Media literacy is my favorite thing because before media literacy was conceptualized people were vastly throwing back information they got from media like spiked Kool-Aid on a hot summer day. It may tantalize the senses with all the sugar and artificial flavor or in this case dramatic information, but either way, you may be feeling pleasure while in reality, you may be poisoning your mind with false information. “Whether you’re at work or school or just hanging out chances are you are almost always interacting with some sort of artifact of communication,” (Introduction to Media Literacy: Crash Course Media Literacy #1).
The popular culture we are sold and made to believe in through societal standards can have devastating effects on one’s natural character. There are so many facets of popular culture that individuals may not even be aware of its effect on them in the moment. “Selling culture goes well beyond just food and clothing. Popular music and other forms of entertainment (video games, movies, etc.) are huge commercial entities marketing products well outside their places of origin,” (Dorrell).
Really consider the quote above. Hierarchal diffusion causes popular culture to impact not just the culture it came from but many others. That means the same false news, false beauty standards, and false ideas of what is precious that are propagated by Western popular culture are spread across the globe. All of these ideals are based on trends that are most often large corporations’ proponents. If the entire world is made aware and made to believe in all of these Western ideals, many people may feel that they are falling short if they do not look a certain way, or do not have access to or cannot afford certain things that are in line with popular culture.
After watching “Hundreds of iPhones Are in ‘Ted Lasso.’ They’re More Strategic Than You Think” by the WSJ, I was incredibly intrigued by the number of Apple products found in the show. What a great marketing scheme Apple has found. Someone within their organization came up with the terribly genius idea to not only make more money by creating movies and TV shows but to combine the illusory truth effect with the mere-exposure effect to get people to buy more Apple products.
The illusory truth effect is a phenomenon that “is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure,” (Wikipedia). The mere-exposure effect is a “phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them,” (Wikipedia). Both of these phenomena play a huge part in popular culture and the success of branding. One can be unknowingly convinced of something completely false or dehumanizing simply because they are having it constantly jammed down their throats through many different mediums.
Popular culture influenced me much more in my earlier days. I grew up in an era where the internet was still very much figuring itself out. Resources for finding community were limited and the images that dominated the screens were cis-gender white men and women. As for the women they were usually tall, blonde, and incredibly skinny. For me growing up as a melting pot with Latin, Middle Eastern, and Eastern European origins, there was not a single woman I can remember seeing who looked like me in the modeling industry, which is what young girls often epitomize as the standard of beauty.
This affected me greatly and caused me to throw my culture away in public because of the intense desire to fit in and be accepted by my peers. I would bleach my hair and starve myself to alter my fit but naturally curvaceous frame body. Luckily this did not last very long, just a few years in middle school and early high school, but it makes me shudder with intensity when I look back on how less than I felt because of what mainstream media, or popular culture, was pushing. I was holding myself to an Aryan standard of beauty perpetuated by Nazism and continued by Western society, the same people who slaughtered my ancestors.
Only in the last few years am I seeing women who look like me regularly represented in popular culture beyond just a few (incredible) icons. I shed tears for the young girls of my generation and generations past who hurt themselves to fit in with a society that did not love us for who we are. And just for those in the back, we (women) come in endless shapes, colors, and sizes and all of them are worthy and all of them are beautiful, and if someone ever tells you any different, kick them to the curb.
Ruby Cayenne 