Jane created this awesome visual of how brands inhabit our lives, from dawn until dusk:

Thanks to Kevin for sending it along!

This ad appeared in a 1970s high school newsletter in Indianapolis:

Found at Vintage Ads.

Camilla P. sent us this international sampler of Coke Zero ads. She says all of them that she found use the whole “zero” is manlier than “diet” strategy (see the first two below), except the one in Australia which links a sip of Coke Zero with orgasm (see the third video).

From Britain:

From Brazil (we’d love someone to translate, although we think we get the gist):

From Australia:

If you liked that, see this remarkable Orangina commercial.

Two readers, Breck and Miguel, sent in this post:

Boingboing put up this post that shows how common “spread legs” imagery is in old book covers. A commenter to that post pointed out this example (found here) from the Broadway version of Cry-Baby.:

Another commenter thought this FatBoy Slim album cover is interesting:

And there’s this Pooh-Man album cover:

And:

Miguel pointed out that the exact same stance can seem threatening or sexual inviting, depending on whether it’s a man or a woman in the pose.

Thanks to Breck and Miguel for sending these along!

NEW: Larry sent along this image from the June 2008 issue of Esquire magazine (p. 112), which also uses the “spread legs” motif:

“Because everything in her home is waterproof, the housewife of 2000 can do her daily cleaning with a hose.”

If only. I have started vacuuming my dogs, which seems more efficient than letting them shed and then vacuuming their hair off the carpet, but that’s a long way from just being able to hose the house down every day.

This image, found here, is a good illustration of visions of the future and the intense belief in science and technology to completely change daily life (except who does housework) that was so common in the 1950s.
It could also be useful for a discussion of how new household appliances and technologies actually changed women’s lives. In some cases, new electrical appliances clearly reduced women’s domestic workload. My great-grandma had a lifelong devotion to Franklin D. Roosevelt because his New Deal rural electrification project eventually made it possible for her to get an electric washer. She had 7 kids and swore to me multiple times that the electric washing machine was the single greatest thing that ever happened to women (birth control being a close second). On the other hand, as more household appliances became available, our standards of cleanliness increased, so in many cases women ended up doing more housework in an effort to meet the more stringent cleanliness (and to use their electric vacuum to vacuum a peacock-fan-shaped pattern into the carpet, among other useful skills some home economics courses imparted).

Thanks to Ben G. for sending this along!

In case you thought this was a new phenomenon:

Found here thanks to Jason S.

Fellow blogger, Brett, specializes in counseling adolescent boys.  He says, no matter what they come in for–skipping school, fighting, arson–they always get around to asking, “How do you know when a girl likes you?”

Occasionally we here at Sociological Images like to put up something we really like. To that end, I submit to you this public service announcement for science careers in the European Union (made by a German ad agency):

I like that it’s actually creative, instead of relying on the good ol’ objectifcation, nudity, violence, sex, or all of the above. I also like that the people in the commercial just look like people. Proof that you don’t need people in the 99.9th percentile of beauty and thinness/beefiness to make a good ad. What do you like about it?

The following image is of a USC quarterback named, and I swear I’m not making this up, John Booty. In fact, if you look closely, the title of the text in the photo is “Booty’s Call.”

This could be useful in discussions about the social construction of masculinity and sexuality. Imagine any other scenario in which two men were posed this way in a photograph without being labeled as homosexual. However, since they are playing football, they manage to get away with this blatant violation of the rules. In fact, they manage to break the rules of gender and sexuality in a way that manages to reinforce those same rules.

Talk about moving the goalposts…