Odelia's Blog

Is Astrology Accurate?

freefallin18 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:27:02 +0000

Is is possible to make accurate predictions from astrology? For those of you who don’t know, astrology in simple words can be defined as a study of stars and planets, and their positions and movements in relation to their effect on the lives of human beings. Also it can be said that astrology is one of the most misunderstood, difficult to understand subjects. Im one of those people who like to look up my zodiac sign for fun and see if my personality matches up with what it says. I must say that i was pretty surprised. I matched up almost perfectly. i was curious to see how it’s possible and where it came from and i found that every person has his/her personal horoscope which is based on the position of the stars at the time of their birth. As for the individual horoscope, astrology makes the predictions for the future. No two human beings are alike and no two horoscopes are alike. The happiness and misery of two individuals can never be the same. And astrology claims to find out accurate individualistic predictions for each individual with the help of these horoscopes .

Will Toyota’s TV apology ad help?

freefallin18 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:11:48 +0000

With all of the recent recall issues, Toyota has a lot of explaining to do. They recently put out a new commercial apologizing for everything that has recently happened. It talks about Toyota’s commitment to restore its tarnished name and the 172,000 employees who have stopped the current production and ‘dedicated to making things right’. It’s a very emotional ad with the music and tone of voice and historical pictures. But ultimately what we don’t have is a person taking responsibility and saying what went wrong.

Toyota must be really hurting when sending this message. Many people have lost their faith in the company and are disappointed. Apologies like this are rare in advertisement, and i feel like it was only done because the company fears lawsuits, but i also do hear sincerity in the message. Mistakes are bound to happen and it is only human. I think this sincere apology will be receptive from the American consumers, however I think many of us will forget about it very soon.

So Vanity Fair has gone white?

freefallin18 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:32:58 +0000

So i recently received my latest issue of Vanity Fair Magazine and noticed that it was their annual Hollywood Issue. This issue shows all of this years greatest talent, just in time for the Oscars. It had the suspected people like Meryl Streep, Jim Cameron, Julianne Moore, and Quentin Tarantino. Looking more thoroughly, i noticed that there were barley any african american actors portrayed in this article. The only ones shown were the stars of “Precious”: director Lee Daniels and stars Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe. Are they trying to send us a message? Is Vanity Fair trying to say that the only stars of the next decade are white? The cover shows three young, attractive, pale skinned women wearing blush pink colored clothing. I find it sad that a black actor cant be represented correctly and be pictured on the cover and there are a few i would have at least liked to see in the article: Zoe Saldana who strarred in Avatar and Star Trek, two of 2009′s most successful films. Or Anthony Mackie who gave an amazing performance in the Oscar nominated film the Hurt Locker. After all the years of discrimination, the african american actors can be in the issue but not on the cover? Are we even moving forward?

a mom has the right?

freefallin18 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:55:10 +0000

Moms have the tendancy of being paranoid and careful when it comes to their children. My mom and a group of friends always email each other about interesting news articles they have read/heard about on the news. This is the most recent one:
“New drug in Schools…
Please pass this on even if you do not have kids in school. Parents should know about this killer drug. Grandparents, send it to your family and friends.

This is a new drug known as ‘strawberry quick ‘.
There is a very scary thing going on in the schools right now that we all need to be aware of.

There is a type of crystal meth going around that looks like strawberry pop rocks (the candy that sizzles and ‘pops’ in your mouth). It also smells like strawberry and it is being handed out to kids in school yards. They are calling it strawberry meth or strawberry quick.
Kids are ingesting this thinking that it is candy and being rushed off to the hospital in dire condition. It also comes in chocolate, peanut butter, cola, cherry, grape and orange.
Please instruct your children not to accept candy from strangers and even not to accept candy that looks like this from a friend (who may have been given it and believed it is candy) and to take any that they may have to a teacher, principal, police etc.immediately.

