Why do we look up to the media?

[Anonymous]

I get how influential the media is - but why is it that people look up to obviously negative ideas?

starving yourself / anorexia obviously isn't healthy - yet so many women do it.

Every girl having huge breast isn't realistic - yet so many believe having bigger breast makes you way more attractive?

Men are constantly bombarded by messages to hide all emotion no matter what or be severely shamed for being " weak " - yet we all know men are humans and capable of emotion and it's healthy to permit those emotions?

Men are told they have to have 15 foot penises to please a woman and that their size is never good enough - yet we all inherently know women don't put as much weight on sexual aspects?

I think it's odd that we can look at such extreme ideas that the media says is " perfection," and admire them when in the back of our heads we inherently see how illogical they really are.

What about the media makes those annorexic models, plastic surgery barbie dolls, heartless men, sex obsessed ( and ego obsessed,) men worth looking up to?

I don't understand what's so damn alluring about being told you'll never be good enough unless you buy said product or completely loose yourself trying to be like someone else?

[Hckychef]

Its the allusion of "keeping up with the jones". Media companies spend millions of dollars creating false allusions. There is also the fact that most people want to follow some trend. A lot of people are insecure and the media feeds on that fear. Not many people want to think for themselves anymore, they want to be told what to do.

And finally, when these images surround your childhood and you grow up only seeing images such as you described, you tend to think of them as "normal" and reality as being "not normal"

[drummerdude25]

I wonder about this often... It's sad really. People ought to just do their own thing. You can still be cool without being "cool" and living out the media's twisted ideals or even cultural "norms."

It takes a long while (for a lot of people) to fully understand what "being yourself" truly means, I feel...

[Anonymous]

It's the way we're raised, by the TV and movies and magazines.

I think if your parents raise you right, the media doesn't have as much of an impact as you seem to think it does.