Excerpt From Feed By M. T. Anderson

In “With These Words I Can Sell You Anything,” by William Lutz, the author discusses tactics used by advertisement to trick and swindle consumers to buying product, through very simple words. These words defined by Lutz as weasel words. Weasel words make little claim about the product they are describing, and also keeps the message about the product very vague leaving the consumer to make assumptions about the product. Lutz explains the importance to be knowledgeable and informed about these words so the consumers can identify what the advertisement is actually stating about the product. Weasel words like the ones listed in Lutz’s article have lasting impact on our individual lives and buying habits.

In the article The Cost of Paying Attention, the author, Matthew B. Crawford shares his revelation that individuals are constantly surrounded by advertisements. He starts by sharing an instance where he saw advertisements as he was checking out at a grocery store and then claims that they constantly steal consumers limited attention there by taking away our ability to dwell in silence or without the advertisements. He questions what would happen if individuals valued attention as much as they valued air and water. He recalls the advertisements he has seen in airports that could have caused him to forget something valuable because he was more focused on the advertisement for even a moment. He addresses the cluelessness of consumers as they are,

This essay will show how the novel Feed by M.T. Anderson displays a critique of American consumer culture and the technology that supports it. Though we do not literally have a tiny microchip implanted in our brains, figuratively we do. Our nation’s so called “culture” is fixated on smart phones, shopping, latest fashion trends and technology, that it has become so much easier to communicate and shop with the advancements made within technology, allowing people to never have to interact with another living being. This has created a generation of people scared of interaction, almost a sort of social phobia. ​Whether watching television, surfing the internet, or streaming music on any of your devices, you will ultimately be bombarded with an

Crawford has infused his entire piece with first person perspective, and personal stories. To begin the piece he opens with a personal story detailing how his personal attention is being diverted by advertisements in nearly every place imaginable. He continues throughout the piece to cite various situation in which advertisements, and the media have affected him. One example of this is when he writes, “We have all had the experience of sitting in an airport with an hour to kill and being unable to escape the chatter of CNN. The audio may be turned off, but if the TV is within view, I, for one, find it impossible not to look at,” (40).

The song Wings does just that in regards to consumerism. Consumerism has been around since the 1800s when the industrial revolution began (History). Products began to be widely available causing everyone to think they needed to buy the new product out (History). The Buy Now Pay Latter Mindset began when General Motors Acceptance Corporation was established in 1919 (History). It promoted giving loans to people who bought

In “What We Are to Advertisers” and “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” both Twitchell and Craig reveal how advertisers utilize stereotypes to manipulate and persuade consumers into purchasing their products. Companies label their audience and advertise to them accordingly. Using reliable sources such as Stanford Research Institute, companies are able to use the data to their advantage to help market their products to a specific demographic. Craig and Twitchell give examples of this ploy in action by revealing how companies use “positioning” to advertise the same product to two demographics to earn more profit. Craig delves more into the advertisers ' plan by exposing the science behind commercials.

Deceptive Advertising and the Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission, a government-sanctioned agency with the mission and power to protect consumers from unfair business practices, have created the standards and regulations for deceptive advertising (Federal Trade Commission[FTC], 2007). Deceptive advertising has been ruled by the FTC (1983) to be: “a representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances, to the consumer 's detriment” (para. 8). This statement has been reprinted by Zelezny, attorney and senior public relations executive, in his textbook, Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints, and the Modern Media (Zelezny, 2011, p. 507).

In modern society, everyone wants the latest and greatest iPhones, cars, clothing, accessories; the list goes on and on. The age of technology and social media make consumerism more prevalent now than ever before and it seems plausible to think that our society, like the one depicted in Fight Club, allows the things we own to characterize us as people. . Companies and businesses are able to advertise through many different outlets like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, which many of us interact with daily. You can order anything, from anywhere, at anytime in today’s world with a click of a button.

The mock article from The Onion expresses the gullibility of the consumer to believe whatever he or she is presented with and the laziness for never questioning it. The Onion emphasizes such features in an indirect way, by exaggerating the techniques used by marketer such as, appealing to false authority, using Orwellian language and logical fallacies. This creates a humorous article, which exposes a serious point The Onion tries, and succeeds, in making about the modern consumer: he is being controlled by the advertisements he sees. The first sentence in The Onion’s article clearly states marketers use of untrustworthy techniques to sell their products; “ MagnaSoles shoe inserts, which stimulate and soothe the wearer’s feet using no fewer than five forms of pseudoscience."

The Onion In modern society, consumers are flooded with advertisements as they move along in their daily lives; advertisements displayed on billboards and magazines, the internet and social media, and television and radio. Many companies utilize different rhetorical techniques to appeal to their audience by extending their product and its capabilities. When viewing advertisements you can see the exaggeration and hyperbolic quality some create. Some advertisements are so exaggerated that they become humorous in a sense. An article from The Onion, a satiric newspaper, displays the unintended humor that is captured within some advertisements.

Anyone would grow tired of the depressing truth, so blissful ignorance sounds like a great alternative. M.T. Anderson’s Feed goes through the stages of ignorance to truth. The effect of knowledge is ever lasting, the border is an anxious waste land, and not having a clue seems like heaven. Titus was a victim of Violet’s truth. He was “...picturing… [her] ...dead already…”(269) when she was coming on to him.

Dominic Strinati thinks that false needs has contributed in suppressing the real needs of social life (55). The more people correspond with fake propaganda and aspire to live as models they watch in an ad, the more they overwhelmed with dissatisfaction and frustration. Richard J Hart says, "consumerism enslaves rather than liberates. We need to expose the lie and illusion that it liberates and leads to happiness. The apparent satisfaction leads to dissatisfaction and lack of fulfillment" (41).

Throughout the years as our culture has become more and more saturated in media, and advertisers have taken advantage of us. Advertising at it’s core is getting the word out about your product and showing people that they need it and why they have to have it. Recently however, advertisers have figured out how to get people to buy things. They will pull on your heartstrings, and make you think that if you don’t have that one product that they are selling, that you have to have it immediately. One of the first examples that came to mind when thinking of false advertising is photo-shopping celebrities to make a point, for something that they did not give their approval for.

Stress Test #64267 For many years now, advertising has managed to have an effect of everything around us. Good or bad, the true purpose is to clearly convey their message to the targeted audience. To achieve this, advertisers will commonly use rhetorical appeals to successfully persuade their desired audience. Secret Deodorant’s “Stress Test” ad utilizes various colors, and ethical and emotional appeals to effectively grab the audience’s attention.

Introduction “The term ‘misleading advertisements, is an unlawful action taken by an advertiser, producer, dealer or manufacturer of a specific good or service to erroneously promote their product. Misleading advertising targets to convince customers into buying a product through the conveyance of deceiving or misleading articulations and statements. Misleading advertising is regarded as illegal in the United States and many other countries because the customer is given the indisputable and natural right to be aware and know of what product or service they are buying. As an outcome of this privilege, the consumer base is honored ‘truth in labeling’, which is an exact and reasonable conveyance of essential data to a forthcoming customer.”