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“I beat myself up every day, without so much as a scratch”

Terri Guillemets

Honestly have you ever come across something embarrassing that was advertised by a big name company or even a start up company. It’s not uncommon a lot of people do it sometimes they don’t even notice. It doesn’t have even have to be a image people can attack others verbally. People don’t seem to get what their doing is a form of discrimination. Weather it be discriminating a shoe for another shoe, a gender to another gender, a place to another place ect. For instance the example up top the company may be trying to advertise their waist trainers, but they are also attacking girls with a more rounded appearance. People come in different shapes and sizes it is not fair to said people to just go an bluntly state that the way they look is not acceptable. Especially in modern society since there is more interconnectedness throughout the world. Most would do well to understand the consequences of their words when they talk. Sadly people don’t tend to notice what they do unless it actually refers to them. Even then they will use harmful words to refer to themselves as a form of self hate which has surprisingly popular.

Society chooses to show these demeaning photos. Companies are not being forced to exhibit such things. The government is not demanding that they do. So why do they advertise things that make people insecure and ashamed. They do this because they know it will work, because big name companies know that if they use what we are afraid of and what we are unsure or insecure of it is easy to manipulate people. The reason this tactic is so successful is because no one can really say that they don’t have problems, that they aren’t perfect. People want to be perfect but they can’t because perfection isn’t possible. Society advertises perfection the perfect woman, the perfect man, the perfect life, the perfect family ect.

It is common knowledge that we can’t reach perfection as it is advertised therefore why is it that we still reached for perfection. We know its not possible so why? We would do well to ask each other this question.

We all have goals and ideals of what we want in life. We want to be happy, we want to be healthy, we want to have loving relationships, and we want to have purpose. It’s a form if manipulation that has been used for centuries. It uses the promotion of different types of advertisement to ‘brainwash’ the public with ideals implemented by the government or some other ruling power. At this present time this ruling power takes the form of the media, name brand companies, and the surrounding public’s opinions. This makes it easy for advertisers to take hold of the people and implement their ideas thought these ruling powers.  Advertising industry still gets away with gender stereotyping. It’s not okay.

This tactic is known by the name propaganda now though its just called advertisement. That’s the real problem here not just the fact that we’re being inconsiderate with our words and actions (advertisement). Every newspaper, magazine, news channel, radio station, advertisement, or any other types of mass media contain elements of propaganda.. The fact that this is the norm is the overall problem. It’s normal for people to disrespect and degrade each other. We even do it to ourselves with self hate. We implement ideas that have been shown to us since we were children to learn our imperfections and our problems. Creating an awareness of what needs to be ‘fixed’ meaning what is deemed by society norms to be appropriate or acceptable.

With outside influence we twist this awareness into self hate when we understand our problems and saturate ourselves with insults and discrimination. Bring awareness to this is important as none has that right to disrespect someone not even themselves. This hate can grow to uncomfortable and harmful levels which leaves people ashamed and embarrassed of themselves possibly to the point of suicide. It’s easy to fix if people stop shaming each other but it won’t happen if we don’t acknowledge the problem first you have to start small that’s how it goes.