Sketchers Shape Ups...You should be ASHAMED!

This commercial is on TV... it is aimed for girls as young as 7.

We have talked alot on this blog about the messages our media is sending to young girls. Whether it is ABERCROMBIE'S padded bikini or something else, you are taking in information that someone ELSE is deciding is TRUTH. A company that wants your money can get really creative in HOW they market these things to you.

I want you to truly search for what this commercial's many messages are and leave your thoughts below.

It is YOUR turn to SPEAK out to the national marketing firms that ALLOW this to be shovelled into your heads.

What are YOU seeing? Media Literacy Monday

Walt Mueller of the Center for Parent-Youth Understanding says “Ten years ago, music was the biggest outside influence on teenage culture and worldview. Today it is marketing, because it has become so incredibly pervasive. The average teen in America sees between 3,500 and 6,500 marketing messages every single day! They don’t buy most of those products, but they are increasingly buying the worldview that is being sold along with the ads.”

3,500 to 6,500 marketing messages EVERY day?! Call me crazy but that seems like an awful lot. If someone told you 3,500 today that you weren't thin enough, pretty enough or "anything" enough...would you start to believe it? Of course you would!

So, what do you do? Mueller's advice is good advice...

1. Know the motivation behind the ads you are seeing...what is the motivation? The almighty dollar!! When you see an advertisement for clothes, do you get the impression that you would be "cooler" if you wore those clothes? Yes. Do you TRULY...and I mean TRULY... believe those clothes MAKE you cooler? I ask you again, do those CLOTHES make you cool? Who makes you cool? YOU DO! Those clothing companies are after the money in the wallets of the people who fall for that tactic.

*so think of something you recently saw on TV, heard on the radio, read in a magazine that made you feel you could "improve" yourself - follow that thing back to the origin...is it a company that is trying to sell you something?

2. Take a media break. For (Mueller says, one week, but let's start simple) two days turn off all media. Yes, that means TV, radio, internet. Don't open a magazine. Spend some time with yourself and your thoughts.

*keep track of whether you feel more comfortable in your own skin on that day. You might be surprised!

So, in the comments below, let's chat about this.

How do you feel when you walk into Hollister? Sure, they have cool clothes, but do the models on the walls make you feel GOOD about YOU?

SNOOKI - a role model? Rutgers University thinks so...

Even if you live under a rock, you know who Snooki is.
Even if you have never turned on an episode of Jersey Shore (which I would advise you not to), you know who Snooki is.

Nicole Polizzi is now famous for her foul-mouth rants, her party-girl tendencies and her inappropriate under-the-covers activities. Apparently Rutgers, a prestigious University, felt that this was the type of woman they wanted to celebrate. WHAT?!

They hosted Snooki last week as part of their optional student activities.

Parents pay a whopping $23,000 per year for their student to attend Rutgers, a University that prides itself in shaping students to become productive members of society.

From the Rutgers website: "As it was at our founding in 1766, the heart of our mission is preparing students to become productive members of society and good citizens of the world. Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate and postdoctoral; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement. Rutgers is New Jersey’s land-grant institution and one of the nation’s foremost research universities, and as such, we educate, make discoveries, serve as an engine of economic growth, and generate ideas for improving people’s lives."

This esteemed university paid Snooki $32,000 ($2,000 more than they are paying Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning author that will be speaking at graduation and almost $10,000 more than the annual tuition) for her appearance where her message to students was appropriately named,

STUDY HARD...PARTY HARDER!

The Rutgers University Programming Association, a student-run committee invited Snooki to speak after polling students as to who they would like to have. The mandatory student activity fee that each student pays with their tuition each year is where the funds came from to host the STUDY HARD...PARTY HARDER event!

Parents are in an uproar. Essentially more than one student's full year's tuition went into Snooki's pocket.

What message is this sending?

Your parents teach you to make wise choices, stand up for yourself and insist on being respected by boys. We teach teens to "Just say no," to be responsible for your actions and a whole world of opportunities will be open to you.

GIRLS BEWARE: This is not what the media is teaching you.

Rutgers is allowing someone with no moral compass to impact a student body with her own twisted view of the world.

Girls, this is where MEDIA LITERACY is so important.

Look closely at what made Snooki famous...

What do YOU want to be known for?

The activities and events you partake in begin to define you. When something starts to define you, it becomes what people expect from you. What people expect becomes the pressure you feel to fit that mold. Then, you become what you invest your time in, those activities and events from the beginning of this paragraph.

What will you invest your time in?

You are worth investing in and that is why I write this blog. It is why I speak and counsel/mentor teen girls. You are worth my time.
You are worth your weight in gold.

So, learn how to SHINE, for the right reasons!

MEDIA LITERACY - It's Journal Exercise Friday

"Media Literacy" is a big buzz word these days. Know what it means? Well, let's break it down...

• to be *literate* is to be able to read, right? Yes.
• the *media* is what you see and hear on TVand the internet and in music and magazines, right? Yes.

So, being Media Literate means being able to READ what you are SEEING and HEARING.

What do you think the media is telling young girls in 2011?

You don't have to look too far before you see girls in way too little clothing in compromising poses with boys. You can see that just walking at the mall and peeking into stores like Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch.

You don't have to flip through the channels for more than a few seconds before you see something that objectifies girls/women as "eye candy." Whether it's a commercial for Victoria Secret or a music video from the newest hit song.

Most of you are Media Literate enough to know that those images you see have been airbrushed and fixed to be perfect but that doesn't mean it is not affecting your self-esteem.

And how about YOUR attitudes toward people who are not perfect? If you do a little soul searching, you may find you are what I like to call "quietly critical" about those around you...even your best friends. "Those jeans make her butt look big, I hope my butt looks better than that." Do things like this float around in your head? Of course they do. The media has TRAINED you to do that.

When I think about how the media has trained us to look at OTHER people and "make fun" in our heads I have to think of GIBBY on iCarly. The poor kid's claim to fame is when he takes his shirt off and his "healthy sized" belly jiggles. Sure, he is an actor - he is acting. But with the "laugh reel" playing every time he does it, it is actually TRAINING YOU to think someone who is overweight is a TARGET for your GIGGLES.

This week's journaling exercise is for you to pay attention to what the media is telling you through ads, tv shows, magazine covers, etc. and write about it...

• What examples did you see? What shows/magazines/commercials?
• How did it make you feel when you saw it and realized how it was re-TRAINING your brain?
• How will you handle this now that you are aware?
• Will you share this idea of Media Literacy with your friends?

Feel free to save and  print the following journal page to use for this exercise. Start a binder and join us each week for Journal Exercise Friday.

Happy Journaling!