You Are What You Eat

Being fat as a little kid made me had a hard time eating junk food during my friend’s party. I always had my parents telling me to be careful with what you eat.  Before I thought it was just an excuse from my parents to make me stop eating junk food. Now after some years of losing weight I can see that the food you eat can shape a person’s identity.  Today I eat healthier food and my lifestyle has change a bit. I always have in mind what food is going into my body and I always try to exercise.  Normally you have the people that are very rigid with what they eat and other people that eat whatever there is to eat.  In TV/movies you can see an exaggeration of this because most of the time it shows serious and hardworking people eating a very healthy meal while fat and dirty people fast food.  I think that people are indeed what they eat, since based on their food you can see their identity. Their background roots, their likes and don’t likes, if they are clean, dirty or healthy or not healthy. On the two pictures below, you can see how one of the two picture does not match with her identity. I say her because you would imagine the girl eating something healthier. But you would expect a big guy like him to eat a hamburger that size!

Local Celebrity T-shirts

Clothing brands mostly want their costumers to advertise their brand by placing their logo on their t-shirts. But recently I read a case that said how the t-shirt brand Local Celebrity had a different approach. They create t-shirts with funny phrases so people will like to wear a t shirt with a funny phrase.  By doing this people will like the t-shirt and ask the costumer what brand his t-shirt is. In contrast, I always had t shirts with funny phrases but I never thought I was wearing it to advertise the brand nor criticize something . Around Babson campus, you can sometimes see some people  wearing t shirts with double meaning phrases/funny pictures.  Do you think people want to buy the shirt because they like the store/brand or because they like the phrase that the t shirt.  For me personally it was the phrase which leads to my second question. I remember how in my high school we were not allowed to have t shirts with a funny or a double meaning phrase.  This was because some people might find the phrase offensive or not polite. Do you think t shirts with a double meaning phrase, criticizing a race, ethnicity should be taken more seriously ? 

The photos below, show two different types of designs that local celebrity sells.  As you can see, the Mexcellent t-shirt might be offensive for some people since it has a taco and  mex written on it. On the other hand most people will find the other t-shirt fun to wear since it makes fun of the I love NY shirts.

Barnes and Noble vs iPad

At the beginning of the semester when I saw the article showing that The Barnes and Noble Book store was put for sale I did not understand. I thought it was unreasonable for the owners to sell one of the biggest bookstore chains in world. Barnes and Noble have over 720 stores in the United States.  Now after reading and analyzing the impact the iPad has on book I understand their dramatic decision. The effect that the IPad/technology plays on bookstores might not be the only reason why the owners of Barnes and Noble are trying to sell it but a big factor of their decision.  On the article Publish or Perish, that we have to read in class, tells us many times how books are becoming less popular. Two quotes that I found powerful on the article where: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore”. And “Forty per cent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year”.  We know that by having the newest technology to play around makes every individual cool but what I see from this article now is that it also makes us dumb.  Because of the iPad and other similar technologies not only people are stopping to read but it is also making some chain stores like Barnes and noble go out of business. If Barnes and Noble goes out of business it can hurt the economy. That is why my question I have is if the iPad and other similar technologies are helping or affecting the society.

Below you can see the two articles that I used:

Ipad

 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta#ixzz14QGcJZSL

Barnes and Nobles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/04/barnes-and-noble-for-sale

A Name Can Shape Meaning

Establishing a brand in the market involves much more than raw economics; the value a brand is able to acquire is a variable directly related to various social elements and patterns. This is clearly seen by taking into consideration the fact that the name a product brings on its tag can shape and determine the value it carries in a wide variety of senses. In turn, these vary from the actual monetary value, to how it is perceived by customers as well as society in general. An example would be two extremes of clothing stores like H&M and Prada. Both stores sell similar products and many times of similar quality, yet Prada has a much higher value in all the senses mentioned above; Not only is it more expensive but it is also highly esteemed by society. For example if someone is wearing a shirt that has Prada written on it, he or she will most probably be regarded differently than someone who is wearing a plain white t shirt. Additionally the person himself or herself might also feel different about himself or herself according to the brand of the clothing he/she is wearing. Therefore, the brands end up having in them embedded and thus transmitting some kind of message, be it of the brand itself, or even the person carrying/wearing it. This is the reason behind the fact that brand names have stand throughout history. Reasonably speaking it does not make much sense to pay for something that is so much more expensive when it terms of utility and even quality it is mostly the same as something much more inexpensive. With this in mind we can thus conclude that indeed it is more a matter of social rather than economical pattern determining the value given to brand-names. 

Youtube

             In The chapter Political Influence on Media, the authors talk about the methods the government-regulated political and social media.  They discuss how some governments have gone completely extreme and ban or taken control over companies or opposition. Additionally, they state on page 87 that “Most nations engage in media regulation that is nonauthoritarian in nature, combining government influence with the free market”. The first example that came to my mind about an artifact was regarding the relationship the government and Google have (government and free market). During the summer, when I was in China I tried to search for Lady Gaga on Google and I found no results; this struck me so much that I felt the urge to immediately take a picture of it. As you can see from the picture below, the search for Lady Gaga in China is completely censored. In addition, it is also said that some world cup soccer scores have been manipulated in North Korea. This make me reflect upon the wide variety of things that might be censored out there, and yet we have little to no awareness of it. The government in a way can change the view of its people and shape it to their convenience and interests. 

Army Dog Tags

An original Dog Tag from WWI

After reading chapter 8, I began to notice how the dog tags (also known as military tags) have had, over the years, their connotation changed. In chapter 8 the idea that in any media there is a preferred message but that people can change this message, is described. Dog tags are worn and required by every military solider since the first wars. The tags work as a means of identification. They have engraved important information that can help identify dead and wounded people, letting other people know basic medical information like blood types. Also, official dog tags are made of steel or any other abundant metal they during war time. But as we have seen, today non-military people are using these dog tags as a fashion accessory. At first non soldiers wanted to wear them to be seen as part of the military and look tough and masculine. They used similar dog tags as the soldiers. However, this has also changed. Today these modified dog tags allude to a wide variety of media messages. They change in the information they have encrypted, color, size, and shape as well as the material that it is made off. Some dog tags have a person’s information, favorite quotes, beliefs, name of their girlfriends etc. In addition, other people prefer to have their dog tags made with diamonds, and others in a different shape.

Modern Dog Tag made out of gold.

Different modern Dog Tags

Using blogs as business

Today, everyone can create a blog on the internet. It could be for a class, work or for fun, but the problem is that anyone can write their own opinion and start to affect the other people that read the blogs around the world. I have seen how today companies are using blogs to create more business. They talk about their products, their expected future and advertize anything about them. These have positive and negative effects, the positive is that people can read and learn and comment about their products and weather decide to buy them or not. The problem is when the companies start to abuse the blogs. I heard how some companies are creating fake people in order to gain more costumers. Monsanto a company that produces agricultural products worldwide is one. Monsanto was trying to promote genetically engineered/ Genetically Modified food as a way to solve world hunger. They know that food shortage around the world is a bigger political problem, but since their product was modified food, they created a blog, with fake people (groups) supporting genetically modified food. When a real person enters their blog and sees how all the “people” are commenting good things about the products they will but their product. I think that today media has made the line between what is good and what is bad very thin.