Media Influence, Stereotypes, And RL/SL Comparisons

[Ted McGregor]

24 minutes ago, Annie Nova said:

I am fine, why? lol

At least your answer will stop the jingle it triggered in my head since I read the above ..

Carry on ..

 

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by TDD123

[Garnet Psaltery]

13 hours ago, Chris Nova said:

Its always amusing when one starts a discussion thats ripe for politicizing but says not to politicize it.

You can blame me for that suggestion.  I thought the topic would stand a better chance of not being closed or deleted if it were stated up front and could therefore become a matter of relevance to the topic.

Here's what I said: - That's an interesting idea.  Don't forget to say 'no politics' at the beginning or the topic won't last the week.  

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, So Whimsy said:

Smoking ads have also been removed in germany for some time now and they added super gross pictures to smoke packs/tobacco containers along phrases like "Smoking Kills".

   They've had that here for some years now. At first it was 'smoking kills' and 'this tobacco product can be bad for your health'. Then I guess they got bored and wanted to change it up, there's been signs that go 'tobacco smoking can lead to blindness' and 'this product can make you impotent'. They also banned the 'click' cigarettes (and I think menthol cigarettes? Not sure whether it was national or if it was an EU thing). They then decided that to write what flavour snus has (non-smoking tobacco) could make it 'attractive to kidz' and so they made it illegal to put on the tin what flavour the tobacco has.

   My favourite pic was that of a damaged foetus. Since they keep the cigarette boxes in glass counters above the cashier, whenever you went shopping you'd see hundreds of pictures of malformed bebbes. Haven't seen those around for a while though, maybe someone was offended. 

[Annie Nova]

1 hour ago, TDD123 said:

At least your answer will stop the jingle it triggered in my head since I read the above ..

Carry on ..

 

 

I'm glad I could help!

 

[Ardy Lay]

1 minute ago, Orwar said:

   They've had that here for some years now. At first it was 'smoking kills' and 'this tobacco product can be bad for your health'. Then I guess they got bored and wanted to change it up, there's been signs that go 'tobacco smoking can lead to blindness' and 'this product can make you impotent'. They also banned the 'click' cigarettes (and I think menthol cigarettes? Not sure whether it was national or if it was an EU thing). They then decided that to write what flavour snus has (non-smoking tobacco) could make it 'attractive to kidz' and so they made it illegal to put on the tin what flavour the tobacco has.

   My favourite pic was that of a damaged foetus. Since they keep the cigarette boxes in glass counters above the cashier, whenever you went shopping you'd see hundreds of pictures of malformed bebbes. Haven't seen those around for a while though, maybe someone was offended. 

I suggest banning the product because the packaging is broadly offensive.  (Trying to make a joke here.)

[Doris Johnsky]

I'm not a smoker and only tried it a couple times when I was tween.   My parents were not smoker either, but my grandda was till he went cold turkey and started chewing tobacco (blech, spit cans). I only saw him on a few vacas when I was young and he passed before we left Ohio (I was 10). 

 

 

Having said that I do believe the anti-smoking campaign stopped some people from smoking, but it hasn't come in the neighborhood of  STOPPING it. There are a lot of young smokers still and now with vaping it has ramped up even more.

My question is: why do we outlaw tobacco ads but allow vaping ads?  Vaping is as bad or worse than smoking cigs. 

 

As to smoking in SL. Who is being influenced by a fake cigarette or cigar? Really?   I think very few are, as anyone with a half a brain cell knows it's not real.  Come on, people. 

[Ceka Cianci]

I wonder if there are any avatars that dip, chew the chaw, pinch the plug or just plain ole chew tuhbacky?

 

hehehe

 

Seriously, I'm curious if there are any.. I think it would be a sight to see really..

 

[Nick0678]

[Luna Bliss]

2 hours ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

You can blame me for that suggestion.  I thought the topic would stand a better chance of not being closed or deleted if it were stated up front and could therefore become a matter of relevance to the topic.

Here's what I said: - That's an interesting idea.  Don't forget to say 'no politics' at the beginning or the topic won't last the week.  

lol no good deed goes unpunished!  I was just trying to save the Pet Peeves thread from being nixed, by steering the off-topic and interesting smoking jaunt that had gone on for 3 pages or so, to its own on-topic thread, and thought your suggestion of 'no politics' was a good one, and so mentioned it. After all, I do tend to get political at times and thought it good I explained this was not my intent for this thread. 
Anyway, good of you to explain.

We can certainly bring politics into it if people want, though like you say, the thread will more likely be locked then.  I'm curious actually...which party did the work (or was there even a partisan divide at that time regarding smoking) to get the tobacco industry to stand down with their faulty assertion that smoking was not bad for you?  I guess it doesn't really matter though -- I'm just happy that David won over Goliath in this one -- not an easy task to win over a big corporation.

[Luna Bliss]

6 hours ago, ValKalAstra said:

The answer is, simply and complicated enough, perceived consensus on a corporate level. Any deliberation about harm and influence is moot when what decides a platform's action is lost value for shareholders/owners. Cynical? Maybe. But if you want smoking to be banned too, all you need to do is stir up the pot to the level that media attention snaps onto it and the $$$ value is in danger. 

