Gucci Gang

       The popular hip-hop and trap music artist, Lil Pump, released a new album this year and his most known song features advertising in the name and throughout the lyrics. "Gucci Gang" was released earlier this year and quickly became Lil Pump's most played song. Gucci Gang follows the style of trap music with negative and aggressive messages and many references to drugs and bad language. Today's generation loves their rap and trap music and recently, white rappers have been making their debuts and hitting top charts. Lil Pump is a seventeen year old who started off as a Soundcloud rapper and his identity grew to where he is today.
       The song Gucci Gang mentions how Lil Pump is spending so much money on the brand because he can. He's rapping about all the stuff he can now afford and all the expensive and exclusive things he has access to. At the beginning of the song, the lyrics: "Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang" are repeated eight times and continue coming up throughout the song. Lil Pump also mentions his interest in a few other brands: "I can't buy a ***** no wedding ring, rather go and buy Balmains". Balmain is a very expensive French brand featuring four-thousand dollar blazers and thousand dollar jeans. When Lil Pump sings about brands like this, he advertises for them because people who listen to the song will go on repeating the brand names. This process is called branding and usually the artist is part of a deal with the brand or hoping for a future deal if they're using the name frequently.
       Lil Pump sings about such expensive brands that common folk don't have access too. His audience hears the music and wants to feel affiliated with him, so they turn to the brands and buy products from them. Also, Lil Pump refers to the people wearing Gucci as a "gang" which creates an exclusive environment that people want to be a part of. Everyone who likes Lil Pump will want to fit in with the crowd and this is how Avante Garde works. The listeners want to buy Gucci so they can be ahead of the trends and they can feel like they're part of Lil Pump's exclusive club when in reality they're not because everyone who can afford it has access to Gucci products.

       Lil Pump's song is catchy and is played on the radio which gives it a wide audience. The lyrics are even used in conversations as a phrase. When people are referring to an exclusive group, they might say something like: "Yeah we're in the Gucci Gang" so they can stand out as different and meet the need for autonomy. The song also relates to the Snob Appeal technique because listeners will feel like part of an elite group for having this musical connection with such a wealthy young person. It portrays a lifestyle of recklessness and having fun and although it has bad messages, the song makes the lifestyle seem appealing to people.

Skinny Water and Bad Advertising

       Skinny water is a drink enhanced with ingredients that can help maximize weight loss when combined with a steady diet and daily exercise. It's said to help control sugar cravings as well. Skinny water comes in bright colors, looks tasty and seems to be a healthier vitamin water, but it's advertisement is sending out the wrong message. Skinny Water's advertisement portrays four tall, slender women with skinny legs, tiny waists, fashionable outfits, and a confident posture. In front of the women is eight different brightly colored bottles of Skinny Water with the message, "Strut your Skinny" and "Skinny Water: 0 calories, 0 sugar, 0 sodium, and 0 guilt". This advertisement is sending out the idea that eating unhealthy or drinking things with sugar should make you feel guilty, so the only way to feel good about yourself is to drink this brand and be thin. It also portrays that being skinny is the best way to live and that this water alone can get you that body (because the advertisement doesn't mention anything about the process it requires and the diet/exercise factors).
       The advertisement is extremely biased because the models are all young caucasian women. This is who the product is aimed at because young women will see this and wish to look like the girls in the advertisement and they might be encouraged to buy the Skinny Water. This message is negative and goes against the goals of today's society. Eating disorders are a major problem in todays world and at least 30 million people of all ages and genders are suffering from an eating disorder in the United States. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and every 62 minutes, at least one person dies from the direct result of an eating disorder. The Skinny Water Campaign indirectly encourages people to eat less and drink more of their product if they want to achieve that skinny body to strut around. This advertisement also adds to the unfortunate expectations in society. Many young people of all genders face the issue of body image and self-confidence. This is one of the biggest struggles for teenagers and young adults and to help dismiss it, we should be encouraging all people to accept themselves and appreciate their unique bodies. Instead, Skinny Water makes people feel like they need to be slim to fit in and they need to consume very few calories, sugar, and sodium to be guilt-free.
       The Skinny Water advertisement meets the viewers physiological needs. This enhanced drink is described to be a necessity to life and like you can't live a happy life or lose any weight without it. This attracts the consumer because they want to meet these goals so they buy the product. The campaign uses the technique of Glittering Generalities with the words "skinny" and "0 guilt" to help sell the product. The viewer sees these and immediately wants to feel that way, so they're drawn in to the product and they become absorbed in this unhealthy lifestyle. Skinny Water also uses the Simple Solutions technique because the advertisement doesn't mention that the drink won't make you skinny unless you also exercise and eat healthy. It makes it seem as though something as simple as purchasing the product will give you that skinny body you desire. Lastly, the technique of Transfer Association was used, but it had more of a negative impact. Skinny Water intended to have the word "skinny" be associated with their product so whenever people thought of that body image they wanted to achieve, they'd think of Skinny Water. However, this has a negative connotation because it reinforces the unhealthy expectations and lifestyles that society is trying to move away from. Skinny Water's campaign draws attention, but it has a negative message that shouldn't be reminded throughout the world in advertising.

