FORTAJADA, Rizza F.

2007-00534

March 3, 2011 SPCOM183 MHC

For someone who claims to love writing, this particular integration paper is difficult. I confess that, in a dazzling display of procrastination, Im starting this paper around eleven hours later than I originally planned for. I just dont think my brain is working enough to understand the theoretical aspects of culture-building and cooptation, and all that intellectual jazz. Instead, Ill try to write mostly from experience, and hope something halfway sensible comes out of it. Some people my age consider themselves nonconformists. My best friend despises anything and everything masa, and would never be caught dead watching soap operas, or noontime shows. I, on the other hand, dont mind admitting that although I find noontime shows annoying, I know more or less whats going on with Mara Clara, or Imortal, and a number of other ABS-CBN telenovelas (our only TV set is always set to ABS, so Ive taken a sort of interest). While I may try to be a little intellectualby paying attention to how they present gender roles and stereotypes, or watching out for other societal implicationsI nevertheless get affected by plot twists, and the general stupidity of certain characters. Often I find myself talking to the TV set, and giving directions to the characters. In the course of watching all these soaps, Ive watched commercials to the point of memorization. In this particular sense I am no different from the masses; I am a proud audience of mass mediamost strikingly, in the form of audio-visual communication. I wont deny that the things I watch affect me and influence meand, more importantly, who I want to be. Well, I dont exactly find myself relating to Mara or Clara, but I and my friends are hooked on U.S. various series. In the course of brainstorming breaks for this paper, Ive watched the most recent episodes of How I Met Your Mother, Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars. Its silly, but (for academic purposes) Ill admit that I sometimes okay, maybe oftencompare my life to the ones that these characters live. Sometimes, I find myself in situations and act like a certain character would. I am mass media. As time passes by, the line between commercialization and real life gets even finer. As mentioned in The Brand Expands, weve become a branded culture. Im not particularly brand-consciousI mean, Id wear knockoffs if they dont look ridiculously fake, but I dont go out of my way to buy them for the sake of being able to sport an expensive brand. However, brand-consciousness has been elevated to a more personal level. In real life, and more significantly on social networks, we are forever conscious of how we present ourselves. Michael Jordan isnt the only one overly concerned about being his own superbrand. Our generation practically lives online, and were definitely making ourselves comfortable. We make sure we leave our mark by creating multiple pages on every network we could findFacebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plurk, LinkedIn, and numerous other blogging and social networking platforms.

Paul Boutins article focuses on the ease of use that made YouTube and MySpace popular. It definitely helped that they dont tell people what to do. But personally, I believe that these sitesalong with the more recent ones Ive mentionedthrive because they dont tell people who to be. Were free to create a whole image of ourselves from scratch; to brand ourselves the way we see fit. We can choose to post only pictures of ourselves at parties, to show others how cool we are, or post scenic ones to match our new tourist-photographer image. We showcase our individuality and personality. We think we only conform to one thingthe consistency of the image that were projecting to the World Wide Web. Our brand is our consciousness. And yet, its all about trends. We go on Tumblr to see what the latest hobby/clothing/food/hangout/ joke/personality is; we post hash tags about Twitters trending topics; and the first thing we see upon opening our Facebook account are the posts that people like and comment on most. Trends mean that these sites dont really care about each one of us; its always about what the majority of people in our network like. Oh sure, Im unique. Just like everyone else. After weve formed our concrete ideas of who we are, its time to band together and laugh at the people who demonstrate who were not. Take the whole jejemon phenomenon for example. The media hype, the annoying song about it, and all the people online posting screenshots of jejemons for purposes of ridiculing them. Come to think of it, however, a lot of people my age actually used to text in the same indecipherable, annoying, seemingly illiterate way. We all used to have active Friendster accounts (I even deleted mine because it was embarrassing and it kept showing up in Google searches for my name). The only significant difference between us and the jejemons is that they never seem to have outgrown the particular fad. Yet here we are, poking cruel jokes at them (Im no exception, because my love of cruel jokes often overrides my best intentions). I think that this is one of the sad things about building new cultures. In an effort to bring like-minded people together, it can drive very different ways of thinking apart. Or maybe society has always been that way, and its just become more apparent to me now. But the fact remains that all this technology thats supposed to make it easier for us to come together is only reinforcing the clear black line between classes, again and again. Another negative aspect is a fact that Ive mentioned earliercommercialization is taking over everything. And while I patronize these brands and the tall, gleaming towers of central business districts like Ayala and Bonfiacio Global City (Ive always thought that, with its foreign feel, it was odd to name it after the most patriotic hero of our country. Bonifacio would be rolling in his grave if he knew.), theres something about them that still doesnt feel real. I imagine if my neighborhood got turned into a billboard city like Michael Chesney did with Queen Street. Id be pretty outraged myself, because once in a while I feel like I just have to get away from all the suffocating advertising that goes on around me. Okay, now thats weird. I sound like I might be pursuing the wrong field after all. But I think that even if I want to go into advertising, its simply human of me to get tired of having to live in it every single day. Advertising is powerful because of its oxymoronic natureas Sir Chong saidof being subtle and being blatant at the same time. Its just that I still recognize the blatant part of it and without that suspension of disbelief, it gets exhausting. I

