I’m more interested in the cartoon in this article than I am with the actual article itself. Throughout the whole post (cartoon and article) the author is using logic to eventually make the point that organized religion is outdated. While the article does make some points that are relevant to my topic, the author goes off on a tangent about the childish parts of religion (i.e. Santa and the Easter Bunny). While these are a part of religion, they’re not exactly what I want to talk about.

Something in the article that I do want to point out is the distinguishing between Religion and Spirituality. You can be spiritual and not religious. Furthermore, the author goes on to quote Carl Sagan who said “The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” The easiest way I can distinguish between the two is that people aren’t recruited for spirituality, but they are for religion.

Now on the the cartoon. It’s a long one but I think it pretty accurately sums up the clash between creationists and evolutionists. The cartoon starts out with two characters, named Science and Spirituality, waking up at “the dawn of man.” Both characters start out friendly and equal on all basis of knowledge and they immediately start trying to figure out why they are there and what created their surroundings. Science points out the Suns is appearing everyday and Spirituality proposes that they worship it. From here on out, the two characters take on very different paths.

As Spirituality writes books, so does Science. The only difference is that Science is updating his books while Spirituality is not. Spirituality is obviously supposed to reflect people who lean on religion as law and Science is perceived as the more logical of the two. As science’s Stack of book grow taller and he introduces the law of gravity, Spirituality’s book are fighting among each other. This is interesting part of the cartoon for me. Science grabs a book and starts to read it to figure out why they are all fighting. Inside the book, Science finds that main point is to only believe in that one book and kill anyone who doesn’t. While the author is using humor to make a point, he points out that there is no room for advancement if you can’t believe in anything else. Science keeps pointing out that Spirituality is “far behind him”. Spirituality realizes his mistake but it’s too late because people are so comfortable with the books that Science’s books seem scary and not as concrete.

In the end of the cartoon, Spirituality’s books start to fight Science directly because they hate Science and Science’s books are invalidating them. The whole cartoon is poking fun at religion and science starting out as two different ways to explain natural phenomena, but as science progressed, religion stayed the same, and now religion is so far behind and so ingrained into people’s culture that they are too scared to accept science’s latest explanations.

How Religion Got in the Way

http://www.gutewerbung.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Amnesty-International-Superman.jpg

Before I discuss the advertisement I found, I feel that some context is required.

Superman has been used for marketing many, many times. He’s been used to sell everything from bread and orange juice to insurance. There was a time where you could walk down the aisles of any grocery store and find a Superman-brand something. His image, or images that evoke thoughts about him have been used to sell things. A guy in a suit ripping open his dress shirt to reveal a superhero costume? That’s Superman, no doubt about it. No other comic book character does that. Batman heads to the Bat Cave, Green Lantern’s suit materializes from his Power Ring, and The Flash uses his super speed to change. The shirt rip is unique to Superman. It’s a powerful image, and it efficiently gets its message across when used for marketing. It says something along the lines of: “We may look like a normal company/product/group of people, but we’re really super and we can prove it!”

He’s even been used in PSA-style ads. In the 40s, Superman, Batman, and Robin were used to sell war bonds. There was a set of ads in the 80s where Superman was used to discourage kids from smoking. There was an ad put out around the release of 2006’s Superman Returns that featured Superman with a milk mustache and a read-up promising that if you drank milk, you’d be stronger, even if you weren’t Kryptonian. Besides the fact that the ad was to promote the film, why would Superman be used to encourage kids to drink their milk or discourage them from smoking? It’s because The Man of Steel is heavily associated with strength and dependability in the public conscious. He’s become this revered staple of Americana. Superman would never steer you wrong. He doesn’t lie because he’s the upstanding citizen that we should all strive to be like.

The long and short of it is, Superman is used to either promote dependability/durability or serve as the lovable icon passing on his wisdom.

But with this ad, Superman is used in a totally different way. He’s used in a way that is incredibly rare with this character. In the ad, we see a man wearing a Superman costume, surrounded by green screen. It’s supposed to be a “behind the scenes” look at how they make Superman fly on film. Crew members in green morph suits help create the illusion of the wind blowing his hair, or the flowing of the cape. It deconstructs the idea of Superman being real, or at least as real as other ads make him out to be. This ad takes it and uses it to demonstrate its point: Superheroes aren’t real, and it’s up to us to make a difference in the world. This ad for Amnesty International really stood out to me because it grabs our notions of what a hero is and flips it on its head. Heroes can be everyday people and don’t have to wear costumes to save the world. While this ad can be read as cynical, I actually find it to be inspiring. There isn’t much to say about the ad; it’s pretty straight forward. It can’t be disassembled like other ads to uncover hidden meanings. Its intent is clear and its unconventional use of Superman enhances its message. The product or service isn’t the hero – we are.

The truth about Hipsters from funny

I found this gif on r/funny on the discussion website Reddit. It features 3 hipsters on their macs ordering water from a hipster waiter. This gif was posted with the caption “The Truth About Hipsters” and it depicts 4 characters who dress differently from the average person you see on the streets. Trends that identify them as hipsters are their edgy haircuts, the odd clothes they are wearing and the fact that they all have Macs. Redditors (As the people of reddit are called) posted this meme to get a laugh at the irony of the hipsters spending choices. Hipsters are known for hanging out at fancy coffee bars on their expensive computers all day. Many redditors had stories about a coworker or a cousin who spent way too much money on a Mac. The running joke on reddit is that hipsters care way too much about fitting a certain image. They have to have the expensive Mac, the edgy new age look and they almost always appear in expensive cafes with snobby baristas. At the end of the gif we see the barista make the joke that they all have macs, yet all they can afford is water. The reddit community for the most part seems to have a bad image of hipsters. As one redditor put it, “you’re a leech”. This clip is meant to shed criticism on what many believe to be a hindrance on society.

