Why People can’t think for themselves

                  Last week in one of my classes, the professor showed us a video of Tony Robbins, in which he is lecturing the rest of the world about how to be happy and successful. The title of the video is “Why we do what we do and how we can do it better”; he gives a 20 minute speech that is suppose to motivate and inspire the audience. For those who don’t know him, Tony Robbins is a self-help author; he is the author of several self help books on enhancing relationships, overcoming fear and other similar issues.

After watching this video, I started thinking how the self-help industry has been affecting our society. I am not against people learning from media; in fact, media has a substantial part in our learning. However, I have no support for self-help books, shows or lectures, whatsoever. It’s not just that I believe they are completely worthless, I feel it also pushes people to stop thinking for their problems and coming up with their own solutions. After all, I know myself better than Tony Robbins’ generalized comments. It should also be noted that Robbins is not licensed in any psychological sciences; so, what really makes Robbins superior than the rest of us? He wrote a book on how to make a marriage last a lifetime, and then he divorced his wife and got married to his girlfriend who is half his age. I don’t want to make any judgmental comments about his personal life, but as he’s not a trained professional, who would want help on marriage from a divorced person?

                Tony Robbins is just an example of the rapidly growing self help industry. There are self help books about anything in bookstores.  On TV there are reality shows that people join to face their challenges and the so-called experts on life help them get better.  Maybe there are people that find these books, shows or seminars helpful and inspiring; however, I just believe the industry manipulates people’s problems and makes it even worse by not giving them a chance to be strong enough to figure it out by themselves. 

TV and Tourism

Countries have been using media as a way to promote themselves and attract tourists; hotels and airlines have been using it massively. However, there is much more influence other than direct marketing to tourism than we realize. It happens all the time; a certain scene of a popular movie takes place in some restaurant, and that place starts booming. Either intentional or not, movies and TV shows affect tourism a lot. It determines the tourist profile that visits those places. For instance, I just came across a video about how Turkish soap operas have been affecting tourism in Istanbul, especially from the Islamic regions.

 Recently, many of Turkish shows have been shown in Middle Eastern countries; and since then, tourism from those countries increased highly. It is a hugely growing trend; many of these tourists never been to Turkey before but lately all the flights are full and hotels are packed. The video has interviews of people about how they decided to visit Istanbul and they all give similar answers saying that they’ve been seeing it on TV and considered it would be nice to see the country themselves. Those TV shows proved that they would be comfortable in the country since the culture is very similar but also more liberal. None of the other mediums portrayed Turkey to tourists the way those shows did. You cannot get that kind of information from the web, newspapers or travel agencies. TV is a culturally subjective medium, and it is different in each country. It has a substantial effect on people relative to other media; and it definitely has an indirect influence on the travel industry as well.

Is American culture obsessed with alcohol?

Portrayal of alcohol in media has a lot of influence on people and their drinking habits; media tells people when and what to drink. For instance, have you ever paid attention to the number of beer ads on tv, especially if a football game is on? They are repetitive and keep increasing in number. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with reaching the target market a business is aiming for.  But with continuingly streaming media, it is becoming much more than selling a product to the customer. It is affecting customer’s habits; today, people cannot watch a sports game without having a beer. This did not just happen because people who watch sports are also people who drink beer. Beer became a must have for some occasions. Think of barbeque parties as well; there’s always beer served.  There’s an alcoholic beverage that suits almost every occasion.  How did alcohol become a celebration drink? Weddings, birthdays, college parties or any event that celebrates something does it by serving alcohol.

On the other hand, many people discuss that too much emphasis is on positive aspects of drinking when negative effects are disregarded by media. You can’t expect any ad to show negative sides of a product. However, whether it is bad or not, American culture has become obsessed with alcohol and media has a big part in this. There’s nothing wrong about having alcohol ads on TV; the obsession factor comes in when the number of them increase and start affecting people more than convincing them to buy their products.  And, this is not just true for TV commercials, movies and TV shows do an indirect marketing of alcohol by portraying the glorified fun that comes by drinking. Overall, there’s barely any media that you cannot see alcohol.

The “Personal Stamp Ad”

A popular nightclub in India called Enigma, located in Hotel Marriot, stamps each of its customer’s hands with the phone number of the local cab company.  This is the most effective ad idea I heard about recently; it doesn’t only advertise the cab company but it also saves lives by possibly lowering the DUI cases.  The idea has been so effective that it is now taken up by other clubs and also the Mumbai police. This is a medium that no one entering the club can avoid; and its success comes from being at the right place at the right time. It proves how important location is for advertising or any media for that matter.  It reaches its target audience, and simply delivers its message. It also solves a problem for people to look for a cab after leaving the club. Rather than putting posters or handing out flyers that many people easily ignore, the ad is personalized by stamping it on each customer’s hand.  It is the most simple and effective ad idea that is actually useful for the customers.