Viewers Make Meaning

     This week's reading of Viewers Make Meaning for me was really hard, in the sense that there were so many arguments that Sturken & Cartwright made within this 30 page chapter. I thought it was particularly interesting that they made that notion of how companies use advertisements to target audiences, to make you feel like you are personally being addressed even though it is to a wide selection of people. It made me think of one time in high school when my social studies teacher was trying to teach us just what S & C were talking about - how ads sometimes use sex appeal in order to entice readers, subconsciously. The ad I can't find anymore, but basically when you looked up close, the model's long and super shiny hair was altered in a way that made it looked like it was forming an "S" shape, and other objects/props in the scene, when looked up close, looked like they were forming the letters "E" and "X" respectively. At the time, the innocent church-goer me thought it made no connection to marketing whatsoever, rather that it just happened to be an optical illusion not intended specifically that way.

   I began researching online on this idea of advertisements as a form of manipulation towards people, and I came across this website that had an entire page with dozens of examples of just that. For the most part, most of the examples they came up with very self explanatory in that they were obvious in the type of audience they were trying to appeal to, but then I came across one on my favorite show, Friends. Key words here are, "my favorite show," and as a tv junkie I obviously had to stop and take a look at what this preposterous website could possibly be saying about my beloved show! I so badly wanted to defend whatever they were claiming, until I realized what they were arguing was true.  This is a picture of Rachel's and Monica's apartments (two of the main characters):

This is where the six friends normally hang out, probably a little bit too much since they are all in their twenties and all (supposedly) have jobs that they love (but i'll let that slide because i love the show). Basically, what they were arguing on the website I came across was what S & C were arguing - that these producers were using these images to manipulate us, leading us to believe that these average people (people just like us! gasp) are living a better lifestyle that we are with "no monetary concerns." It doesn't just stop there though, the article claims. It says that society "shows us advertisements, compelling us to buy the lifestyle depicted in our favorite shows." 
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5824328/how-advertising-manipulates-your-choices-and-spending-habits-and-what-to-do-about-it

David M Carter, psychologist claims that this is a form of "referencing." He says that, "We reference, either intentionally or otherwise, to lifestyles represented to us (in the media or in real life) that we find attractive. We create a vision of ourselves living this idealized lifestyle, and then behave in ways that help us to realize the vision. The problem with this process is that the lifestyles most often portrayed, and ultimately referenced, are well beyond the means of all but a very small percentage of Americans. We aspire to something that the vast majority of us cannot possibly achieve. And, in this attempt to realize our aspirations, we borrow heavily, feel poorly about ourselves because we just can't seem to get there, and become addicted to a way of living that gradually and inexorably separates us from the things in life that bring us the most joy."