The Attraction of Social Media

       Social media started out as a way to keep people updated on your daily life, your hobbies and most  photographs, but over time it’s morphed into streams of people bragging, comparing themselves, and putting themselves in unhealthy situations. Ever since apps were invented with wireless phones and data, people have invested themselves into trying to stay with the fads of having all the best games and apps. It’s become a global epidemic of people losing track of what really matters or who they truly are just so that they can have the best social media status. It seems like social media has more negative impacts than positive, so you might be thinking, why do people like it and continue using it?
       Social media meets many human needs that we all share. Everyone wants to fit in with their peers and not stand out as weird, so they join the bandwagon and download the hottest apps and follow the most popular users so they can acquire that need for affiliation. Social media also has the ability to meet your need for guidance because you can follow the people you admire and you can see how they live their lives. Also, commonly used social media apps like twitter, instagram, snapchat, youtube, facebook, etc. all share the same feature of having followers. This means that if you create a user, the  people you know can follow you which gives you the sense that people are there to hear and see what you have to say and it provides comfort. Our need for autonomy is met with social media because carefully choosing and planning your posts can bring you attention and help you stand out as unique and quirky. One of the biggest reasons people use social media it to meet the need for attention. Social media gives you the oppurtunity to say or show yourself in any way you want without direct judgement. This allows people to rant about their lives, overshare, post revealing images, and so on without feeling guilty because they aren’t seeing themselves like how others are seeing the posts. If people desire attention, they aim to get as many followers as possible and they get so caught up in this false world of thinking that followers are the most important thing when in reality they might start losing friends because of the things they had to risk to get their followers. The need to escape is met with social media because people can live their whole lives on it and they have the power to show themselves to the world the way they choose and they can project their lives to be different than how it might really be. They use it as a way to escape from reality to a place where life is easier. Lastly, the need for aesthetic sensations is one of the reasons people revert to social media. People want to see pleasing images and creative ideas, and on apps such as instagram, entire accounts are dedicated to satisfying videos or beautiful artwork. These needs are mostly natural and people all over the world want to meet them and social media is the only way they know how. Social media keeps thriving and is on the rise because everyone uses it to bring themselves pleasure although the good things all have downsides that come with them.
      Along with meeting desires and needs, social media is attractive to today’s society because the popularity and judgement it gives. This might seem like a reason to stay away from social media, but to some people, it just makes their desire stronger because they feel like they have to meet societies expectations to be deemed “cool”. “If you don’t get at least 100 likes on your instagram post, you’re not popular. If you don’t have at least 10 snapchat streaks, you don’t have friends; if you’re youtube video doesn’t get at least 1,000 views, you’re not worth it. If you don’t get retweets and likes on all your tweets and if you’re not following all the major celebrities and politicians, you’re not woke.” These are words that surround the social media world and they create standards that people want to meet so they stick with the app until they feel they met their expectation. Social media is  like a trap where you’re put into a fake world and you’re trying to impress other people with virtual abilities when obtaining these usually means you also have to take risks that can interfere with your real life.       Social media has techniques that make people never want to leave it. With snapchat streaks and daily videos and posts, people go back to the app hourly, if not more, to make sure they aren’t missing out on anything. It’s become an addiction in society to the point where people have trouble even being in different rooms from their electronics for long periods of time. Bright screens have also become an addiction and a health problem because people stare at them for so many hours every day that when they read a book or go outside, their eyes hurt and they want to go back to the “comforting”, fluorescent glow of their phone or laptop.      Social media can continue being broken down into the various techniques it uses, but there are so many. What’s mentioned above covers just a small portion of the reasons people use social media  and most of them were indirect. There’s also a lot of direct techniques of social media that involve colors, the rapid amount of information that can be accessed so easily, and the openness to see things about the other side of the world. Social media is cleverly planned and it definitely has unhealthy effects, but people are happy using it so it will continue to grow in society. 

