After finishing some work the other day I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to watch a little TV. I searched and searched, and even though I pay for a gazillion channels, there was nothing on, so I finally settled on a repeat episode of Vh1′s I Love New York. This was the first time that I had an opportunity to watch the show. The show isn’t that bad to me, and it seems to be better than Flavor of Love, but the show didn’t grab my attention as much as the commercials did. It wasn’t the fact that there were some incredible “Super Bowl-esque” type commercials on, I was just caught off guard by the kinds of commercials… most notably one by Trojan brand condoms.
This made me begin to wonder about the subliminal messages that advertisers send. As a man willing to say I watch Sex and the City, I can’t say that I ever remember seeing a condom commercial on during the airings of those shows, and those episodes are just as overly sexed as all the other shows on VH1 or MTV or any daytime soap opera.
So, I want to know if there is a trend in the kinds of commercials that support most shows. I know it’s mainly based off of demographics, but within those demographics, what messages are they sending? Are they contributing to the delinquency of America by sending certain underlying messages through popular media? I don’t want to come to any full conclusions just yet. But I’m going to pick some sexually charged shows and just keep track of the commercials to see if any inferences can be made. This won’t be purely scientific but it may shed some light on the situation. Keep checking back for the results!
