Getting Warmer..

This week finding something to write about for this class was extremely difficult for me. I decided to do a post based upon the section my group had for review, hot & cold mediums. I wanted to do a blog post on the evolution of McLuhan's media, and then I figured that might actually be pretty boring. Instead, after a day of shopping, I realized I could write about just that. 


The evolution of shopping is changing consumer buying habits and how they interact when they engage in this activity. Last year for a research paper on leisure habits, I researched that in previous years before the 1990s, shopping was always for necessity and never for pleasure. It was not until the economic boom that people had extra money to spend on luxury products. This triggered the movement for shopping centers and people to make going to the mall to spend money a full blown experience. Driving to the mall, walking around, trying on clothes, carrying the bags, etc, is not only a tiring, but a very interactive experience. In terms of McLuhans definition, shopping is a cool medium.


Looking at how our society operates today and all of the new technology that has been developed, I cannot say that shopping is only a cool medium. What about the aspect of online shopping? The ability to go to a retailer's website and purchase products without having to change out of your slippers in the comfort of your own home is extremely attractive to many people, including myself. I used to love the experience of going to the mall and trying on different things-- now I feel like I am almost over it. Simply being able to click a button, no waste of gas, back or foot pain, is so appealing. Shopping is "getting warmer" as a medium because it can also use the internet. Something I have begun to realize is that with the development of new technology, soon simple tasks that were once enjoyable but involved interaction, are no longer fun to do because of more efficient and less energy consuming ways. Soon, all medias will become warm!


In addition, on that same note-- as a person continues to extend themselves by using the latest shopping methods, they also numb their senses because online shopping takes away from the satisfaction of the once cherised luxury shopping experience.

Can I Help You?

OR

Last week when I was in Best Buy I had an unreal customer service experience. I had sent my camera to Geek Squad to repair damages. After waiting 2 weeks for my camera back and had a special event I was excited to take pictures at, I turned on the camera and the camera was not repaired, but actually did not even turn on. The Geek Squad had actually broken my camera more ... As you can only imagine this does not happen very often and the staff was unprepared with how to handle the situation. Long story short and to spare this blog another venting session, I have never experienced worse customer service in my life.  In order for them to look up a receipt and allow me to purchase a new camera took TWO HOURS. 

The reason why I mention customer service is because the people who work for a service or company represent the company. These people are the company image and are what keep costumers returning. In a very literal sense, the workers are extensions of the company, and therefore media. When a person has a bad experience, everyone is going to know about it, but not necessarily when there is a good experience. This is the emphasis on training and importance of customer service skills. As mentioned before in an earlier blog post, humans have an instinct to believe anything they hear until proven otherwise. In the Halloween horror story chaos article, “Invasion from Mars” the public thought there was a terrorist invasion- in this situation everyone is now going to believe that Best Buy could use an upgrade on training their company representatives. With this generation’s rapidly growing technology, ie. Facebook, twitter, blogging, the opinions of other people matter a great deal because they are publically mass broadcasted across the web. It is important to know that you are reading the OPINIONS of other people. Many businesses if they are written a complaint letter or tagged in a bashing twitter post will actually reach out and compensate the customer to show their devotion to a positive experience at their store or with their service. 

The point of the matter is, workers are the media to businesses they represent and the image they portray is extremely important. They give and receive information, and a customer’s entire perception is often dependent on it. 

Lil Monsters

Today I took a trip to Best Buy to get my camera fixed, but while I was waiting I stumbled into the video games section. Almost every video game most prominently featured in the section had an extremely vulgar illustration on the cover or a suggestive title that implied violent play. I couldn’t help but think of Media Studies class and our discussion on childhood delinquency. I thought of my experience with video games, limited mostly to Nintendo 64 –so old school.

As an only child who received ample amounts of attention, growing up I was never encouraged, or allowed for that matter, to play any type of shooting game or even own a water gun. When I went to other kid’s houses, I got the chance to play James Bond 007 that was ever-so-popular in my youth. I thought it was great, but also fairly violent. Thinking back to this childhood memory, I can draw a few different conclusions as a result. First, I would like to address the concept of parental control and their ability to censor what their children are doing. Second, the so-called violence of James Bond compared to 2010 games where gamer objective is to create town chaos by stealing cars, killing civilians or actually engage in bloody warefare. 

In class last Wednesday there became a pretty heated discussion around parental supervision, in particular regarding the weight of responsibility on the parents of the killers in the James Bulgar case. Complete censorship of children to these images is nearly impossible, for example merely browsing around Best Buy and glancing at the covers to these video games. The important aspect is to teach children why doing this type of activity is wrong and as a result hope they will not want to purchase this type of game. Personally I do not understand why video games have been able to rise to this level of graphic imagery. Leading to my second point. The video game industry has evolved creating more and more violent elements as time passes. I was sorely mistaken thinking a simple shooting game was violent compared to some of the screen shots seen below in popular video games.

Parents are not able to control what their children see completely which is why it is extremely importance to stress the concept of right and wrong to avoid delinquent behavior and also so if they are exposed to these games, children will know it is just pretend and not acceptable real life behavior. In my personal opinion, this type of behavior even in a video game is not justifiable but that is a whole over can of worms for another blog. In addition, I would expect video games to continue to be produced this way, and for children to continue to find them enjoyable, normal, means of entertainment. Meaning, I do not see things changing anytime soon. I do believe that video games should not be encouraged because there is definitely a link between anger and these games. If a child is constantly obsessed with playing a war video game, how could they not want to replicate this behavior in real life?

