Shieva K. took photos of these two posters, both part of the Boost Up campaign in New York City. Both were posted on the Upper West Side.

The Boost Up campaign is a joint venture between the U.S. Army and the Ad Council to encourage kids to stay in school. The ads feature actual teens who are at risk of dropping out of high school. When you go to the website, you can read a bio about each teen, including the difficulties they face in their home lives, etc. Then you can send a student a “boost,” meaning an email, text message, or post on FaceBook or YouTube, encouraging them to stay in school. You can also watch videos the teens have made about their lives.

The thing I find interesting about this campaign is the lack of any discussion of structural reasons these teens (predominantly racial/ethnic minorities) might be at risk of dropping out of school, or what that might have to do with wealthy people on the Upper West Side. Both the problem and the solution are presented as individual-level issues: teens struggle mostly because they have problems with their parents and unstable home lives, and we can help fix this problem by sending text messages saying “You can do it!” It’s “activism” with no actual need to get involved or think deeply about the problem–we don’t need to change the way schools are funded, wonder whether people who send their kids to private schools still have any responsibility to the public education system, or think about things like poverty, race, crumbling schools, and other structural issues that exist beyond the individual.

I guess any effort is better than nothing, but it seems like we’re basically saying, “Hey, kids! Overcome all your problems by thinking positively and having some strangers who have never met you, and probably can’t even begin to imagine what your life is like, spend 30 seconds writing you a message! That’s all it should really take, so if you still drop out of school, you must not have tried hard enough.” It fits very well into the American cultural ideology that I find so often among my students, the belief that anyone can overcome any disadvantage or hardship if they just try hard enough and “don’t give up”; if they don’t, they’re either lazy, didn’t believe in themselves, or in some other way are to blame. Regardless, there’s not much the rest of us can do about it.

Thanks, Shieva!

I snapped this picture at my local grocery store. Sorry about the blurriness. It reads: ” ‘THE CUSTOMER IS THE REASON FOR OUR BUSINESS’… Please, Thank Check Writing Customers BY NAME!” And then under the smiley face it says “Customers First. NO CHATTER!”

What an amazing example of how employees are required to do emotional labor! First, the employee should refer to them by name if possible, thereby pretending to know them. Second, the employee should be friendly and chat with his or her customers, but only if they initiate. So no one cares if the employee is in the mood to chat, he or she must respond to the customer’s initiation or lack thereof.

As someone who has not had a service job like cashier at a grocery store in a very long time, I am distressed by how insulting this little “reminder” is… with it’s CAPITAL letters, exclamation points, and mocking smiley face.

A good book on the topic of emotion work is Fast Food, Fast Talk by Robin Leidner. An even better one is The Managed Heart by Arlie Hochschild.

The University of Michigan Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center gives a thumbs up to these ads for Pyrex kitchen cookware for using androgynous figures instead of women.  Doing so suggests that people use kitchens, not just women.  Contrast it to, well, as far as I can remember, just about every other ad for every other kitchen product that I’ve ever seen (for examples, see here, here, here, here, and here).

Thanks to Laura L. for the tip!

Laura R. sent us this 1939 test for husbands and wives, developed by an M.D./Ph.D. in psychology, designed to determine how well each is performing in his or her gendered role with marriage.  For proper behavior the spouse earns merits, for improper, demerits.  Below is the front page and the first page of the test for both men and women.  Click here to see the whole thing (via boingboing).

Thanks Laura!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

This Australian ad for Lipton tea suggests that it’s mind clarifying qualities are so good that it could help even George Bush achieve the feat of naming all 50 states.

This Brazilian ad for Rolling Stone, featuring a picture of George W. Bush, reads: “We don’t show naked women to sell more. At the most, we show some asses.”

This Chinese Greenpeace ad, portraying Bush’s spin on global warming, reads: “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. Voice yours at forum.greenpeace.org.”

This Chinese ad for an erasable pen reads: “Everyone makes mistakes.” 

In Malaysia, Bush is used to sell Smart cars.  Text: “Still looking for weapons of mass destruction.  Not smart.” 

Also in Malaysia, Amnesty International makes fun of Bush in their effort to inspire opposition to Guantanamo Bay.  “Write to him and help stop torture at Guantanamo Bay.  Remember, use simple words.”

This is a Mexican ad for a dog kennel.  “We don’t discriminate any kind of breed.”  (The source says that, in Mexico, like in the U.S., “dog” is a name for a bad person.)

 This ad for a Mexican newspaper reads: “Such a complex world needs a good explanation.”

This is an ad for the movie American Psycho in New Zealand.

In Portugal, playing war games (paint ball) is advertised as equivalent to playing George W. Bush.

This Swiss ad threatens, if you fall off your bicycle without a helmet, you may end up as dumb as George W. Bush.

These and more borrowed from here, found via adfreak.

Update: There have been some really nice points in the comments about how, in the process of making fun of Bush, we are also seeing the further stigmatization of “people with developmental disabilities, brain injuries, and psychological diagnoses” (that from Penny in the comments). 

I found this ad in this random magazine published by a local bank that gets sent to my house every so often. As far as I can tell, it is an ad for advertising:

The small text at the bottom says “The secret formula revealed. Advertising. The way great brands get to be great brands.” What I like about this image is the self-awareness of the importance of advertising for making your product a household name, and the implication that advertising is what make Coke a globally-recognized brand. And also that it’s about being a great brand, not having a great product. This might be a good image to add to a presentation on marketing and/or the media.

This old CoverGirl lipstick ad, found here, illustrates the infantilization of women we often see in ads-women (provocatively) licking ice cream cones, eating fruit, and so on. Thanks to Krystal-lynn M. for sending it in!

These Kenzie ads (available at the University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center’s website) also have women in childlike poses, with their mary-jane shoes and ruffled socks. Thanks for sending them in, Laura L.!

These images illustrate two common trends in advertising: on the one hand, women are portrayed as little girls, as coyly innocent, as lacking in power and maturing. On the other hand, child-likeness is sexy, and girls are portrayed as Lolitas whose innocence is questionable.

NEW (Mar. ’10)! Jeff H. sent along this photo from a GQ spread in which Reille Hunter is posed with Kermit the Frog, Barney the Dinosaur, and Dora the Explorer:

What do you think of this?

Found at blogofstench.