Advertisers Are NOT To Blame

The one thing that gets on my nerves more then anything is when people say that the media industry, especially in the world of fashion and photography, are trying to brainwash people into becoming a certain type of person. They say that they are trying to make women and men (usually women) look a certain way. There are people and groups that attack the industry and say that advertisers are practically attacking people in to looking a certain way, and I’m here to set the record straight.
To start, it is ridiculous to say that the media has such a huge effect on the way people feel about the way they look. They’re many people that are down on this industry because majority of models are a size 0. Thinking of this from a strictly business view the advertisers are not trying to make people look a certain way; they don’t have that kind of money. They are not going to waste their money on advertisements to make people feel like they have to look a certain way. Just for a commercial slot on television it’s going to be somewhere in the millions of dollars, that’s not including payment for the models, equipment, and the rest of the crew. They're not going to waste there money on something that wont sell their product, they’re going to spend all that money on a look they already know works. Don’t forget advertisers spend loads of time and money just to find out what other people think is attractive, and what they think looks good. These people obviously have to be saying that skinny is better because that’s what the advertisers are spending their money on. I guarantee that if majority of people said that they’re more likely to buy something if someone who’s overweight (and no, not a “thick” model, someone actually over-weight) was advertising a product, that’s exactly what the advertisers would use.
Aside from all of that, people just put to much pressure that the media is the one to blame for these “screwed up ideas” in our society today. These ideals started century’s back, back in the day when all women had to where corsets to be smaller, they were expected to have long hair and perfect skin. This is an idea that women have had to deal with for centuries. To even imply that it is the advertisers of this generation are making us believe this is how people should look is a load of you know what.
Then they say “well it’s these people that makes girls feel insecure about themselves, and the reason that girls are anorexic, bulimic, taking diet pills, getting plastic surgery” ect. Which don’t get me wrong, I can’t disclose that fact at all, there are some girls that are greatly affected by it, but they are blowing it way out of proportion. When I was younger I never even cared about the media, let alone what it thought about how I looked. It was the people I was around that would make me feel insecure. I decided to see what others thought. So I interview an acquaintance of mine to see how she felt. When asked her opinions she practically had the same idea, she has an eating disorder that she’s dealing with and when I asked her what started her on this train reaction she said “It’s mainly because I was unhappy with how I looked, and at first it was just a mild thing, just another diet. But I was still unhappy with how I looked, and what I felt fit my body, and so I just kept going until it got out of control.” Most girls generate these disorders because they are insulted by someone close to them and feel that they must change. It’s also very common for a lot of people to develop these disorders because of control issues; they feel as though they lost some control in their lives, and this gives them that sense of control.
Then there is this great big idea that anorexia is a major problem in our country. Granted 8 million people in America have an eating disorder, and sure that’s a big number, but that’s nothing compared to 58 million overweight, 40 million obese, and 3 million morbidly obese.
With these statistic I wonder, why people are so on the fashion industry on “making people feel they’re overweight”, when such a large portion of our country is overweight or obese. I asked my acquaintance if she feels there are people out there using these “brainwashing” theories as an excuse and she said “I think they use it as an excuse to be overweight, and I don’t think it’s as bad a people have described. They see all these fashion magazines, of the skinny people and think ‘oh I don’t have to be like that because I’m the way people should be’. I feel as though they are living by a double standard saying that their way is right, and that others are wrong.” This is completely true; they say it’s wrong for these models to be so skinny, when it should just be an opinion. She also continued to say “They’re probably doing it because there’s this misconception that all skinny people are doing drugs to be skinny and throwing up their food or not eating at all. Which first of all is completely untrue, a lot of people are just naturally skinny, but since eating is a natural human function and we’re suppose to eat, it’s okay if someone is overweight, it seems to make people think that its okay to over eat, which isn’t true either. What people need to do is stop worrying about all of this, and just listen to their doctors and eat healthy.”
To say that the media is “brainwashing” girls and even boys to be a certain way is absurd. In truth no one should care, no one should boast about how “I’m not like all the models” or “I look just like a model” because the bottom line is you should just be healthy. It’s not the medias fault for what their advertising, it’s ours; we think as a majority that all the things we see out there is attractive. If it wasn’t why would they bother to parade it around?

Feature Essay

Photography is a vast and open area, it’s a hobby, it’s a career, and it’s an art form. Over the last week I have been doing my own researching, making observations as I go, and talked to a teacher about my possible career path and his interest in this interest that is becoming more and more popular everyday.

Talking to Mr. Matthias, I realized he’s sort of like me, and my interests in photography. Though he’s a language arts teacher, and doesn’t have the time to really immerse himself in his interest, he still likes to do what he can in his spare time. While being asked what type of photography he prefers, digital or film, he said he does both, and enjoys both for their own positive qualities, he also enjoys traditional film photography, though it’s not easy to try and do. “It’s one of those things that you need to have the right supplies, like a dark room and chemicals; but I like the idea of film photography when you get to do it all, I like the whole art form of it” he describes. I asked him when he first became interested in photography, and I was surprised to find he became interested in it in the middle of high school, “right around your age” he said. Matthias like to take pictures that tell a story, take a picture that actually means something “not just some picture of a tree or whatever is lying around”. Even though he runs the schools yearbook, and has for several years, he was never in yearbook in high school.

Seeing as how Mr. Matthias knows photography mainly from a hobby standpoint, I decided to do some research on the actual statistics. It’s of course a very competitive field, as would any art form be. Most photographers are free-lancers, meaning they are self-employed, and the median of most photographers’ incomes is around $20,000-44,000 a year. However there is the high ten percent that can make up to $62,000. In order to be a successful photographer you must have a vast knowledge of equipment, such as cameras, light equipment, computers and photo editing programs. You must be able to cover all the different fields of photography. Some fields could include being a wedding photography, or maybe nature shots, something there are portraits, and then there’s the average school picture. I could go on and on as to how many different kinds of photography, but to be truly successful you must basically be a jack of all traits. You must also have a “good artistic eye”.

Basically to be a successful photographer, your must be an artist at heart and be willing to do anything, to make your art heard. “Photography is not usually a full time thing, most people do it as something on the side” said Mr. Matthias as our interview was ending. I’m however determined to live this career, immerse myself in all the knowledge I can, soak it up, and be part of the upper ten percent income, maybe even higher.