{"id":62691,"date":"2014-05-19T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T14:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62691"},"modified":"2014-06-28T18:31:40","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T23:31:40","slug":"why-has-godzilla-grown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/05\/19\/why-has-godzilla-grown\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Has Godzilla Grown?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week the internet chuckled at the visual below. \u00a0It shows that, since Godzilla made his first movie appearance in 1954, he has tripled in size.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kris Holt, at PolicyMic<\/a>, suggests that his enlargement is in response to growing skylines. She writes:<\/p>\n

As time has passed, buildings have grown ever taller too. If Godzilla had stayed the same height throughout its entire existence, it would be much less imposing on a modern cityscape.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This seems plausible. \u00a0Buildings have gotten taller<\/a> and so, to preserve the original feel, Godzilla would have to grow too.<\/p>\n

But rising buildings can’t be the only explanation. \u00a0According to this graphic, the tallest building at the time of Gozilla’s debut was the Empire State Building, rising to 381 meters. \u00a0 The tallest building in the world today is (still) the Burj Khalifa. \u00a0At\u00a0828 meters, it’s more than twice as tall as the Empire State Building, but it’s far from three times as tall, or\u00a01,143 meters.<\/p>\n

\"1a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Is there an alternate explanation? Here’s one hypothesis.<\/p>\n

In 1971, the average American was\u00a0exposed to about 500 advertisements\u00a0per day. Today, because of the internet, they are exposed to over\u00a05,000. \u00a0Every. Day.<\/p>\n

Media critic Sut Jhally argues<\/a> that the flood of advertising has forced marketers to shift strategies. \u00a0Specifically, he says<\/p>\n

So overwhelming has the commercial takeover of\u00a0culture become, that it has now become a problem for\u00a0advertisers who now worry about clutter and noise. \u00a0That is, how do you make your ads stand out from the\u00a0commercial impressions that people are\u00a0exposed to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One strategy has been to ratchet up shock value. \u00a0\u201cYou need to get eyeballs. You need to be\u00a0loud,” said<\/a> Kevin Kay, Spike’s programming chief.<\/p>\n

So, to increase shock value, everything is being made more extreme. Compared to the early ’90s, before the internet was a fixture in most homes and businesses, advertising — and I’m guessing media in general — has gotten more extreme in lots of ways. Things are sexier, more violent, more gorgeous, more satirical, and weirder.<\/p>\n

So, Godzilla because, eyeballs.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week the internet chuckled at the visual below. \u00a0It shows that, since Godzilla made his first movie appearance in 1954, he has tripled in size. Kris Holt, at PolicyMic, suggests that his enlargement is in response to growing skylines. She writes: As time has passed, buildings have grown ever taller too. If Godzilla had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":62692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[253,8080,129,23703,343,290,140],"class_list":["post-62691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-history","tag-housingresidential-segregation","tag-media","tag-marketing","tag-tvmovies","tag-sciencetechnology","tag-internet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/05\/110.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62691"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63167,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62691\/revisions\/63167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}