Look at something like Reddit. It's got a thousand or more communities all focused on various things. Amongst those things are some truly and utterly vile things. Every couple of months the site gets into the headlines because of these communities. Then it's a dozen articles or so lambasting media's harmful influence and then the communities get banned. Case in point: It didn't matter one bit that thousands of people reported a community about ogling underage girls in swimsuits before media got wind of it - and then it went down quick.

And the important part here is the perceived consensus, not necessarily the actual consensus. Social Media allows people to be extremely loud to the point that a single person can shift the entire narrative if they reach critical mass. Case in point, the damage Requires Hate has done to the writing community at large persists to this day. So: The difference is the bottom line of those that make money on it.

Good points. It does seem years ago it was more difficult to get media attention, but today with social media it's easier to get the attention needed with, as you say, a "loud voice". That can be a blessing and a curse, depending on which aspects of society needs to change.

[Luna Bliss]

2 hours ago, Doris Johnsky said:

...I do believe the anti-smoking campaign stopped some people from smoking, but it hasn't come in the neighborhood of  STOPPING it. There are a lot of young smokers still and now with vaping it has ramped up even more.

My question is: why do we outlaw tobacco ads but allow vaping ads?  Vaping is as bad or worse than smoking cigs. 

As to smoking in SL. Who is being influenced by a fake cigarette or cigar? Really?   I think very few are, as anyone with a half a brain cell knows it's not real.  Come on, people. 

I see your point. I don't think I'd see a pic of someone smoking and immediately head for a cigarette.

However, if anything is portrayed as especially attractive, if it's glamorized, through repeated media exposure especially, many start to feel they want whatever's being advertised in such a positive light. The advertising industry counts on this, and it works. Tests conducted by Psychologists indicate this as well.
Kids are especially susceptible to this influence as they don't have the cognitive structures yet to resist as easily as an adult can.
I can't say advertising manipulation works on all people for sure, but it certainly does on many.
And so I can agree with Aye's point that we should not glamorize a behavior which is so destructive, killing 8 million people yearly worldwide.

While not advocating censoring smoking in artistic expression meant for adults I certainly don't want to glamorize such destructiveness in what I create, unless perhaps in a dystopian scene where the smoking is not glamorized.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Luna Bliss
corrected 8 billion to say 8 million

[Nick0678]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

...killing >>> 8 billion <<<  people yearly worldwide...

8 million.. otherwise we would all be dead now.

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Nick0678 said:

8 million.. otherwise we would all be dead now.

lol good point....heads to the kitchen for more coffee..

[Innula Zenovka]

23 hours ago, Quistess Alpha said:

Maybe someone else has a better grasp of the TOS than I, but I'm pretty sure swastikas are allowed. Especially on Adult land.

Unless you argue they violate:

https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/content-guidelines

I was always under the impression swastikas are banned in SL in pretty much any circumstance, other  (possibly) on  bona fide WW2 military rp regions.  

That's what Jo Yardley seems to have been told back in 2011, and I don't think LL's position has changed since.

[Luna Bliss]

9 hours ago, Annie Nova said:

Just so everyone knows...I am Annie LOL. I now return you to your regularly scheduled show. Party on and this is the last comment I'll post in this thread. Just say'in'

ANNIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     

[Luna Bliss]

4 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I

Well since media stereotypes are in my thread title, I've been curious about something in the UK as to whether it's a stereotype.

In much of the media in the U.S. Brexit has been portrayed as having a very bad effect on the UK -- is that truly the case?

[Chris Corvinus]

27 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

While not advocating censoring smoking in artistic expression meant for adults I certainly don't want to glamorize such destructiveness in what I create, unless perhaps in a dystopian scene where the smoking is not glamorized.

🙄😒😑

[LittleMe Jewell]

35 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

While not advocating censoring smoking in artistic expression meant for adults I certainly don't want to glamorize such destructiveness in what I create, unless perhaps in a dystopian scene where the smoking is not glamorized.

Who decides if it is being glamorized?

[Innula Zenovka]

35 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well since media stereotypes are in my thread title, I've been curious about something in the UK as to whether it's a stereotype.

In much of the media in the U.S. Brexit has been portrayed as having a very bad effect on the UK -- is that truly the case?

I'm sorry, but that's too big a question to answer here.     Certainly some of Brexit's immediate effects were indubitably bad (and some will continue to be) for particular people, businesses and industries.   

However, as to the all the other effects it's had, some are good and some are bad, depending on who you ask and, in general, it's not that easy to sort of what's Brexit, what's Covid, what's mismanagement and poor planning in government departments and private businesses, and what's systemic problems in particular sectors (e.g. transport and logistics) that had hitherto been mitigated by the resilience afforded by freedom of movement but which are now having to be tackled head on. 

