How the Media Preys on a Vulnerable Society: Ads, Addicts and More

Society's success, glamour and identity are based upon principles geared toward opportunity for each American citizen. Given that phenomena, we are also driven by our ills, a sense of confusion and a glitz created by a media driven machine. Many people in our society have been a victim of this machine, Though society's ills might seem to blame for the outcome of our actions, it is inevitably our own reliance on society's ills to mask our own behavior that truly defines media's role in today's world.

More than a year has passed since I loaded up a card game on my computer.The World Poker Tour is televised somewhere on cable every night. Nearly two years have passed since I walked into a casino and dropped silver into a one-armed bandit. New billboards go up every day. I have not sat at a table of strangers in more than a year and laid out my life in chips, hoping to get that 'rush' or that run of great hands to pad my bank account. I haven't even placed a bet on a football game, an office wager, or Britney Spears' next inane public spectacle.

Nearly three years have passed since I left a group of acquaintances at the end of my favorite tavern after an afternoon of martinis and said, "I'll see you tomorrow." No one has called. It has been more than two years since the last time I felt out of control in my bar stool and laughed it off the next day and stated, "God, I'm just glad no one I knew was there" or "don't tell my wife" or "I wasn't too obnoxious to her, was I?" I'm nearly 50 years old, and I feel fortunate to have caught my addict early in the game. The same cannot be said for our younger generation, our young minds that are so easily influenced by the media and the quick win, short of consequence lifestyle our society so exploits.

My life and many people's lives around me approach a world of recovery, laden with reminders to tease our minds, to allow our insecurities to be fueled, to suggest desperation as an only option in a sea of addiction. The media exploits our every move, and that alone can be dangerous for a vulnerable society inundated with get rich quick schemes and visual pictures of the good life. That pretty picture, that amazing win, that untouchable lifestyle that is continually replayed before our eyes becomes the fantasy upon which we rest our souls and values. Somewhere along the line, long before bottles of elixir filled with grape-juice were sold on the back of horse carts as the product to heal all, man was manipulating man. Even Shakespeare suggested, "to be or not to be" that stages a thinking indicating that we are all living a façade that often belittles the lives we truly desire to fulfill. The human condition is easily driven by pretty and glamorous until one day waking up, people suddenly realize that life is not always as endearing as Tracy and Hepburn made it look in the movies.

Why else would the alcohol industry spend the better part of eight billion annually on advertising alone? How many marriages created around a few nightcaps of your favorite aperitif found through advertising still survive. How many relationships at all began after dropping a standard bottle of beer in favor of a premium, and the beautiful blond nearby noticing only to fall into your fantasy driven grasp. Try not to spill your beer. How many 'casino stories' have an end result nearly as attractive as the original? Is it simply because they want to sell their product, or more importantly, is the reason the marketing need to present commercials on television and film that indicate that our society is beautiful, is passionate, and is exploitable. Oops, that last word was an error. Exploitable is one of those advertising adages that need to remain on the boardroom table.

2008 is upon us. The Super Bowl ads have been revealed, and again beer ads have the advantage. Thank God we can't advertise methamphetamine. The political climate is rampant with the election of a new presidency and the rhetoric that consumes the public's mind is evident. So sit back, grab a low-income wage, overworked and oppressed worker's bottled Mexican beer, download software to do some offshore betting and a lazy game of texas-holdem, watch the preview of a lingerie show's runway presentation's ad while Brittany Spear's latest exploits are splashed all over the television screen, and when your son comes running in with the football and wants your time. ask him to wait until later, but in the meantime, have him get you a beer, and join you. The replay of the '76 Super Bowl is about to begin.

Sound personal? Well, it is, and I'm grateful to know, I can now write this down in essay, share it with readership, and promise that within the valuable support of recovery, I can choose not to live within the exploits of my addict another day. "Click" the sound of my remote shutting down my latest fantasy.