#What'sUpWithAllTheHashtags

       What is a hashtag? The youth of today's community are experts on them because they can be found on every social media source and they connect phrases or slogans with posts. Hashtags are most commonly used on Twitter and Instagram as tags to accompany posts that sum up the main point of what you did or said with one or two words. They're catchy and spread quickly by other people using the same hashtag, or repeating it in verbal conversations to be relatable with others. Anyone sharing information on a relevant topic might use a hashtag to be a label with their message. Hashtags bring about a sense of community just like how buying a bottle of Coke might give you a sense of belonging. When you buy Coke, you feel like you fit in because everyone drinks it and their campaign is to share with friends. When you use a hashtag, you're automatically put into a community full of other people who used that same hashtag at some point. When you post something that says "#summer", you can click on the hashtag and it takes you to all the other posts on that app that use that same hashtag and it shows the community of people who captioned their picture or tweet with #summer. In this sense, hashtags are popular because people want to be relatable and have a catchy phrase that people will remember to go along with their post.
       Hashtags meet the worldly need for affiliation because people will use them so they can fit in with the crowd. The hashtag was a clever idea because it can be used with a brand to help promote campaigns while being short and memorable. They can also be used on private posts just as a way to connect with other people and prove that you are part of the same trend and group. Hashtags categorize content and can help focus in on certain interests. Part of Instagram's most recent update was to allow users to follow Instagram Stories by hashtags so that everything they watch will be about the specific hashtag. This is a technique to make people engage with other online users over common themes or interests.
       Hashtags are used to make someone appear trendy and creative, but their frequent usage also connects to something George Orwell mentioned in his response to the changing English language. Hashtags are a lazy way to create sentences that are short and choppy and don't require much thinking. They can help you avoid expressing your thoughts because they're ready-made and tend to be one or two words in order to have a clear message. George Orwell mentioned how people are referring back to old words or ready-made phrases because we're too lazy to think for ourselves. A hashtag is an easy path people choose to take so they can steer clear of thinking for themselves and putting together detailed sentences. A sequence of hashtags strung together can get a point across in bits and pieces without having transition words or details and it usually results in the reader being frustrated because they don't full understand. Hashtags are common because they're easy and simple for the person using it; and they help you feel a sense of belonging which is something that everyone desires.

Advertisement Techniques

       Corona is a brand of beer that uses interesting advertising techniques to make their product seem desirable. With this billboard, the advertiser wants the viewer to feel like Corona is paradise or can take you to paradise. The advertiser wants the viewer to feel deluxe when they drink Corona and they portray the idea that Corona brings the fun and relaxation of the beach, but all within a small can. The target audience of this billboard is people over 21 who drink, and especially people who feel like they need to relax. It's not specific to race or ethnicity, but it's part of the international market with the idea behind it of traveling the world. Although the advertisement doesn't seem specific to gender, men are the primary target audience and typically around 21-35 year olds looking for fun and not taking life super seriously. Camera angle, colors, and font are all important in advertising techniques because that's what makes the advertisement stand out and be rememberable. The camera angle is straight-on and features a bright blue, blurred out beach in the background with the Corona can closer up as the main focus point. The can is eye-level and this puts the viewer's attention on the can and shows a beautiful setting that people will associate with Corona. The billboard has bright colors and looks warm and inviting. With the beach scene, the lighting appears natural to make Corona seem like a good, natural drink. The Corona can is highlighted with a lime next to it which makes the drink look fresh and there's no shadows or dark spots which portrays the product as happy and light. The entire billboard is blue, with blue sky, clear blue waters, and the white and blue can. These colors affect the tone by making it seem relaxed and natural. The mood is calm and inviting and because so many people connect beaches with vacation, this connects Corona with the relaxed, laid-back mood of a vacation. The colors send the message that Corona will make you happy and help you live a brighter, more fun life. The text is white and thick letters of a typical font. The writing is large and in the center of the picture to draw attention. It says, "Beaches come in all shapes and sizes" which gives the impression that Corona cans hold the same enjoyment and pleasures as a beach and anyone can access this feeling by buying Corona. 

       Additional advertising techniques being used help the consumer feel like they need to buy the product. The technique of "Transfer Association" is being used because the beach is a positive connotation about a happy place and it associates the product with a beach state of mind. "Glittering Generalities" is used with the beach image and sliced lime next to the can to give an appealing image that connects to the product. It gives a message that Corona will be like a beach in a can and will make your life more chill and fun if you drink it. The advertisement also fulfills some emotional needs such as the need to escape. The Corona advertisement offers the feeling of being at a beach without having to go through the troubles of traveling. It's offering an adventure that you cannot usually have and captures the fun of living in the moment and going to the beach by just grabbing a can. This works because it makes the viewer feel like they can escape to the beach and out of reality with a Corona. 

