Advertising Non Reality

I have come to realize that those who say that advertising has no psychological effect on them have either spent years training themselves to be immune to its effects or are painfully naive. The latter being the majority. With the average Canadian bombarded by 3000 or more advertisements in the form of television, radio, posters and reading material each day it is hard to even begin to believe that anyone is spared.

The progression of North American capitalist society is splattered with images of unemotional, aggressive masculinity, and sensual, objectified femininity. It is this image of progression the rest of the world is expected to gravitate towards. Indeed, we have trudged forward because we have reduced the human being into its basic animalistic form. This is seen in perfume ads, clothing ads, make up ads and even in fast food ads that emphasize ideals extremely difficult to attain.

All of us have had experience with advertisements that use the human body to sell, it’s almost impossible to go anywhere without seeing such an ad. The body is objectified along with the product, in a sense saying: “If you get this you can get me.“ Female images are used in this way more so than male images. The woman is there to be looked at while the man is there to look; it’s the way the humans’ function, so why not flaunt it. The lack of morals in advertising has created numerable problems for women. In the past decade in North America, there has been a sharp rise of eating disorders and the lowering of self esteem in girls as low as 8 years old. Only 5% of women have the ideal body type portrayed in advertising, yet almost 100% of advertisements have women who are really skinning, tall, broad shouldered and flawlessly beautiful.

Rather than witnessing a decline in such shameless advertising, corporations have increased their production, spewing out more ads than the market can handle. It only means that we have consciously or unconsciously reinforced it. It is estimated that by the time a Canadian reaches the age of 70 he or she would have watched seven to ten years of advertisements from television alone. That’s only advertisements. Even if you don’t pay attention and absorb little bits of ads, because of the sheer quantity of them, your brain will piece the fragments together in order to make the whole.

In the end the ideal that the advertisements are creating will manifest it self, without you even knowing it. Next time you turn to an advertisement, don’t ignore it but ask yourself what it’s trying to achieve. Advertising spouts certain ideals of a society in which their products will sell. Being unaware of its affects is worse than standing behind them because you’re helping an unrealistic culture develop that you may not even agree with.

Email • Print • Share on Facebook • Add to del.icio.us • Stumble It!