What I Want, What I Need

If I didn’t see it in a magazine, on a billboard, or across my television how did I know I wanted it? As a teenager I can’t be expected to know what I want for myself, I can’t be expected to be confident to make those decisions on my own, or to even trust in my own parents to make them for me. I need to have mass media make those decisions for me. A teenager seems to always know which brand is the better brand, not based on what anything to do with quality; it has everything to do with the saturation of the market. Now as teenagers, they have no idea what that is, but what they do know is what is being showed to them and told to them over and over and over again. Gloria Steinem says it best, “it’s almost all of it” (Steinem); the rest of it comes from those needy consumers. They see, they want, they believe they actually can’t live without it. Now this isn’t just for selling an item for profit, it goes for selling an idea as well. A very good example of someone selling an idea was given from the article “Analyzing the Genre of the Visual”. The government needed support from women during WWII; full on recruitment efforts, including posters intended to appeal just to women, were featured throughout the country. These posters depicted strong women, images that were meant to evoke a sense of courage, strength and beauty into its audience during a time of great peril. The idea was sold, women joined the workforce. Though keep in mind, when the war ended, many women’s jobs did too, but that’s another discussion. Now in this growing age of “sex sells”, anyone will want about anything if it has enough sex appeal. A few years ago Herbal Essences Shampoo took some inspiration from a popular diner scene of a movie. The shampoo user is overcome by the sheer joy she feels from her shampoo; the softness it gives to her hair and the fragrances that fill the air, the rich later that builds up …she just explodes with a “hairgasm”. Shampoo used to be a very simple product,

Cited: Reid, Stephen. The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers. Eighth Edition New Jersey: Peason Prentice Hall, 2008. Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies, and Advertising” Ms. July 1990. Pdf