Pass this email on to as many people as you can (even if they don’t have kids) so that we can raise awareness and hopefully prevent any tragedies from occurring.
Click on the link below, it is very informative!! All Parents need to know this!! “
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,271215,00.html

So we have all grown up hearing from our parents that we should never take candy from a stranger. Personally, i never took it seriously because as a child you are always too naive to think that anything bad could really happen to you from something like a candy bar. In this case, there have been instances in the area where kids have died of a drug overdose from eating what they thought was a candy bar. It is from times like this that worry our parents and make them paranoid. Drug dealers are trying to seduce young kids into drug use .

The Doppelgänger Craze

freefallin18 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:49:24 +0000

I was on facebook and realized that many people have changed their profile pictures to a picture of a celebrity that slightly resembles them. Looking more into it, i noticed the word doppelganger. It was seriously everywhere. There are articles all over the internet saying that it is “doppelganger week” on facebook. I didn’t know what that word meant, so i decided to look it up. For those of you who don’t know what it means either, wikipedia defines it as ” any double or look-alike of a person.” So why this sudden craze? and how did the word spread so fast?

There are a couple new applications on facebook that helps you find your doppelganger. One of them called “Face Double Celebrity Look-Alike Doppelganger on Facebook” which was too busy to use the first few times i tried. But when it finally let me, it went through my pictures on facebook and gave me a few celebrities that look like me. I got Evangeline Lily, Nikki Reed, Vanesssa Langies, and some others. All brunettes but i don’t think i look like any of them. There is another application sponsored by coke zero that takes a photo of you and find another facebook user anywhere in the world that looks similar. That was creepy because i actually did find someone that looked a lot like me and it gave me her name so i could friend request her. it was cokes way of advertising coke zero because its similar to regular coke, but different.

The combination of word of mouth and quick clicks to share information got me thinking about the potential Facebook really has for marketing. Can you get quality brand recognition on Facebook? The doppelganger fad is kind of ridiculous, however despite the doppelganger fad lacking a point, people are still participating and rapidly spreading the word. the doppelganger has over 8,000 fans. In addition, hundreds of people are changing their personal photos to a celebrity look alike every minute. There is a debate about rather or not this is legal. Is Facebook violating privacy rights which they promise to protect by allowing users to participate in the Doppelganger fad?

The New Apple iPad Tablet

freefallin18 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:40:12 +0000

I have an obsession with ALL apple products. I own most of them and am always looking towards what they are innovating for the future. I feel like they are always ahead of the game in technology. Their newest product is called the iPad Tablet which is amazing and indescribable. It is like holding the top half of your mac book computer screen and doing basically everything a usual computer does. It is sleek in design like all apple products and its is fun like any new toy. It reminds me of an iPhone, because they are similar in many ways. For example, the way you look at the internet or the millions of apps that can be downloaded or the way you views your emails, etc. And of course, their applications are always so sick!! Instead of you having to fit the tablet, the tablet fits you. If you see something on the screen, you just tap it instead of clicking. It feels very natural and easy.

Apple also has the best advertisement. After watching one of their commercials i always think to myself that i have to have this product. They are short and sweet in a way that it immediately gets your attention. The commercials show the product and some of the things it can do with fun music in the background which puts me in a good mood. Their huge demographic allows their products to relate to many different types of people and that’s whats making them so successful. Steve Jobs is genius to create the most advanced piece of technology that they have right now for a pretty affordable price. its starts at about $499, which is pretty exciting! they always try to get the products out to as many people as possible in the beginning instead of making the price so high that only a certain amount can afford it. the iPad is bigger than a new product, it is a new category of technology. Also because people are so familiar with their other products, they will know how to use this. I want one!!!!

