8. My Hatred of the Term "YOLO"

The term "Y.O.L.O" has been poisoning minds of our youth, lately. Made popular by the song "The Motto" by Drake in which he says "You only live once: that's the motto n***a YOLO, the term has become widely popular with teenagers and people of a younger generation. YOLO is now something people say when they do something outrageous or, quite frankly, dumb.

I've seen graffiti around town showing a marijuana plant with the term YOLO beside the picture. I've seen pictures of teenagers underage drinking and smoking marijuana saying "YOLO". I've seen people "tweeting" about how they're doing something crazy with, "#YOLO" beside the tweet. Now I'm a very negative realistic person that takes things very literally, so allow me to show how the aforementioned actions are quite stupid. This could get long.

To the people tagging places with the term "YOLO": Sure, you're expressing yourself. Sure, you might be creative and all. You know what else you're doing VANDALIZING. You and several others might find your little display of art cool, but you know who doesn't? The people that own the buildings and walls that you choose to spray paint the term "YOLO" on. Many times, the vandalism is on buildings and structures owned by the city and state and tax payer dollars are put to removing this vandalism.

To the people getting drunk and high out of their minds while dropping the term "YOLO" here and there and to the people tweeting "#YOLO" while telling of how you're doing something stupid: You only live once? How would you like to spend your one lifetime in hospitalized from alcohol poisoning or after you do something dangerous while being high? Onward to the people tweeting about how they're doing crazy stuff. "Just *insert illegal action*, #YOLO !" Oh, you only live once? How would you like to spend that one lifetime in jail? Not so free anymore, are you?

What I'm trying to say is that, we shouldn't do illegal and dumb things just because "you only live once." Yes, we only live once, but why not spend that one lifetime making smarter decisions that have no repercussions? I'm all for living life to the fullest and without regret because we only get one lifetime, but some people just blow this term out of proportion.Take the meme of the girl above. She's partying at first, having the time of her life "#YOLO." She then comes to find that she is pregnant. 

Our media has allowed this infectious term spread and seep into the minds of our youth and I see no problem with that as long as they aren't using YOLO as an excuse to do bad, crazy, stupid things. Many need to realize that we can't all be completely carefree in life. With actions, come consequences. We all get one lifetime. Think about our futures. People saying this are roughly teenagers all the way to people in their twenties. This age group still has years to go in their lifetime. The crazy and fun things they are doing now may have negative consequences in the future that they will come to deeply regret. Enjoy your one lifetime, but be responsible about it and think of the consequences. 

7. "When Did This... Become Hotter Than This?" Photos

The past few months, I've been seeing photos like these circulating on Facebook. one of them is the one shown above and another is a picture of Marilyn Monroe compared to a very skinny woman in a swim suit with the caption "When did this become hotter than this? **ck society."

When I look at this picture, I see and think what the people that created this picture want me to. My first impression was thinking how classy, beautiful, and healthy the women int he bottom row looked and how artificial and scarily skinny the women in the top row looked. I grew up in a generation that is used to looking at women with the physique of the women in the top row (Heidi Montag, Nicole Richie, Keira Knightley, and Kirsten Dunst) so I'm pretty used to classifying them as "hot." The makers of this picture, however, seem to have chosen pictures that portray the women of present day in a bad way.

Looking back at what many many considered to be "beautiful" ten to twenty years ago, quite a bit has changed. Women are wearing more revealing swimsuits and have slimmed down a lot more. Upon seeing this picture, many (including myself), reflect on society, thinking how we have changed for the worse, idolizing women that are very skinny. We could continue to dwell on how the women in the bottom row are full figured, natural beautifies, and how one or two of the women in the top row have gotten plastic surgery, but let's look at it from a different point view-let us be more sympathetic to the women in the top row. Just because these women are skinny, doesn't necessarily mean they are unhealthy. Women nowadays tend to work out a lot. Most celebrities have personal trainers and have work out routines to keep them in shape. Instead of being quick to judge these women as unhealthily skinny when compared to women twenty years ago, we could consider the fact that they are just perhaps very fit. 

6. "Madison & Vine": The Toys of "Toy Story"

Growing up, I watched a lot of Disney movies which included "Toy Story" and its sequels. Throughout the movie, viewers can see all kinds of toys-from simple plastic toys to toys that exist in real life (Mr.Potato Head, Slinky, Etch-a-Sketch). For the longest time, I didn't pay much attention to the real life toys because I thought that they were just in the movie because they were just another toy that little kids should have. However, after learning a little more about product placement and how most brand names featured in movies and TV shows usually pay for the advertising, it's come to my attention that "Toy Story" must've been an extremely effective ads for Mr.Potato Head, Slinky, and Etch-a-Sketch. 