Hipsters are seen as young people who like to act out by appearing rebellious and against the mainstream culture. Yet if they are so individualistic then why is it so easy to categorize them so accurately. It seems like everyone knows the ‘hipster type’. People spot them out of a crowd and cringe at their attempts to be rebellious, while they simultaneously follow what their crowd is doing. The crowd comments on how they spend all their money to fit this certain image to the point where they go into debt. When people see hipsters they see posers, self-destructive individuals, picky, particular, idiots, and cheap assholes. You yourself have probably thought these things a few times about the guy next to you that only drinks Indian Pale Ale’s because he’s too good for Budweiser.

People hold feelings of resentment for hipsters and it’s very evident online at the comments you find on reddit. “…people that do this and don’t contribute to the business are scumbags.” This user is commenting on the fact that hipsters don’t pay for anything in a cafe. He thinks they just bring their computers and take up seats while never ordering a single thing of the menu. This user also says “I’ll go to a coffee shop or similar place and purchase something 100% of the time, even if I don’t really want or need it.” He says this because he thinks this to be the decent thing to do when you go to a cafe and I don’t disagree with him. If owners are trying to bring in profit and you’re just taking up space, using their internet and not ordering anything then you kind of suck.

First off, I just want to let the picture speak for itself. (scroll for analysis)

This is not your typical advertisement in that, I surfed the web or found it in some magazine. This picture was taken when I was in Seoul, South Korea in 2013 doing a study abroad. As my interests lie in K-Pop, when I visited South Korea, anything related to artists I liked, from ads to cut outs, I took a picture of it. In this case, I took a picture of this ad for the English usage. This is an ad for the theme park called Ocean World. The group Sistar is promoting how much fun it is to go to this park. Now usually there is a tag line that is associated with a product or place that most people know regardless of whether or not they use the product or visit the place. Think about Nike, McDonald’s or Burger King.  Well this ad’s tag line just happens to be in English and as you can see they were clearly unaware of the connotations attached to the word climax. Yeah I know, we’ve all got a perverse sense of humor. But when I tried to explain what native English speakers think of when they hear/see that phrase, you could just imagine the looks. Koreans go by the primary definition and it never crossed their mind that we would see it differently.

When I see this ad, the first thing that comes to mind is the phrase “Never Ending CLIMAX”. Why is climax in all caps?  Then I wonder, why is the tagline in English? That’s not your country’s language, so why use it when you’re promoting something in Korea? Yes you have a vast amount of tourist coming in that speak a plethora of different languages and you want to reach the English speaking tourists but clearly you don’t understand as much about English as you think you do.  After getting past the English faux pas, I become aware of the two Sistar members doing some sort of magic on the right. One shooting water and one spinning an orb of water. Does that mean that the other two members are only tagging along for the never ending climax? Are their friends needed to part of the experience? If so, that’s a little bit too much companionship for me. I can reach my own never ending climax without having a group of people tagging along. But then it stands to reason that maybe you need the companionship, because in Korea, everything is promoted through groups, couples or families. I don’t think I have seen an ad that is entirely for those that are single without it turning into something you share with friends. And what about those two who don’t have the magic abilities, having fun on the opposite side of the picture? Without the magic, are they free to enjoy Ocean World, while the magically able do not? Clearly, I have an overactive imagination.

         Before and after pictures usually convey people who have undergone a major transformation. Most likely a before and after photograph will consist of an altering cosmetic procedure or a dramatic change in weight (majority of which will have young adults/adults as the main subject). About thirty minutes ago I typed in negative body image on Google and one of the result images that came up was a before and after photograph of a female child. The visual of the image was a young girl (between the age of nine to eleven) and it displayed the child before and after she “glamorized” herself. Now if the subject of the image were to have been the before and after of a child with an improvement on a medical condition I am not sure if I would have been as confounded as I am now. This image really caught my eye because it demonstrates how early on young girls are pushed into the world of beauty. 

          I for one really enjoy make up and fashion. I however was not allowed to wear make up until my freshman year in high school. This made me question, is there an appropriate age for “glam?” Does the age in when one starts wearing make up change your self beauty image? Is there any correlation between negative body/beauty image and make up. Time is forever changing and in present day I have noticed younger girls with full faces of make up on. Every time I see a child wearing make up I am unsure as to how I should feel. Am I suppose to freak out because a nine year old child now looks eighteen! Or should I see it as normal because they are only applying make up on a child for the purpose of a beauty competition (are they really though). Does the young girl in the before and after photograph really feel as pretty without all of the make up on? Does she still feel beautiful when her hair isn’t as big and full of hair spray? How does this image convey the meaning of beauty to other young girls?

          If I were to ask a young girl or boy which image is the girl most pretty I would expect for their answer to be, “the girl looks most pretty in the before picture.” However I’m not to sure that this would be the answer in today’s youth. The more I look at this picture the more I feel like make up does not belong on children.  I think that images like this one distort the perception of beauty and the representation of it amongst children.