Media has control? I think not.

     Over the course of a few weeks, I have learned so much about media and its cruel intentions. It is still surprising to think that advertisers use the media and us to brain wash ourselves. Updating this blog makes me realize that I spend too much of my time consuming media and actually believing what they say. Now that I am aware of media tactics and how it is applied, I am more able to think twice about what actually matters. Every time I see a commercial or sign, I cant stop myself from pointing out several techniques such as avant garde or plain folks. Because of this, I am thankful that I can actually stop myself from buying into their words and prevent myself from getting fooled. This is exactly why having media literacy and being an educated consumer is important. We need to stop ourselves from being cheated. Now that I know why and how the media manipulates me, I try to stay away from it. We are giving media the ability to fool us so, it is up to us the be educated and prevent such things to happen. We give media its powers, therefore it is we that need to stop it.

I'm happy so f*ck off.

     Watching miss representation was not shocking to me. I've seen how much the media may influence a person. What kindof took me by surprise however was to see the average percent of teenage girls who try to alter themselves in order to fit within society's ideals. I knew that some girls were unhappy with the way they looked but I didn't know that 62% of girls go on diets etc in order to look a certain way. Also, another thing that was shocking to me was the idea that girls have been influenced ever since they were young. For example, Disney princess Ariel is seen wearing only a bikini and showing alot of skin. Because tons of little girls admire Ariel, they too would be wanting to wear tiny bikinis in order to be just like Ariel. Almost every single show that has a female playing an important role is skinny. I dont think I've never seen a show where the leading female actors are fat, "normal-acting" people. If there were, they would probably be seen as the stereotypical b*tch or comedian. An example of this would be "Sadie" from Awkward or "Fat Amy" from Pitch Perfect. Even if seen as bitchy or funny fat girls, there would always be a scene where they try to look better by losing weight. "Sadie" appears to be strong and objective to "skitches" (skinny b*tches) but ends up starving herself in one of the episodes. The media's intentions of promoting good health for all is great but its stretching the idea of "good health" too far. Instead of promoting society's idea of the prefect, healthy, and toned body, maybe they should start promoting self confidence. This needs to be done as soon as possible. A person should live life happy and not restricted to society's unrealistic ideals. If a person is happy at 200 lbs, regardless of health issues, so be it.