The Puppeteers of America

Now days, advertisers try to attract and hold on to customers using physiological tactics. Although many consumers may be angered by this because it may leave them feeling completely hopeless in the battle against it, i find it genius. I have been interesting in marketing for some time now mostly because of the psychological aspect of it. Matthew Blakeslee asks readers if marketers are taping in to that system unknowingly and answers yes himself. This may indeed be true but I would have to disagree. The main goal of marketers is to figure out what the consumer  likes and cater to those wants. In order to promote the exchange of their goods or services they come up with scheming ways to do so such as product placement, distribution, advertising etc. This is where advertising comes in. In order to sell or create a want for a product, there has to be knowledge of what the customer wants. For example, let's take a commercial for McDonalds. In these commericals there are happy families eating, women (specifically) laughing in to their salad bowls, people on cheap dates having the time of their life, singing and beat boxing in cars, etc. The person sitting on the couch is there right along with them like "wow, i remember when that was me at McDonalds." or "I remember the last time i was that happy" or even, "man, i wish that was me. Mcdonalds looks like its the place to be." They give off this image that McDonalds is a place full of joy and happiness, go there with family or friends and have the time of your life. It creates a feeling inside of you that goes along side other memories of happiness you may have and triggers that chain of memories. Blakeslee talks about the limbic system structure called the amygdala. The amygdala makes memories with strong emotional attachments a more prominent memory. Speaking about how these emotion ridden memories effect our new encounters he says,"...whenever you re-encounter that stimulus you will immediately associate it with the pleasure [or aversion] you first experienced. Now every time you think about or watch McDonalds commercials, subconsciously youre relating it to your own past memories of happiness.There is a quote in Anthony J. Greene's article about the connections we make which states,"It means that memory is integral to thought and that nothing we learn can stand in isolation; we sustain new learning only to the degree we can relate it to what we already know." Advertisers know that they have to trigger an emotion in the viewer in order for their product to be retained in the consumers mind. They also know that these have to be happy emotions if it is something they want someone to buy. The emotion completely depends on what kind of product, service, or idea is being sold because consumers have different motivations for buying or indulging in something. They play on who we are and how we came to be that person with the emotions involved. They just pull on our emotional strings like puppeteers, manipulating us to indulge in this world of consumption.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is something that is encouraged in society but at the same time is greatly discouraged.Uwe Herwig defines mindfulness as having, "purposeful, attentive, and nonjudgemental awareness of the moment" and in order to do so you have to be in-tune with your self and be firm in your identity as well as emotions. There are so many things in society that teach us to be mindful such as yoga, meditation, therapy, etc, which teach us to come in terms with who we are and be at peace with that in order for us to see the world clearly enabling us to be mindful eternally as well as internally. When your mind is in chaos that undoubtedly clouds your judgement and  you arent able to see things as they really. Society discourages mindfulness because of the fast paced, multifaceted aspect of life. There are constantly new things going on in the world that are unimportant but society follows like celebrities for example as well as the new technology coming out. These unimportant things fill our minds with crap clouding our judgement of who we are and our purpose for being. We are a consumer based society and that is all we think about whether we like it or not.

Blog #1

According to Anderson, a "postmodern" world is on full of questioning and uncertainty; everybody questions themselves as well as everything around them.There is that constant battle between determining the truth between science and religion. Due to the fact that there are so many "truths" in modern day society, primarily dealing with these two factors, it's hard to chose what is the real truth and what is a lie. This is partially because the truth is circumstantial, your truth may not be the same as the next persons truth simply because you have a different background and life experiences than the next. Each and every person goes through different things which give them a different out look to their lives and play a large part in what they want to believe. Anderson examines the cultural aspect on the belief of truth stating in From Modern Self To Post Modern Self," They knew what was true because everyone in their tribe or village shared the same values and beliefs." If everyone in your life has the same morals and views as you, then you undoubtedly know it as that one truth, you haven't heard or seen any other away so therefore you cant doubt it because there's no alternative. In postmodern times it's the complete opposite. Cultures are extremely mixed with different religions and beliefs. Now days people are given that alternative along with so many others to decide what to believe. Along with that aspect, he is the aspect of identity. Anderson then speaks about how the "postmodern psychology is in part a response to the times." He explains how in a postmodern world so fast paced, it's only natural for the people in that society to be fast paced as well. This show that people in postmodern society are constantly changing their identity due to natural factors. The lack of truth leads to the lack of identity. If there is a constant change to truth then the truth that is yourself will change in relation to that simply because postmodern times are a time of assimilation and well as striving to be different at the same time.This is made evident in the story Miss Brill. there is a disassociation with her own identity and it shows as well how important the physical appearance has became in postmodern culture and how concerned we are with it. After being in the park and viewing herself as an actress which is ironic because actresses can be whatever they want to be, she is viewing everyone else and has he own insight but when someone expresses their own on her, it causes her to became just that that she was commenting on. This ties in to the technology aspect in postmodern day because in things such as Facebook people are constantly reinventing themselves and looking for approval from their many friends. Pictures aren't posted to just say, "hey, this is my profile." Pictures are seemingly posted to be judged and approved of saying "hey, look at me." Although technology has that aspect of freedom to be whoever due to the space created, it is also a way to reach the masses. With out technology you would have to actually spend large amounts of time with people to really see what they were like. Today you post statuses and comments which give a direct insight in to who you are for the most part.