The Media Monster

Twice today I listened to a one hour long lecture by Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors. Every time I hear or read something he has to say it really opens up my mind on how I should be looking at the Gospel of Jesus. It frees up my perspective and today was no different. My sister and I went driving around in a rental car that our mom got for the weekend (because that’s what you do when you get a rental car), and we spent almost half the time just listening to this lecture. It was called “Free Market Jesus” about how in America we tend to present the gospel as a sales pitch or an advertisement.

So anyways, listening to this got my mind going and it was important because I think that we all as people need to open our eyes to what the free market economy is doing to us. Because most people are unaware of it and they have no idea that day after day these thoughts, ideas, and standards are put into our heads. I mean, think about it, commercial advertising is all around us. Drive down the road, turn on the TV, read a magazine, surf the internet, or listen to the radio and every time you do there will be someone there to sell you something. Sometimes I get so fed up because everywhere I go there is some person who is beautiful and is assumed to have some kind of great life because of a certain product, and now that person wants to sell that product to me as if I can’t live without it.

And that’s sort of what I’m driving at here, that these advertisers make us feel like we have all these needs that we really don’t have. It’s obvious that if you want to have a product to sell then a sure way is to make people know that they need it. That’s one reason gas can be more than three dollars a gallon and people still buy it, because we have a high need for gasoline. Most of the time we have all these products that people don’t necessarily need but the companies are trying as hard as they can to sell them anyways. So what you get is an advertisement that tries to generate a need in your life, and that in some small way you will feel like your life is incomplete without this product.

“You need to lose weight.”

”You need to drive a nice car.”

“You need the most expensive clothes.”

You need, you need, you need…

You may be trying to think of specific ads that actually say you need something, but a lot of times they are indirectly saying it. Like a Playstation 3 commercial doesn’t come on and say “Your life will only be good if you have a new PS3.” It just doesn’t do that. But when a PS3 commercial does come on TV, it shows the new games and how cool the graphics are and it seriously looks like the most fun activity I could ever do. And when the commercial is over I am probably going to think “Man, if only I had one of those.” So now, that commercial has generated a need that wasn’t there before. The idea is that Sony is hoping I will act on that need and go out and buy a PS3.

Weight loss commercials can be a little more direct. The whole message watered down goes a little like this: “You’re fat. People will like you better if you aren’t so fat. Lose weight with this product (don’t be fat) and you can finally live a fulfilled life.” And so now you are generating an idea that people can only be desirable if they are beautiful, and that they can achieve that through your product. They always have these testimonials by people who supposedly tried the product, it worked, and it completely changed their lives. So if I’m a fat guy, I may think “Hey, that guy on that commercial was fat like me, but now he is absolutely ripped, confident, and the ladies love him.” With these oh-so-subtle ideas presented, mass media creates a standard that says you need to be beautiful, you need to be whole, you need to be wealthy, you need to get what you want or else you are incomplete.

It may seem like I’m exaggerating a little bit, because one commercial can’t make anybody feel like his or her life is incomplete. However, we hear these things constantly every day. Wherever we go someone is telling us to buy their product to meet a specific need in our lives. I think about how people in America always want more, whether it’s a new car or a new outfit or a new cell phone. We always have that nagging desire to accumulate stuff for absolutely no reason at all. I work at a thrift store and I just don’t understand how some people can come in our store day after day and buy all this used crap to put in their homes. I mean, first of all, the stuff isn’t that good. And second, if you go in there every day to shop for used stuff, how much useless junk do you have in your house? How many knick-knacks do you need until your living room looks fine and you are satisfied with it?

If we are receiving thousands of messages a day that are all trying to tell us that our lives can improve if we just buy their product, then doesn’t that have some kind of effect on us as people? Wouldn’t that affect our attitudes? I was thinking what if suddenly all of the mass media noise just stopped for good. What if we stopped having to listen to commercials? What if we could go through a day, a month, or a year without having people tell us what we want and need? I wonder if things would change.

Because I believe that all these advertisements contribute to the idea that we don’t have enough and that our lives are not very fulfilling at all. I mean, I know I have enough needs in my life and I don’t need commercials telling me that I have more. And I most certainly don’t need media to present a standard that I am going to subconsciously try to live up to all the time. One of my favorite lines by one of my favorite artists, Andrew Osenga, is this:

“The serpent spoke and the world believed its venom
Now we’re ten to a room or compared to magazines.”

And that line really speaks to me because it depicts our condition as humanity, whether you live in a vastly overpopulated place (like Japan) or a place where you have to live up to an impossible standard (America). It’s a hard thing to deal with, because if you are told a lie enough times then you will believe it. We are not okay to begin with, the last thing we need is a giant media monster to pour salt on that wound.