Snapchat have taken over the sports franchise in ways that have never before been used. You can basically be at the game or at the press conference with apps like Snapchat because of live video and sharing. Social Media can be what empowers people and gives ideas to brand themselves to a larger audience.

“the influence of Twitter has been picking up momentum in the past few years. During 2013 50% of Tweets regarding TV in the United Stated, a total of 492 million Tweets were about sports events. Sports events comprised 12 of the Top 20 Most-Tweeted-About TV broadcasts during the year.”

“Over a third (37%) of Twitter users will buy from a brand they follow”

This statistic means more than just sports, it is the business industry. Advertisements run everywhere, they are plastered on the players bodies and on the various sports fields, on the score boards, and pretty much wherever they can sneak some type of promotional advertising in. They are making all of these corporations big bucks. Even after every Superbowl, that million dollar question runs, “What are you going to do now that you’ve won?”, “I’m going to Disneyland!” That phrase alone can bring in HUGE stacks of cash not only to Disneyland and the NFL but to the player who says it.

When celebrities and sports players endorse a brand, millions of people start wanting to wear it, use it, show it off because they want to be “like Mike” or LeBron James, or Stephen Curry. Then that can translate to being posted and shared on those various social media sites and further free advertisement is given to those products and athletes just by simply having these people do their job.

Social Media is the way of the future, if a Sports industry is not using it they are not going to be as successful as they could. Social Media is what makes them more popular and known to international audiences, that is why athletes can’t walk a mile without someone knowing them. That is why what they post and show on their social media affects people so much, because that is what people pay attention to.

Sports Media also hypersexualizes the men and women who partake in it.

Even looking at these pictures you can see what is valued about the women, not their skills in their sports but their femininity. But this is the norm and probably won’t change anytime soon.

All in all, sports and social media will forever be intertwined, this world is full of corporal influence in almost all aspects of our lives even if we don’t notice it.

 

Gender and Racial Representation in Media

It seems to be that racial and gender stereotypes, although they may not be as harsh as they used to be, are still very prominent in most media today. To a majority of people, the stereotypes depicted are usually brushed off as non-existent or even harmless so it desensitizes people in a way. Mainstream media has a way of showcasing these types of discrimination in a way that seems harmless, and they know how to word or display things in ways that a majority of people may not care as much how derogatory they can be.

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A lot people seem to turn a blind eye to it because it has become such a social norm that we choose to simply accept and and think it is comical. But why is that? We see these commercials today and laugh at them. Many times advertisements can be so blatantly sexist yet people think it is okay. Even if there are not these kind of ads like above, we see this in many other forms such as these:

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Old Spice has always been a product that promotes being manly men and how all these things plus using their products will make you one. Most of the Old Spice commercials are light hearted and funny,I will give it that. But they showcase that you need to be this buff, deep voiced man and use Old Spice or else you are not manly.

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With the rise of technology, it is also seen how Photoshop is more and more used in order to create that ideal image of an appealing man or woman. Sometimes even if in the original there is not even any real distortion. It is this idea that normal human attributes such as stretch marks, pudge, discoloration of skin, etc. A lot of people do not even realize that pretty much all photos in magazines and the likes are all enhanced through some type of Photoshopping method.

Even with social media, it not only affects our way of seeing things or looking at things but our way of living.. It also paints what people want to say in a way they want it to be projected, regardless if it is true or not! Everyone has power through technology, given those who are able to access it. In our class we read Roopali Mujkherjee’s article “To See and Not to See: Racial Economies of Visibility and Invisibility” discusses very important points when it comes to how devices such as facial recognition, which is also on social media sites, can generalize people and objects which can be harsh generalizations at times. She says” While they spurred a predictable rush of apologies and technical fixes from manufacturers and industry experts, these glitches reveal key modalities of misrecognition and blindness, not as malfunction but, rather, as essential to the epidermal schema of looking relations that, now, as in the past, inscribe the apparatuses of the media gaze. These are malfunctions, I want to propose, that are not malfunctions at all. Rather, key to the optic-economies of ethno-racial visibility and invisibility, they reveal everyday protocols of oversight and obscurity, of targeted seeing as well as willful disregard, that are necessary and routine within the functioning of power.” This piece indicates that people program devices and applications to recognize people and objects in a way that is ideal or “normal” which for some were some very hurtful comparisons.

There is always that saying of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That may be true in some specific aspects but not if this “beholder” is experiencing an image through the media and the different ideals it constructs of beauty and femininity. When beauty is being used to describe a type of object, or a scenic backdrop, beauty relates a sense of the majesticness of that item or place which really serves more as a general and  personally unattached (in most cases) expression. In the cases when the idea of beauty is applied to a person, it then becomes in a way judgmental, whether good or bad. The language of beauty can then take on an entirely new way of dispersing what the ideal person should look, talk, or act like.Worse yet, the main ideas of beauty and femininity are depicted in Most media globally are based on so many unrealistic looks that should be deemed as “beautiful”. Media can largely teach us that are flaws are not okay and that we should be consistently changing ourselves or fixing ourselves to appeal to the viewer’s eyes whether in person or on pictures.

