Subliminal Messages in the Logos

I realize that there are subliminal messages even in the logos of the companies. It really shocked me! I have never recognized that there is an arrow in the logo of the FEDEX before. But I am sure that they have a reason to do it. Maybe the colorless arrow means nothing for me at the first sight, but can it be a sign that affects me unconsciously, while I am looking for somewhere to send my post? I am sure that most of the people would not see the arrow between the “E” and “X” letters in Fedex. But it might be a subliminal message that our brain understands for us and shows the company as our target. Why not? Then, I looked to other logos for the same aimed companies and I saw that there is also an arrow in Amazon’s logo, which combines “A” letter to “Z”. I thought, why not N but Z? Maybe, it is to give the message that “We have everything you need A to Z!” Wow. It is really impossible to not fascinate from the messages they give us unconciously even by the logos…

Effects of Ads in Our Lives

We are working on the messages in the advertisements in class hours. I really enjoy while discussing on this, because this topic is very connected to our daily lives. Ads are in everywhere. We are used to live with them. Sometimes, it gets disturbing. For example, even during the series, they use ads. The question we have to ask to ourselves might be: Why they are very desirous to advertising a product? There is an apparent answer: Because it works! We are all effected from these ads that we thing superfluous. Maybe, this is why we think Sütaş’s milk is better in quality and taste than Gür’s milk. I believe it, when I saw the milks today in the supermarket and I am sure that most of the people would believe too... Thanks to ads!

WHO WE WANT TO BECOME?

Last week four of my friends decided to do sport regularly, five of my friends started to a new diet, two of my friends decided to refresh their dressing room and my roommate lived her third breakdown because of her anxieties. I realized that most of my friends are complaining about their weights, acnes or their clothes… Everyone has something to complain and want to change about their appearances! I am really tired of listening how people are not happy about their appearances. What is the main reason of this? I started to think on it… We have a big self-confidence problem. We are afraid of something… There are people around us, who are precious for us, who we love and who we are afraid to lose… For those people, we try to be someone that deserved to be liked. At the same time, we afraid them to leave us… Maybe because of the way we act or things we choose to wear. But actually, these things shouldn’t be important for them and affect the way they love us. If it is, then there should be a problem that we cannot see. There are millions of people living as we are, doing their daily jobs and turning their homes after a long and tiresome day. And each day, they question morality of their attitudes, think on the progress of their jobs and their relationships. We are all same and try to be someone who is appreciated.  But who are we trying to change ourselves? Who we actually like to be? Maybe television has a role on the way we try to change ourselves. After watching love story of a model-like girl and super-rich boy in our favorite television series, maybe we are questioning ourselves and our relationship… Maybe we afraid of our boy/girl friend wants more that we can give them, such as in that series, and want to break up from us. And maybe the only solution we can find is to change ourselves and become a “better” person. I don’t know the reason, but we all want to be someone else that we think-but realistically not- superior than ourselves.

STEREOTYPED METAPHORS ON TELEVISION

Last week, we read the first two articles in the Contemporary Issues in Focus. These articles made me think in a different perspective on the negative approaches of people on television.

Suddenly I realize that since I was in a primary school, I prefer to write my essays on how television effect our lives negatively and how our lives would be different in positive way, if it does not exist. However, my attitude might only be a reflection of social stereotypes that I accept unconsciously in a part of my learning period. I learn how bad it was, how useless it was, how I waste my time by watching it, how it destroys my social life etc… However, I could not take it out of my life. It is not because I could not do it, but it is because I do not prefer to put it out of my life. Realistically, I like to watch it or in other words, waste my time with it. Everyone does. Sometimes, we like to take other people out of our lives and spend our time by watching something that we interest by anti- socializing.

(UN)REAL-ITY TV

It sounds ironic to pronounce the words “reality” and “television” together, because most of the audiences aware of the unrealistic relationships and attitudes of people in these programs. However, we can not forget the interest of the society on the reality TVs. Since television took its precious part in our lives, we get used to these same kinds of unrealistic and awful reality TV shows. Some of these programs are: Big Brother (original version of BBG), Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr Öz Show, Yemekteyiz, Survivor, Fear Factor, Var mısın yok musun…. We can make a long list, which does not change the emptiness of the content. Lots of people join to these shows to prove themselves and be famous by acting as someone else; and thousands of people watch them to get rid of their boredom, and waste their time.

DO WE REALLY HAVE PRIVATE LIFE?

We all have limits. The limits that we put to ourselves and which basically cause all the conflicts in our lives. Most of the people think twice before doing something that they truly want to do. One basic reason of this attitude is the pressure of the society and “truths” of the others- our parents, friends, boyfriends, best friends... Especially nowadays, with each passing day we are losing our privacy more and more, and we all become slaves, who obey the rules rather than their own truths.

When we were child, life was much easier. We do not have any responsibilities toward others and there is always somebody we surely know that will take care of the problems we caused and help us with the difficulties we faced. By the time, those “helpers” were all gone and we started to learn how to deal with our own problems and stand on our own feet.  Our problems also increase as our ages and finally we all get lost in one point. We all bored of our lives and started to search others. There might not any other better life style around ours, but the concept of “others” make us curious and we started to search the missing parts of our lives in others.  

We are facing with that modern- world problem everyday and everywhere nowadays. It doesn’t matter where we were, who we are, what we have or what we have not; every person has a special interest to others lives. One of the other biggest reasons of this is the destruction of the private life. We have larger networks than our parents have when they were in our ages, because we can always keep in touch with people by using internet. I can talk with my friend who had moved to Australia 10 years ago by Skype or find my primary school friends by Facebook.  What about our parent’s teenager years… Do they also have the technology that we have today? They probably cannot even dream it. There is a big reality that we cannot forget in this point: The increase in technology might give us larger network, but our relationships surely get weaker.