When Ads Rule the World:
The Affects of Advertising on Society
Anti-advertising assignment
Liz Doyle
Honors English 101
Professor Jason Snart
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"Sheep"
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"The cult rituals spread themselves evenly over the calendar: Christmas, Super Bowl, Easter, pay-per-view boxing match, summer Olympics, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween. Each has its own imperatives - stuff you have to buy, things you have to do" (Lasn, Common Culture, The Cult You're In 55).
Holidays are highly comercialized these days. So much emphasis is put on buying things and spending time preparing these purchases that the previously intended meaning of family togetherness is lost. This year people started lining up outside of Best Buy at nine'o'clock Thanksgiving night to be one of the first people to take advantage of the sales on Friday. If they're waiting to buy presents and things of that nature, they probably left their family after they ate Thanksgiving dinner, which isn't a good example of family togetherness around the holidays. Clever advertising and sales are tearing families apart!! There has always been a sneaking suspision of mine that holiday were just made up to sell useless products and stimulate the economy, but many people only see the rest of their family on holidays, which is good in some respects, but probably says something about society right there.
Christmas
General Christmas To Do List: buy presents, send Christmas cards, put up and decorate Christmas Tree, decorate the house (inside and outside), cook big meals Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, leave cookies for "Santa"
Super Bowl, PPV Events, & Olympics
These events are usually shared with friends as opposed to family, unless you are lucky enough to share a love of a sporting event with the rest of your family. Preparation for these events usually includes appetizers and other assorted greasy foods. The football and wrestling events probably help stimulate beer sales.
Easter
General Easter To Do List: gather candy and other assorted treats to hide in children's Easter baskets, buy multitude of eggs for dyeing, cook big dinner, send Easter cards, hide plastic eggs with candy in them, buy lots of chocolate bunnies.
Mother's Day & Father's Day
On these holidays it isn't always imperative for the family to gather for a large dinner. At the very least though, the person whose day it is should recieve a thoughtful card or gift. Sales of flowers usually increase on Mother's Day. Father's Day usually helps to sell ties and mugs that no one would ever probably buy for themselves.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving, a holiday feared by turkeys everywhere, is probably the one day that people actually expect to eat alot more than they should. It is a day when the main course usually is twice the weight of a human baby and there are still tons of side dishes plus dessert. Thanks to this holiday the chicken is forgotten for a day.
CANDY, COSTUMES, & DECORATIONS!
As you can see the holidays stimulate all different kinds of industries, but the real winner is the card industry . . . there's one for any situation you can think of!