 Call of Duty Screen Shot

 Popular Violent Video Games

 Cover of Grand Theft Auto

 Screen Shot from Player's Perspective

This is NOT real life.

Reality television is a fairly recent phenomenon that went completely viral. With the extremely large amount of reality shows now being broadcast, it is impossible to avoid watching.

MTV used to be a station that actually played music, but now it is majorly comprised of reality shows. People are no longer as interested in fictionalized stories but would rather be engrossed with the “gruesome truth” and “uncensored” lives of reality television stars. I hate to be the one to break the news to you if you hadn’t already heard, but reality shows are just as scripted as normal television programs. GASP! Now I hope this isn’t nearly as traumatizing as the truth about Santa or the Tooth Fairy, but audiences have a right to know what they are watching. 

A few years ago a reality TV show called Laguna Beach aired on MTV that surrounded the lives of a group of wealthy teens living in an elite community in California. If you think this plot sounds dangerously familiar, and you have never heard of Laguna Beach, you are still correct. The OC was a fictionally created show that aired on FOX the year before with generally the same plot. Laguna Beach’s whole appeal was that it was supposed to show the real lives of people that mimic characters similar to The OC. I was always an avid fan of LB, but knew there was absolutely no way this show could be entirely truthful. I loved Laguna Beach and The OC, but it had nothing to do with reality or not. Perhaps it was the fact that they never blurred the license plates like they were supposed to, or maybe even something more obvious such as how the two people not speaking to each other happened to end up in one of the several nails salons in the area at the exact same time; I refused to be conformed into thinking this was real despite all my middle school friends saying “It is reality because MTV says it’s a reality show.” For some reason I just couldn’t figure out why that justified things.

After Laguna Beach ended, another reality show by the name of The Hills also aired on MTV with some of the same characters. Although I never watched this show for its six seasons, I decided to randomly watch the end of the finale once I heard mass chaos and an uproar about feeling robbed etc. For those of you who don’t know, the finale’s final scene ends with two characters saying goodbye to each other and going their separate ways. When the camera shoots back to one of the characters, the Hollywood sign in the background begins to scroll away and it is revealed to the audience that the actors are actually on a set. This was a big moment for the devoted Hills fans who truly believed what they saw on TV was truthful for the past 6 years. In interviews after the finale, the main characters admitted that certain relationships were exaggerated or even nonexistent off screen. The purpose of the finale was to keep the audience wondering what exactly was real and what parts were fake.

So why have I been rambling on about MTV reality television for 3 paragraphs now? The point to think about here is the concept of weak audience as discussed in last week’s reading, “The Invasion From Mars” by Hadley Cantril. Cantril’s work discusses how Americans went into complete chaos for absolutely no justified reason because of a horror story that became skewed into a threat to the public. In some cases, the public will believe almost anything they hear. In examples such as those from the reading, the expression “monkey see, monkey do” takes new meaning. The media has even more power than some people may assume. Media is able to establish a relationship of trust between the public that people are heavily reliant on. In the situation of Laguna Beach or The Hills, when it turns out that media has been lying to us all along, people are so passionate in one direction that they actually feel betrayed. For this reason, as a viewer of many different mediums, I try to develop a guard that does not make me as easily susceptible and as an individual be a stronger audience. 

Spray Some Superficial On Me

For today’s blog entry, I wanted to start thinking more outside the box than conventional pieces of media I have been using. Sitting in my room trying to figure out a great topic for a blog entry, I looked over to my vanity to see my Marc Jacobs Lola Perfume. The bottle is absolutely beautiful and I always receive compliments on it. 

Then I began to think, perfume is an extremely superficial industry. Without even smelling the perfume, people will automatically be drawn to purchase it because of how the bottles looks or how having this perfume will reflect their lifestyle. I am completely guilty of conforming to this trend. I think that 90% of the perfume I have bought (without smelling the scent) is because I like the bottle, I like the celebrity who endorses the product or because of the advertisement that portrays a lifestyle I want to be a part of. The perfume industry is usually advertising through magazines or other paper methods, banking on the fact that the public will like the appearance of the bottle enough to not bother to make the effort to make sure it smells to their liking.

In class we discussed how stereotypes are very prevalent in the media, and are very apparent through television shows. Television has the ability to broadcast to a certain audience and appeal to what viewers want. Very similar is the website we browsed, www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, that makes jokes that touch on reality. The reason why people read it and think it is funny is because it is funny only to people who understand. Perfume is alike in the sense that advertisers are blatantly targeting a certain group of people to like their products. Most people aspire to a high end lifestyle, which is why perfume names are picked very carefully, ex. Princess, Hollywood, Oh La La, Lucky You, to create a tacit level of prestige.

In particular, look at the advertisements geared toward men’s perfume. It is clear which perfumes are supposed to be targeting a homosexual vs. a straight man. With male perfume, it is not so much about the bottle anymore, but rather the images surrounding the idea behind the perfume. This industry is stereotypical in this sense because who is to say that a straight man won’t enjoy D&G perfume. This goes both ways; perfume advertisers are assuming all gay men would be attracted to images seen below in March Jacobs & D&G. Many homosexual men still enjoy being portrayed in a more masculine manner whether it be through sports etc.

So much is able to be said without ACTUALLY saying anything. Through the advertisement, style and name of the bottle and the celebrities promoting the product, the public feels buying perfume will produce an elevated lifestyle.