The Big Bad Media Monster

So lately in Psychology we've been talking about perception and influence on people. We first started talking about eating disorders which I find very interesting, sad but interesting. Did you know that officially getting diagnosed with Anorexia has NOTHING to do with how much one eats? It has to do with their weight! They could be eating an elephants portion but are the size of a toothpick an that can be anorexia.

Sorry, I got off on a tangent. But hey, you learn something new everyday right?

Well then we got onto the subject of Media influencing the image of people and their comfort in their bodies. Okay, here's the thing, we all know that people are affected by the media but for some reason we all seem to group every visual aspects of an advertisement into the word "media" and then it becomes a raging monster that everyone knows. I heard so many comment about how images are fake and edited and that no one can be like the models in ads and that we should have more life like images.

My teacher also showed us the video above. And how we all are fooled by the "media".

I understand that it's true. I understand that maybe we rely too much on the perfection of the body that we will never attain. And I'm a firm believer that it's not just women, it's also men. I mean I would kill to have a body like a movie star. I would like to have defined muscles and the eye of everyone on me.

And that's how media is supposed to work! Advertisements offer us products in order to better our lives and improve us. But there's the argument whether we should keep ads as they are or not.

I just wonder, how would our world change if we didn't have editing and Photoshop. Would women buy facial cream judging by a label alone or if the picture on the bottle was a women with a blemished complexion? Would we even buy magazines or even watch television shows without make-up? And then there's music, even beats and rhythms are psychologically stimulating and tempos inspire emotions.

The point is, we are so deep into the "Media Monster" that we cannot get out. We're six feet under plus 12 more. So if you ask me, I think it's sort of futile to think that we can change it and make it more "real". Yeah I'm biased, cause this is the kind of work I'm going into!

But really people?? Come on!

Thanks for listening to my rant. I don't know why it came up but it did.