love those Nestea ads but thats not the reality of home life for me. And I doubt that drinking Mountain Dew would enable me to go skateboarding on LRT tracks just in case Im running late for school after oversleeping on, lets say, an integration paper. Another observation from The Brand Expands that struck me, is how we feel that everything we do has to be sponsored. I can attest to this, as a member of various orgs. The first thing we do when we launch events is to call companies up and fax them sponsorship requests. And we definitely work ourselves out for them. Take AdHeres Unilab account for examplewere more than happy to stress ourselves out for such a big client, because we feel that this is what our org needs. Weve become dependent on corporations that take advantage of our eagerness. And the last, unfortunate thing about this, is that the truth has become more flexible than ever. I think that Jay was a great movie. It was subtle but definitely piercing with honesty. I saw how the truth needs to be framed, reinvented, and tailored when it doesnt look as exciting as it should. Media always goes for storytelling, because its easier for the audience to follow. But when actual events dont make for an interesting tale, they put their own spin on it. Oh, the injustice! They prey on these people in difficult situations and use them to their advantage. But as weve seen on Jay, people learn fast. The victims start to make their own demands. I was surprised with the morgue scene, when Nanay Luz became an actress instead of a grieving mother. There was such a stark contrast between her real reaction and the retake. Even when that clip showed at the beginning of the movie, as part of the shows episode, I thought something was a bit off. Again, it didnt seem realbut if Id seen that on TV Patrol, who would I be to question other peoples reactions? Id think it was true. But as Im seeing, the truth doesnt matter as much as the story does. There are so many other things we could blame on a consumerist culture supported by audio-visual communication. We have our skewed views on gender identity, our dangerously rebellious teenagers, a masaso much like a battered wifein love with the people who abuse them most (e.g., Joseph Estrada and Willie Revillame), and the middle and high class who wouldnt be caught dead watching shows that the masa enjoy (Because really, ewww. Nakakabobo naman yan.). But could we use the same system to set things right, a little at a time? It seems a little tricky to turn people around from something theyve been believing in for so long. During the AdHere seminar, Ms. Mel Torre of Publicis, in her discussion of the strategic planning track, gave examples of well thought-out campaignsamong which Doves Real Beauty campaign was included. Campaigns like those encourage me. After all, audio-visual communication is powerful. Stories are powerful, and we can write them right. And more importantly, people are still people. At this point in my life I still like to believe that people have inherent goodness in them, and you just have to tap that, to remind them of the basic things that are as close to the truth as we can get. All hope is not lost, because we are next in line, and as long as we intend to do goodand not forget, along the way, what good isthen well be getting somewhere.

Boutin, Paul. A Grand Unified Theory of YouTube and MySpace: Point-and-Click Sites That Dont Tell You What To Do. 28 April 2006. Web. 7 June 2008. Jay. Dir. Francis Xavier Pasion. Perf. Baron Geisler, Coco Martin, and Flor Salanga. Cinemalaya, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and Pasion Para Pelicula Productions. 2008. Film. Klein, Naomi. The Brand Expands. No Logo:Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Canada: Knopf Canada, 2000. 2761. Print.