Easy Tone: nice booty. great sole.

freefallin18 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:09:12 +0000

The new Reebok Easy Tone woman’s shoe is being advertised everywhere from billboards, to television, to at the gym. Apparently it is no ordinary running shoe because it has a ‘balance ball inspired technology’ at the bottom. This is said to help make definition in your legs and butt by simply waking. I thought walking already did that? It was not the shoe exactly that caught my eye, but the way it was being advertised. First of all, the lady selling it in the commercial had one of the most physically fit bodies i have ever seen. i wounder how many people they had to look at until they found her… Also, as she was selling the shoe, the camera just went off her face to focus closely to her butt. This immediately makes the consumer think that ‘wow if i buy this shoe, maybe my ass will look like that’ . Yea if only…

These types of commercial target women 100% but also appeal to men as well. It shows an attractive women selling an expensive shoe, so the next time you go shoe shopping, Reebok’s name will pop into your head. Also it make you think that this shoe is different because of the bottom, but really its another gimmick used to sell. It keeps repeating better butt and the men will look in order to sell the product to a huge audience of women.

George Lopez: new show on tbs

freefallin18 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:41:47 +0000

TBS recently added an new show to late night television. It is called Lopez Tonight, hosted by actor/commedian George Lopez. He is the first Latino to host a late night talk show on an English language network. The show features a lot of audience interaction with a high energy format. Although I didn’t have much interest in watching it, I decided to watch the episode for the first time tonight because the actress from a show I love called Glee was a guest. She was talking about the success of the show and how her dress for the Golden Globes got stuck in her locked car so she needed a new one. Lopez quickly remarks that she shouldn’t have said that because the many Latinos watching will steal it and wear it to a quinceanera, and make it smell like mexican food. The audience roared with applause and laughter. After that I noticed that he makes many racial remarks making fun of Hispanics.

Is it okay to make fun of your own ethnicity? I have recently noticed that it is considered normal and funny if somebody makes fun of their own ethnicity, but let them say one thing about yours and suddenly its not so funny anymore. I think as humans we automatically feel defensive to whatever group we belong to, no matter how random or arbitrary. But we must learn our limit too what extent these ‘jokes’ can come to. For example with George Lopez, he makes funny remarks based on Hispanic culture but never really goes farther than that. I believe that if we don’t talk about thses things it just makes the subject more tense and ‘forbidden’ to say. This show is a funny way to bring many different kinds of people together and make remarks about what people are thinking, but are afraid to say outloud.

Bud Light: Tailgate Approved

freefallin18 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:51:16 +0000

So now even online shows have commercials?!? As I was about to start my show on hulu, the video began by saying that the episode was sponsored by Bud Light. A few minutes in, the first commercial came on by selling a fictional product called grooler, in an infomercial kind of way by a guy named Jimmy Football. It a grill and a cooler and after every word the audience responds with oohhhs and awwss. I actually thought it was kind of funny. Then i realized that it is almost the superbowl and the target audience is mostly men who will be watching the game and/or tailgating. Bud Light is a big beer company, but not once in the commercial is the beer shown or talked about. Just relating their company name and the Superbowl put together their product and the biggest football event of the year. This is a great advertisement because it is so funny, that when shopping for Superbowl beer, you will unconsciously remember Bud Light.

Racial Stereotypes in Children’s Television

freefallin18 — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:05:22 +0000

In our increasingly diverse society, children are deeply engaged in the viewing and consumption of television. As I was babysitting two young children, ages 3 and 4, we decided to turn on the t.v. and watch a show. The kids insisted on watching a cartoon called little bill on nickelodeon which was actually created by Bill Cosby. The show was basically a day in the life of the little boy bill, and showed him with his parents, teachers and friends, like any child would undergo. But what i found interesting was the many cultures portrayed in this episode. There was every culture from Japanese and Spanish to Russian and Hawaiian. These characters all had accents and the physical features stereotyped for their ethnicities. After watching this, i did some research and found that ethnic portrayal in children’s advertising is a public policy and a self-regulatory topic that may influence a child’s self perception and brand perception. It is becoming a new rule to expose many ethnicities so it is no longer just the caucasion children in television programming.