       This Corona advertisement makes a few assumptions about the consumers buying the product. It's assuming that those who can afford Corona (the upper middle class) will get this relaxing experience and can get happiness whenever they grab a can. Because Corona is a Mexican brand, it could be assuming that Mexicans drink Corona because they don't take life too seriously and they just want to escape reality and take a trip to the beach. Also, because men tend to drink beer more than women, this advertisement could be assuming that men should relax and take a break while women continue on with their lives. These assumptions are not very realistic because a can of beer cannot take you to the beach or let you feel the same way you do on vacation. Assumptions usually reinforce stereotypes that men like beer more, and that young white men especially want it because they don't take life seriously. These assumptions might be helping the beer sell, but they're incorrect and support false stereotypes that create negative messages. 

Advertisement Techniques

This is an advertisement for a McDonald's quarter pounder. Every day, you see about 5,000 advertisements, but your mind is only aware of about 75 of them. Every year, an American child sees and acknowledges over a thousand fast food ads and about 255 of them are for McDonald's. This specific advertisement for McDonald's uses multiple techniques that draw the viewer in and give a positive message out about the product. This quarter pounder advertisement portrays a "Need for guidance" because McDonald's is offering that they can make everything better and help you live a better life if you buy this new quarter pounder. You won't have to worry about your problems anymore because McDonald's can solve them for you and guide you through any difficulties you face. Another technique being used is "Avante Garde" because the advertisement says this quarter pounder is new, and there's an appeal to buying something new because it can put the viewer head of the game if they're the first person to try it. This encourages the consumer to go buy the product so they can have a sense of achievement for getting it first. It also uses the technique of "Simple Solutions" because by purchasing the quarter pounder, you can have your problems solved and your life will be better. The advertisement promises that this product will attack your problems and make things better. Another technique used is "Glittering Generalities" because the advertisement uses the word "deluxe" which helps sell the product by making it seem special and luxurious. It sends out the message that buying this quarter pounder will change your life and make everything seem great. Also, the colors and camera angle help this advertisement stand out because the hamburger being featured is in the direct center and brightly colored, with light coming out from behind it and bright, bold writing announcing the product. Underneath the burger is also a McDonald's logo and the short catchphrase, "Make it better" so people can remember what this quarter pounder will do for you. The quarter pounder is photographed and edited to seem juicy and delicious when in reality, everyone knows a McDonald's burger never looks like how they make it seem in the advertisements. This advertisement uses good techniques to enhance the product being sold, and interesting persuasion words to make it seem like people can't live without it.

This is a chart that shows how many fast food advertisements kids in the United States see each year, and also which restaurants have the most advertisements that kids acknowledge and remember. 

Changing My Use of Social Media

Lately, I've been trying to change the ways I use social media and I've been trying not to rely on it so much. When I'm out on a walk, I try to look around and appreciate my surroundings instead of being glued to a screen. When I'm spending time with family or friends I try to engage in conversations and make eye contact instead of letting my eyes flicker down to the welcoming glow from my phone. I've been working towards letting go of electronics and social media and entertaining myself with healthier things like reading or living in the moment with my family. Another way I've tried to disconnect more is leaving my phone at home when I'm spending time with people, not bringing it in my pocket to the dinner table, and not carrying it around the house constantly. I am taking small steps to let go and hopefully I can reach the point where I don't resort to going on my phone whenever I'm around people or out in public. From what I've learned in my studies of media, I see how common it is for people to compare themselves to others that they see on social media. For example, on instagram your feed can be filled with supermodels and actors and athletes and their images create high expectations for yourself. Along with this comes comparisons between your body image, your privileges and what you do in life. This is an unhealthy way to live because it puts you down and can cause depression when you can't make your life like the one's you see online. Now that I know this, I try not to let myself scroll through pictures of famous people because I end up making comparisons and feeling bad about my life. Instead, I've learned to view it differently and to take these images and use them as inspiration to work harder and to acknowledge how had these people must've worked to look that certain way or to have that type of lifestyle. My studies of media have also taught me how brands are trying so hard to draw people in and make them attached. With this knowledge I've become more aware of the strategies of advertising and I don't let myself fall into traps and the false expectations created when brands say they're "newer, better, and worth every penny". On the internet, driving around town, and watching TV, I open myself up to be influenced by these advertisements because they're found all over the place. With my new awareness I am becoming stronger and better at resisting brands that are trying to pull me in and give me that sense of belonging. As a result of studying media, I gained awareness that helps me stay confident in myself and not feel like I need a brand to complete me or make me part of a community.