This month’s “Cosmopolitan” advertises on the cover, “Scents to seduce any
man.” They are saying that if you buy the magazine to read about the
scents, you can seduce whatever man you. The magazine is full of these
empty promises, such as how to dress your man to look like a celebrity or
how to get hair like the celebrities on the red carpet. This technique is
not just seen in magazines, but all over our country. Commercials today
are filled with celebrities and athletes to target men and women of all
ages. An example for gentlemen is the Gillette razor commercial featuring
Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, and Derek Jeter. And ladies see the new
Maybelline mascara commercial featuring Drew Barrymore all the time. They
are advertising the image of these celebrities rather than the actual
success of the product. It is hard to escape from the advertising methods
in our culture today. This is why I believe most advertising in our
current society is negatively affecting citizens, specifically
college-aged individuals, in our country.
As I and my peers have come to college now, we have probably realized we
have a little more free time because we are not in class all day, or we
have not fully developed those time management skills. In this free time,
we can get caught up in watching television or constantly being on the
internet. While we may not realize it, we are being exposed to so much
advertising here. Commercials take up about 1/3 of a t.v. show’s time and
advertisements are all over the internet.
We need to learn to be smart about what we believe in these
advertisements. We need to realize it is a way of selling products, and
no matter how hard we try, we won’t look like Jessica Alba for wearing a
certain foundation or play like Peyton Manning for drinking a new flavor
of Gatorade. We all really need to learn to be comfortable with who we
are. Each person really is beautiful, and we should embrace that
uniqueness.