These photos are from a February 7th New York Times story in the Style section (p. E1 and E6) about changes in what male fashion models look like. This first picture shows some male models from the 1990s.

These three photos show the new ideal: very thin, lanky, and pasty.

These anti-statutory rape PSAs were made by advertising agency Serve for the United Way of Milwaukee. They created enough of a controversy that they were pulled (see an article at Salon).
In response to the controversy, the advertising agency put a little over 2 minutes of focus group footage on youtube:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61-gu2X_57k[/youtube]

Lisa and I are completely confused by these ads. We at least get the first one–her boobs are so big in a Wonderbra that they honk the horn while she drives. And the other I guess means she can’t see to put out her cigarette?But the other two? Is the coffin one supposed to imply that her breasts are too big for the coffin to close? I shouldn’t have to think this hard to understand an ad![youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O45b6bpoEI[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksUddNDJYHI[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af-5gu7HKdA[/youtube] 

First, defining our terms:

Income is the money in your paycheck.  It’s what you make from your job.  Wealth, in contrast, is everything else. It includes stocks and bonds, home equity, other properties, investments, your retirement funds etc.  Importantly, you can inherit wealth directly, but you cannot inherit income directly (most of the time).

The relationship between IQ and income is somewhat correlated; in general, people with higher IQs make more money:

But the relationship between IQ and wealth is all over the map:

This suggests that there is some meritocracy in the distribution of income, not so much in who owns yachts and has deep investment portfolios.

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From Zagorsky, Jay. 2007. Do you have to be smart to be rich? The impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress. Intelligence 35: 489-501.

Thanks to Conrad H.

Chris M. noticed something bizarre on the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) website.

If you scroll about 1/4th of the way down this page, there is a list of pdfs and videos about security on airplanes. There are separate videos for the female and the male “business traveler.” They both show liquids in a plastic bag, but apparently only men carry laptops and women are relieved from having to take off their shoes.

Chris thought it was especially interesting to see this on a .gov site. Nice find Chris!

Another Super Bowl ad using racial/ethnic images: cars.com has a “witch doctor,” clearly based on stereotypical images of African “tribes,” as African peoples are always called.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Here are two ads for Salesgenie. Both aired during the Super Bowl and both, for no apparent reason, used animated characters with thick accents–in the first Indian, in the second, Chinese.

NEW! (Mar. ’10): Melissa S. sent in this commercial for MetroPCS that features two men with strong accents who I believe we’re supposed to find funny looking and ridiculous:

Melissa says,

There are very few positive depictions of Indians in American entertainment and it really saddens us that this video and these images are the only images that many will see of Indians…I wonder why the commercial couldn’t simply have two men who happen to be brown touting the product? Does having an “Indian” accent automatically make this funnier?

…Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction (Superbowl 2003). 

Here’s the video (don’t blink!):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq_N792Bl5Y[/youtube] 

I use this story along with this image to illustrate agenda setting. Because the media made such a huge deal about this, it was something that most people talked about with at least one other person and an issue on which most people formed an opinion. (I like the two-second video because it shows just how quick it was.) I contrast it alongside some genuinely newsworthy event that no one noticed because it didn’t get covered and no one, now, remembers. (Richard mentions, by the way, that there were a ton of erectile dysfunction commercials during the superbowl that year that did not attract media outrage.)Thanks to Ang! I stole the picture and the idea of using this issue to talk about agenda setting from her years ago.