The Richards Report

The advertisement that I have selected for this blog is the 2010 " Smell Like a Man " campaign for Old Spice. This advertisement featured a shirtless man who says that men aspire, by using Old Spice products, to "Smell like a Man." This commercial is poking fun at itself by featuring transitions that are completely unrealistic, like how the man's towel magically gets ripped away in one scene. In another, the Old Spice man magically gets transported onto a horse's back. The myth in this advertisement is that by using Old Spice products, men are intrinsically more "manly." This advertisement is completely unrealistic and exploits men's sexuality. The sign in this ad is the way that one can "Smell Like a Man" by using Old Spice products, and how men will be found more attractive by women if they do so. The signifiers are images of an "ideal" man and showing how he used Old Spice body wash. This ad is trying to convey th...

A perfect example of gamification in non-game media is Snapchat . The app is so gamified it's ridiculous. The most prominent example go gamification is in Bitmoji, an avatar that Snapchat users can personalize. Users can change the Bitmoji's eye color, hair color, length, and style, build, eyebrows, clothes, and everything in-between. This avatar has virtually nothing to do with the actual function of Snapchat, but these Bitmojis are constantly updated and used, despite their irrelevance to the basic use if the app, to send pictures and videos to people. Another example of gamification is the badges that one can get by unlocking certain "achievements" on snapchat. These badges are literally pointless, but people strive to achieve them anyways. These badges are unlicked by doing things like sending a snapchat with the temperature below freezing, sending ten front-facing snapchats, and sending ten snaps in black and white. These trophies are extremely effective because ...

A global media content that I absolutely adore is the movie Spirited Away . When I was a little girl, my sisters and I would beg our mom to take us to Blockbuster video so that we could rent Studio Ghibli movies. My little sisters were obsessed with Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Castle in the Sky. These movies were so enthralling to us because they were so unlike anything that we had ever watched before. These movies were completely unlike the Barbie movies that we were used to watching. The different kind of animation with the people with large eyes, pale skin, and small mouths was completely foreign to us. This was my first exposure to Japanese culture, and I've been intrigued by it ever since. I studied abroad in Japan for a summer during high school, and now when I watch the movie, I see things much differently that I did before I had traveled to Japan. The Japanese ideal beauty has large eyes and a small nose and mouth, and anime characters all have those featur...