Walking Talking Billboards

This article by Kate Zernike is a lot like the article "Salespeak", which I wrote about in my previous blog, but this idea is not the first time this has happened. The next time you watch professional volleyball or NASCAR, look at what they participants are wear. They are promoting companys such as Oakley, Mountain Dew, Interstate Batteries, and many others. The horizon is the limit because this will continue to happen as long as companies have to fight for sales. This is even happening to our kids as young as 4 or 5 years old. If you played a sport in your hometown, wasn't your team usually sponsored by someone. Anyone will do something to get that extra edge over the other competition no matter if you sponsor a youth baseball team or a 30 years old man driving race cars. It all go towards one goal, and that is to promote items so people will by. Advertising has not just become something you put on a sign; it take strategy and planning to really find a way to make your product the best thing since sliced bread. The world around us is evolving toward this new form of advertisement, and I don't know how much further they can go?

Is advertising the new form of technology?

Every where you look in the world today, some one is trying to sell you something. Whether it be car insurance or a new can of soda. None the less, companies are on the rise with trying to make their brand superior to others. They try using catchy jingles or a talking gecko, but the sad part is, they work. No matter how hard you try to avoid all the ads, you find yourself singing the jingle or referring something in your day to the gecko. Besides the point, advertising has become one of the most used forms of technology over the past ten years. How can you not drive down a highway or a road without see a billboard or a sign trying to sell you something. You just take it now as a part of your life. You may not realize this because it is so common, but gas stations are the biggest forms of advertisement today. When have you drove around to find the best price for gas even though it was only by a couple of cents. We don't realize it now because are lives have become a form of advertisement. It kinda hard to come by, but if you think about, when have went somewhere because you saw a sign or a flier. It's scary to think about, but even we, as people, are walking forms of advertisement.

Is privacy really privacy?

In Alan Finder's article, "When a Risque Online Persona Undermines a chance for a job," he talks about the digital world, mainly the Internet, as a tool for company and even schools to look at how a person might be acting in their everyday life. Mainly, a job interview is one of the most important thing in your life because it may make or break what you do in your life. Now, facebook is one of the main culprits as to why people are getting turned down from job opportunity because of the fact they people put inappropriate pictures up on pages. Now, for a company, they might come of as; well they may only focus on how I perform in the interview or they won't look on my facebook or my space because it's blocked. Well, to tell you the truth, you may not be completely safe because if a company really wants to find out who you are; they will. For me, I'm trying to get an internship over the summer and I don't want anything to mess it up. I do have a couple inappropriate things on my facebook as well as I do have it blocked to only the people I'm friends with, but just to be sure, I probably will delete those pictures. I don't want something in my past to affect my future that I've work hard for.

What's wrong with Cinderalla

This story for me is very hard to comprehend because I grew up with a brother and the only thing we both wanted to do was play sports outside and come home dirty to the point where my mom would make us change in the garage. I've never had to face the whole princess phase because it never came up in my life, but in the past few years, when my cousin got married and had kids, I came to realize what the princess phase is. My cousin had a girl about 4 years ago and right when she was born, she instantly became a princess. Then, two months later, my other cousin had a baby girl who was instantly a princess. As they went from infant to small child, they fell in love with princess and barbies and it's only because that's what they were attracted to. Now, one of the 4 years olds doesn't take crap from her older brother, who is 6. Now, I don't think that because she likes princesses that she's automatically a prissy girl. Little girls might like something like princesses or barbies, but that shouldn't decide their futures. I have come to realize that I don't have much say in this topic, but from my observation with my cousin's little girl, that is something she likes and that's it.

One or Two Lives

The Internet for me is a place I go to and look at my fantasy sports teams, facebook, the weather, and my e-mail. Its very easy to also write a research paper without leaving your house, but besides the point, the Internet has become to much of a way to meet people. Now, I know that facebook has that appearance to it but you can choose to make it private and accept the friends you want to look at your personal information and pictures of you. Now the whole digital or cyberspace that goes on I feel has bad news written all over it. I know that everyone on those sites aren't all stalkers or bad people because a lot of people will say they met their husband or wive on them. What bothers me is the people that do use it to create false identity and lure people into traps. It's amazing that things like Second Life can exist because it really shows how technology has grown in the past years. It's just a very touchy subject for me because if you want to be the person you are in Second life, then why not make it real in your own life.

The effects Plagiarism have on kids

Plagiarism is a very serious thing in high and college these days because of computers and search engines. Today, you can find anything on the Internet with just a click of a button and that brings into the account that kids will do anything to get done a paper or an article in seconds. The rules are pretty cut and dry in most place because you cannot steal from anyone without providing them with the credit of writing it. Yet, the person who wrote that statement may have heard it from someone else and just simply posted it on the Internet as an information resource. Needless to say, kids are pressured to come up with facts and site them accordingly, but there are certain things where you may not even know you are plagiarizing. All and all, the guidelines have to be followed so give the credit to those that deserve it and the rest should come from you strictly because you are the one interpreting the situation.

Cultural changes from the past to the future

The descriptions of the 1950s in the minds of young people today are viewed as the old way of life. We view things today as the new, beneficial way of life, but do we know what we were missing during the time our parents were young. In the readings, they speak of how art was viewed as a group experience and not just personal things that comes from inside you. When my Dad talks about things he did when he was younger, like listen to music with his friends or play baseball everyday for fun, that was his art. He surrounded himself with people and shared their talents together. Today it seems like everyone wants art to themselves and share it with no one. Artists, athletes, musicians, etc. all want to keep their greatness inside and only reveal it when it counts. We might have advanced technology these days to get things done faster, but are we missing out on the opinions of others all around the world. In, the 1950s and 1960s, people used to listen to other people on the radio and in newspapers together and gather an over all fact of what the world was, but today, we want nothing to do with the opinions that might one day make us better. Our culture might have changed technologically, but it might not have been for the good because the world is becoming more and more personal to everyone.