Racial stereotypes have been just as prevalent as gender. This type of imagery has been circulating quite more commonly in the recent years especially calling on more attention to police brutality towards African Americans and other races. It is seen very commonly that when a crime is committed by a person of color, or if they were attacked, the pictures on the right are shown of them. “this child was affiliated with a gang at one point in their lives and they did drugs” but they never display the accomplishments or right they had done.

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Even in popular shows like Family Guy we see the same types of stereotypes being presented. Although it is funny it always has some truth about our actual society in it.Stereotypes like this are too often seen as acceptable. The Hispanic woman being a cleaning lady, husband is in jail, all too prominent when representing them as a culture.

Even in most music videos, you do not see the average girls you see on a daily basis. You see these skinny or super voluptuous women who you would imagine to be in a dream. No matter what role they are occupying in the music video, there seems to be a common theme, sex. There are always women wearing very little amounts of clothing, wooing over this man who is the main artist and throwing themselves at him. Sex appeal sells and make no mistake, the videos produced to sell these songs and ideas rely heavily upon the desire of the women being presented.

Take the “Booty” video by Iggy and J Lo. Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea are over sexualized to the point were we aren’t admiring them for their musical ability and talent at all basically but instead their bodies. Some may argue that it is their rights to express themselves in such a manner and they would be right, especially in the cases of these kind of videos because they present themselves in this manner. But again it could also just be confidence. With that being said, the target audience of these videos sees to be disregarded in most cases, therefore the content of the videos can be explicit. Many men and women are always looking up to these popular figures as a their source of inspiration, they are their role models. What videos like these so prominent in that industry is this idea that  all women need to be beautiful and seductive to achieve success. Therefore the young teenage girls and women that are idolizing these people will try to become like them thus reinforcing gender stereotypes regarding the female representation. When we see it everywhere on everything, it makes the ideas presented seem concrete and irrefutable in some ways.

All in all,how do we make ourselves aware of how we are stereotyping groups of people and making that change? We always see these things in our daily lives and do not take it seriously unless it happens to us. Race and gender representation will always be controversial in how we are affecting whom, and what can or cannot be said. But the first step to making a positive change is accepting ourselves when we are at fault, and recognizing others for it as well. I’d like to end this post with a quote from Nicholas Mirzoeff:“While we think of this as ‘our’ world, it is one that is carefully policed and filtered for us before we can see it. And the world it renders for us is, above all, where we go next.” I think this is important to note because he discusses how although we are supposedly a united species on this planet, everything we know is set to be a certain way because of those higher social hierarchies that define us to be a certain way whether it be through social media or any other technologies and advertisements.

Problems and Selfies?

My first post is going to be inspired by one of our very first assignments where we discussed selfies and what they say about us as a society. To me, a selfie is how I want you to see me, and after more than 30 pictures sometimes do I finally take the one that I think I look best in. Now I am not the only one who does that, but I always wonder how we got so self-absorbed in these kinds of things that they have taken over our lives in some aspects. We feel obligated to constantly take new pictures of ourselves or of us doing something out of the ordinary. It is a funny concept because normally we don’t really think  much about selfies, we just kind of do it. The idea of selfies really just sprung out of the blue, not that people didn’t take them before, they just were not as iconic which makes it more interesting.

I know I am one of the biggest advocates for taking selfies, I take tons of them. whether it’s to update my profile picture on Facebook, or if I had a good makeup/hair day. It is hard to not want to when it is something that is so, normal.

Reading Eszter Zimanyi’s piece called Digital Transience: Emplacement and Authorship in Refugee Selfies really changed my perspective on what a selfie really means to and for people.

“A number of scholars have written about the role of the selfie in enacting or performing the self and authoring a personal narrative, while the process of geotagging media has been noted for its ability to create new and shared meanings of particular locations” (Zimanyi ,10).

This excerpt is spot on in how the selfie impacts people on a day to day basis and how they use it to tell a story and to also make sure that their loved ones know they are safe. I never really imagined people using selfies for anything other than gluttony, and this is a beautiful way to use them.

It is just crazy to me how some people will just move along life following the trends of people around them, sometimes without even realizing it. We are all guilty of it.

 

So yeah, selfies are fun, and will probably be a popular trend for a long time, as well as a vital message to those around them.

 

Source:

“Digital Transience: Emplacement and Authorship in Refugee Selfies,”  Eszter Zimanyi