Jessica B. sent in an excellent example of the way that symbols evolve.  Language is just a set of symbols.  The squiggles and lines that make up “cat” don’t look anything like a cat, but English speakers will know what it refers to.

And language, of course, evolves and sometimes that evolution has odd and unintended consequences.  Consider all those companies, like Object Management Group, whose acronym, out of nowhere, had a new, blasphemous meaning.

Jessica’s example involves the new word, “lol,” which just happens to also be a symbol for drowning:

(source)

She writes:

This is a great example of the social construction of language and thus, the social construction of our reality. We, as a society, have agreed that “lol” has a meaning separate from itself and the overall accepted meaning of this symbol is laughter, as opposed to the original intended meaning of a person drowning. While this is a simplistic and comical example, it clarifies the results of differences between intended meaning and interpreted meaning, as well as indicating the importance of social construction of language and society as a whole.

Thanks to Raluca-Elena, I am now disturbed to discover that the makers of heelarious, fake high heels for infant girls, are now selling teethers in the shape of a credit card with the name “Ima Spender.” Get it?

Let’s train those girls to consume above their means before they even get their first teeth!

Okay okay, infants aren’t going to get the joke. But why is it so funny to encourage infant girls to grow up to be shallow, gold digging, divas?  Or is this me stereotyping the high-fashion-conscious?

Lisabee received an Amazon ad in her inbox for “Father’s Day Kitchen Gifts” that, at first glance, appeared to challenge the stereotype that men don’t cook.  Upon opening it, however, it turns out that it masculinizes cooking activities.  It’s a nice example of the trend of de-feminizing items in order to make them safe for dudes who generally have to stay far away from the stigma of femininity.  What do we have?

Corn peelers with “good grips” for those aggressive peeling sessions;

A blender with a “polycarbonate jar” (how science-y!);

A corkscrew named after a famous magician and a John Wayne-themed tumbler;

Stuff for “Mr Bar B Q”;

A fryer (and what’s more masculine than fried food);

Stuff for meat.

And there’s other stuff, too, but I would bet that cooking items marketed for Mother’s Day would look significantly different.

The movement to de-normalize tobacco smoking has been quite successful in the U.S., especially when it comes to the intersection of smoking and children.   Advertising directly to children, or in ways that might be interpreted as appealing to children, is illegal.  Smoking while pregnant is taboo and smoking around your children, especially indoors, is also heavily stigmatized, at least among some American populations.

A collection of vintage cigarette advertising at the Stanford School of Medicine, however, suggests that these attitudes are quite new.  The site, sent in by Kristyn G., displays a wide array of advertising with kids.

Marlboro, for example, used cute babies to sell their cigarettes:

Many companies used kids by suggesting that cigarettes are the perfect gift:

I’m not even really quite sure what this ad is trying to say:

Text:

This ad suggests that smoking is an excellent way to bond with your small child:

This ad suggests that your baby was delivered 15 minutes late because the stork was taking a smoke break:

And apparently there used to be a “boy scout” brand of cigarettes:

Tom Tierney is a famous paper doll artist.  Katrin sent along a link to his American Family series.  The covers erase all non-white families; apparently American Indian families weren’t “American” enough, nor were the indigenous population of what-would-one-day-be-California, African families during the Civil War era, or the many other non-white people that lived here before and after white people arrived.

Elsewhere on his site, Tierney has paper dolls with non-white characters, but they are always specified (e.g., Famous African Americans Paper Dolls or the new Obama Family).  Non-modified, though, “American”= white.

See also our post on how people tried to claim American-ness by claiming whiteness and suing for whiteness.

The Quesada Mexican Grill in Canada tries to claim authenticity (“real Mexican”) by, ironically, invoking Western stereotypes of Mexicans:

Hat tip to Copyranter.

Mindy J. and Andrea F. sent in a really interesting project by artist Nathan Vincent.  Vincent recreates masculine items and ideas with feminine crafts in order to upset the gender binary.  He explains:

My work explores gender permissions and the challenges that arise from straying from the prescribed norms. It questions the qualities of gender by considering what constitutes masculine and feminine. It critiques stereotypical gender mediums by creating “masculine objects” using “feminine processes” such as crochet, sewing, and applique.

For example:

More examples of his work at his site.

Katrin discovered a particularly ironic bit of photoshopping.  The first picture is of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley on a photo shoot, the second is her ad for the Victoria’s Secret “I Love My Body” ad campaign.  Notice that the body she is supposedly loving has significantly more cleavage than the body we see in the first photo.  Apparently even models’ bodies are unlovable without re-touching (or surgery?).