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by Innula Zenovka

[Zidaya Zenovka]

While I'm not into smoking (my mom died of smoking-related COPD), I would find it kind of ridiculous in a virtual world where you're able to torture, maim, and kill people with impunity (as long as they're consenting to it of course), anyone would care about something like someone taking a puff of a cigarette. Even if it's depicted in a way that glamorizes it (which let's face it-most of the time it is) so what? Unless there's some type of corporate money behind it where you've got smoking ads on the same scale as Marlboro or Joe the Camel, and there's cigarette ads everywhere you're talking about maybe coming across someone smoking every once in a blue moon. In my 14 years in SL I've maybe seen someone's avatar smoking a cigarette a handful of times. and those were using in cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic rp sims where you've either got settings that involve quick healing due to nanotechnology or an environment far more toxic than a lifetime of cigarette smoking would ever be. 

Tl;dr smoking in SL is a silly thing to be concerned about. 

[Sukubia Scarmon]

I smoked because my mom smoked. 
When I stopped smoking, I had no problem watching someone else smoke, I would actually still step outside with my friends while THEY smoked. 
When I started smoking again, it was not due to images or the influence of others - it was because I had a crisis and I desperately grasped at anything to give me some form of comfort. Cigarettes did do that in the past, so, yeah. 
The medical images on the packaging never really bothered me either, I assume it's because I'm used to looking at stuff like that due to me looking at some of my mothers medical books. Or maybe because I watched a lot of horrorflicks? I don't know, but I'm pretty desensibilized, apparently.

Now that I think of, all my friends who smoked had parents who smoked, and the ones who don't smoke, don't have smoking parents. So I'd say, parental influence can be pretty strong. For me and my friends, stronger than any other form of influence, I'd guess. Doesn't apply to everyone, tho. Would need to ask my friends about it, this is just a passing observation.

As for censoring, I'm against that in any case, because I'm against censoring in general, but if I understand it correctly, nobody here really wanted that? Self-censoring, which I'd just call.. the decision of not including it, I see as valid a choice as to include it in images. 

As for influence - Advertisements influence people, because they're designed to do that. And even then, it mainly works on people who are allready inclined into that direction and low self-esteem. (A lot in advertizement is aimed at low selfesteem.) That's also why younger people are more influenceable than older people. 
I don't think random SL pictures are much of an influence, and for what it's worth - it's only adults who should see them anyway. And adults are free to make the decision about succumbing to influence or not by themselves.

[Luna Bliss]

39 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I'm sorry, but that's too big a question to answer here.     Certainly some of Brexit's immediate effects were indubitably bad (and some will continue to be) for particular people, businesses and industries.   

However, as to the all the other effects it's had, some are good and some are bad, depending on who you ask and, in general, it's not that easy to sort of what's Brexit, what's Covid, what's mismanagement and poor planning in government departments and private businesses, and what's systemic problems in particular sectors (e.g. transport and logistics) that had hitherto been mitigated by the resilience afforded by freedom of movement but which are now having to be tackled head on. 

 

Thanks...yeah I had a feeling it wasn't all bad.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

While not advocating censoring smoking in artistic expression meant for adults I certainly don't want to glamorize such destructiveness in what I create, unless perhaps in a dystopian scene where the smoking is not glamorized.

Who decides if it is being glamorized?

That would be a complicated answer, dependent upon so many different situations.
In the quote you cited obviously it's me who decides what glamorizes smoking in whatever I create.
In the case of Joe Camel it was the FTC who decided via legal proceedings, and I imagine doctors had some influence in the decision not to portray doctors happily smoking away while advertising Camel cigarettes.
I don't imagine school officials would approve of art pieces adorning the walls with people smoking in them.
Likewise, I imagine the owners of health clinics made the decision not to hang pics of people smoking on their walls.
Perhaps some art galleries would disallow portraying smoking in a positive light for their exhibits.

I don't think anybody usually makes any kind of final decision on what denotes glamorized smoking with art that is 'out in the wild'. It's more subjective, and somewhat in the 'eye of the beholder, and I can only imagine there would be disagreements in some cases.
In many respects the determination might be like what is said about porn -- it's hard to describe what porn is but you know it when you see it.

More than determining what 'glamorizing' actually is or who determines it though, the greater issue is the tendency to re-normalize smoking via making it seem more acceptable simply by being present and more visible in all aspects of our world. Tobacco companies are working to achieve this, and are frequently countered by groups attempting to prevent normalization. Some legal, and likely some "loud-mouthed" moms on Facebook or Twitter  

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

3 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I wonder if there are any avatars that dip, chew the chaw, pinch the plug or just plain ole chew tuhbacky?

"You can smoke cigarettes till the sun goes down, but I chew tobacco and I spit it on the ground..."

Used to be sung by a band called Shades at the Gulval Meadhouse a while back. A long long while back...

[Marianne Little]

My government decided that all snuff boxes must now have the same design, white text on dark olive green. They thought they had found the "ugliest color", Pantone 448C.

The result? Designers loved it. 😲

"- I just discussed this with colleagues and some master's students in their 20s. They would rather prefer these new boxes to put on the restaurant table. The boxes are stylish and refined, with a color that is popular in the fashion scene. " 😞

https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/_stygge_-snusbokser-far-design-skryt-1.14026524