I'm not too sure how sales were doing for the classic stories in the 90's since I was very young, but after doing a little research about how the sales of Mr.Potato Head, Slinky, and Etch-a-Sketch fared after the movie, it's quite clear that their sales went through the roof after the movie.

 The use of "Madison and Vine," product placement, by the makers of these toys has proven to be very effective. The three toys whose sales went up after the movie played pretty significant roles in the movie and didn't just blend in with the other masses of toys. By seeing how important and cool the toys are in the movie, kids were/are prompted to want the toys seen in movies. According to this article on mentalfloss.com, "After being featured as characters in the Pixar/Disney film, sales soared immediately. Etc-a-Sketch saw a 4500% boost. Slinkys were no longer being produced because they weren't profitable. Post-Toy Story Linky received 20,000 orders, which revitalized the company. Mr.Potato Head sales jumped 800%."

Even to this day, many years after I watched "Toy Story" for the first time, I still associate Mr.Potato Head and Etch-a-Sketch with "Toy Story." Though product placement can sometimes be distracting, the product placement of these toys have been very effective without disturbing the plot line of the story.

5. "Madison & Vine": " 'Draw Something' No Longer A Big Draw"

Fads and trends come and go all the time. Even among smartphones, there are apps that rise to popularity quickly that then quickly lose popularity. This seems to be the case with the app "Draw Something" that was all the rage several months ago. The object of the game, "Draw Something" is to get the person to guess a word that you given by drawing a picture or clues for them, sort of like a form of "Pictionary."

I, myself, downloaded the app during February. During that time, the app was extremely popular between me and all my friends. Many of us would have lots of different games going with many different people. The game was fun and new and lots of us enjoyed all the "new" words that we could relate to such as "Katniss" from the "Hunger Games" and "Usher." 

However, around 2-3 months later, I find myself hardly playing the game at all. Compared to the constant games I had going several months ago, I only go onto the app about once a week to see if anyone has made a turn on a game. I thought it was just me and my friends that had gotten a pretty bored with the app, but according to this article I saw on Yahoo, the number of people that use this app every day has dropped significantly from 14.3 million to 9.2 million. 

Despite the dramatic drop in users, Zynga, the makers of the popular "Words with Friends" and "Scramble with Friends," have purchased the company that makes "Draw Something," "OMGPOP." Since their purchase, Zynga stocks have steadily dropped. However, Zynga has been "reportedly been selling words to advertisers...to generate some extra revenue. Advertisers such as the NHL have bought several words such as "puck" to celebrate the Stanley Cup playoffs. Other brands are expected to purchase words that will be featured in the near future, such as "Pringles." 

By selling words to advertisers, Zynga is using the idea and technique of "Madison and Vine", the mixing of entertainment and advertising. Advertisers and the makers of the game both get something out of the cooperation. The makers of the game can make some extra money while advertisers can advertise whatever it is they are advertising by means of a gaming app. Though this technique of mixing entertainment and advertising can be very obvious at times, I think it fits right in with this game. This app had already featured more current words probably aimed to a younger audience, and these new words will probably fit right in with them. Thinking back, the "Hunger Games" probably bought the word "Katniss" to promote their movie that came out when the app was very popular. Though the idea of "Madison and Vine" is not new, product placement has gotten more and more clever throughout the years. As long as the advertising doesn't take away the quality of entertainment, I think the cooperation is beneficial to both the entertainment industry and advertisers, while also satisfying viewers and consumers. 

4. Narrow Casting/Odd Advertisement Placing-Sparknotes

Advertisements are everywhere nowadays-billboards, television, newspapers, buses, bench ads, schools, smartphone apps, social networking sites, and even yearbooks. None of this was really new to me until I started noticing how the advertisements on websites such as Facebook and Sparknotes started getting a little more specific and tailored. 

I, myself, enjoy browsing websites such as Nordstrom for clothes, shoes, and other things in my free time. Most recently, I was told I would be going to a relative's wedding, so I started looking online for a dress and shoes for the event. A little before this, my best friend and I had also browsed Nordstrom's website, looking at Longchamp bags when we were putting off doing a project. 

Several days after I looked the dresses, shoes, and  bags online, I went onto Sparknotes to refresh my memory of some chapters I had read several nights ago for a reading quiz. While I was doing this, I couldn't help but notice the large Nordstrom advertisement at the top of the page, right under the search bar. All the items looked extremely familiar to the items I had looked at several days ago. About an hour later, I logged onto Facebook and noticed another Nordstrom advertisement just like the one on Sparknotes. Upon noticing this, I started clicking on the little thumbnails of items to see if they were the very items I had browsed a few days ago. After looking at every item, it turned out that they were some of the very items I had looked at. 

I didn't know this until watching a Frontline movie called "The Persuaders" in my zero period, several days ago, but there are actually companies, such as Axiom (shown in the movie), that there are companies that gather all sorts of information about you based on what you do online. From online shopping, internet searches, to other things one can do on the internet, these companies can gather all sorts of very specific and detailed information about you and sell it to companies such as Facebook and other large companies to specify what kinds of advertisements you are shown. After learning of these companies, it was pretty clear that Sparknotes also does this with the people that visit their website. 

Because these companies have knowledge about what websites you visit more often, it is also easy to know which ad to but on which website. I go on Facebook and Sparknotes quite often, so it makes sense for me to see a good amount of personalized ads on these websites. I think it's a logical approach to advertising because consumers won't have to be bothered with ads that are completely irrelevant to them and companies can continue tempting consumers with pictures of products the consumer had looked at. However, I can't help but think how much of an invasion of privacy this approach to advertising can be. There are complete strangers out there that probably know us better than we know ourselves. The fact that these companies can see almost every single thing we do online and extract information from it and sell it to more people can be quite intimidating. 

3. "Dirty Mouth" Orbit Gum Commercial

This "Dirty Mouth" Orbit commercial is one I saw about a year ago that has stuck with me since because I found it witty and funny. In the commercial, a woman finds a man with another woman and she quickly gets angry calling him a "son of a biscuit-eating bulldog" and the woman a "doo-doo head cootie queen." The other woman then fires back calling the original woman a "lint-licker." As the commercial comes to an end, the Orbit Gum lady pops up and says, "Dirty mouth? Clean it up with Orbit Gum."  

Here, the commercial is using ambiguity. In the context of chewing gum, a "dirty mouth" is usually a mouth that is not clean physically because of bad breath or bad hygiene. In the commercial, however, a "dirty mouth" is a mouth that is saying foul language. Commercials with foul language can't, of course, be aired on television so the witty creators of this commercial instead use creative, childish name calling instead. By using ambiguity, the commercial then uses the wit and humor technique. The supposed "dirty words"that are said in the commercial reminded me a lot of the names my friend and I used to call each other when we were younger such as "cootie queen." With the grown adults saying these childish words in a serious manner, the commercial is made quite humorous.

Using the two uses of the word "dirty mouth," humor, and wittiness, this commercial is made impressionable to its audience. The humor and and wittiness stick with the audience so that they remember Orbit gum. It has already been a year since I first saw this commercial on television and I still think back to all the witty name-calling whenever I see a pack of Orbit gum at the grocery store. 

2. Miss Turkey and Carl's Jr.

I've seen many Carl's Jr. commercials on TV and close to all of them use sex appeal techniques. One of the commercials that I remember from probably a year ago is the one above where Miss Turkey, Gizem Memic, walks around in a bikini with little burger designs, eating a Carl's Jr.'s turkey burger.

Before I point out the obvious sex appeal technique, one tool that is used is ambiguity. The product being sold is a charbroiled turkey burger. In this instance, "turkey" is the poultry that is processed into a patty that goes on the burger. Afterwards, "turkey" is used to refer to the country of Turkey where Gizem Memic is from. Carl's Jr. uses the tool of ambiguity to relate the two completely different things in their commercial. There's "turkey" the poultry and "Turkey" the country.

Now back to the most obvious technique that is being used-sex appeal. By having a very attractive female walk around in a very revealing swim suit eating their burger, Carl's Jr. is hoping that the audience will remember the commercial and buy their burger. In the commercial, Carl's Jr. even states, "To help you remember our delicious charbroiled turkey burger, we hired Ms.Turkey. To help you remember Ms.Turkey, we put her in a bikini. And to help you remember Ms.Turkey's bikini, we had it designed with little tiny pictures of our charbroiled turkey burger." The targeted audience for this commercial is probably males that are teenagers or older. In seeing this very appealing female dressed in skimpy clothing, the audience (more so males) will have this image in their head and also remember the product that is being advertised.