The Indirect Gun Pressure From The Media On Society

The clock strikes 8pm the pendulum moves from left to right, families emerge out of their rooms, kids get off their phones, parents turn off the news, and they all gather in the living room to watch a family movie. All of these family members leave one media just to move onto the next.

Media. It's a powerful thing, especially in the 21st century we see everyone being influenced by the media in some sort, not only parents, but even young kids and adolescents. Kids these days have phones where they are on social media apps, parents who are watching TV everyone is on some sort of media, may it be social media, regular media (news), movies, and video games. But with so many people being on so many different types of media’s starts raising questions such as how are these different types of media having an effect on us the audience of this? And the answer is not what many expect and I sure did not think the answer is true but as a matter of fact it is true, media does have an impact on our lives, the level of impact may differ from person to person but it definitely has an impact on us, but the impact it has on us is more of a pressure, somewhat like peer pressure but in this case it is media pressure. Media is one of the most controversial topics, and along with that is the issue of gun violence but what many fail to notice is that both these issues are interconnected, in our day and age we notice a rising gun violence rate, and at the same time there are more and more people exposed to the media they are correlated. Although some might think that the rising rate of gun violence is due to our population increasing they fail to notice that most gun violence cases involve the gunner exposed to violent media they are pressured into getting these guns and use them because different medias give them different reasons to use guns. The three biggest media contributors pressuring our society into getting guns are the video game industry, social media industry, and movie industry. But these media’s don't have to stop they just have to be controlled and monitored by governments so that the public citizens are not pressured into getting guns.

“Alex!” called his mom. He got off his couch and turned off his console he way playing Call of Duty on and headed downstairs for dinner.

First of the violent video game industry is one of the most entertaining media industries and has over 40 million violent video gamers. Let's get some context violent shooters have always been a fun thing even when it's not video games, many adults have played with toy guns such as nerf etc, and while those were all fun and games, but as the earth started revolutionizing we started to simulate these games through a TV or a computer, and as the years have gone on the aim of these games is no longer to have a fun experience and provide entertainment, it's become more serious but what the gamers don't often understand is that the new level of seriousness these games have reached is not real anymore, it's fiction, many don't understand this distinction fully thus getting pressured into getting guns. The violent video games industry have slowly yet steadily been moving away from the traditional World War battles from showing how brutal guns, and how much of harm it can do not only to a person or family, but to an entire nation, they are now more fictional but portray guns in a serious way. According to Columbine the mass shooters of the school were big fans of the game “Doom” this is a FPS game where your status rank increases as you kill people. David Cullen (author of Columbine) describes them as “acting out dark digital fantasies” This suggests that these students were acting out a dark fantasy from the game “Doom” that David Cullen mentions later on in the book. But how did they get this dark fantasy is the real question, and this was through the pressure the game put on Eric. Cullen described Eric as “one that always wanted to go with the flow and be the cool kid in school” and this game's story implied just that, if you have a gun and kill people you are “cool” not only did this mislead Eric and change his personality but Eric then pressured Dylan, not only with developing dark fantasies but also Dylan's personality, the way he dressed up etc (page 154) All of this evidence can implies that teenagers are pressured by the new fictional violent games, they don't understand the true abuse the guns cause, and when they don't understand that they do shooting like Eric and Dylan did. Not only are video games pressuring teenagers and sometimes even adults, but sometimes once one person is pressured and manipulated they spread the same pressure to others around them we can see this from the way Eric manipulated and pressured Dylan to change his thinking.

On the other hand there are many that say that these new fictional violent video game approaches actually make the games more fun, and addictive and some articles even suggest that if fun fictional violent games keep on being sold it could keep gamers hooked on their consoles/computers and reduce the pressures to buy or use guns. Though this is true and these new fictional games are infact more entertaining and addictive what is it too stop one from doing it in real life, infact we did see the Columbine shooters who were “addicted” to games such as these come out and cause shootings. At the end we must understand that the video game industry is making millions of dollars from these new fictional games that promote owning a gun indirectly, and if more and more people start believing and learning from video games we might see an increased number of gun users, eventually causing more shootings, may it be by “accident” or on purpose the government should keep a watch on the video game industry. It is a powerful one.

The next big media industry that pressures people into getting guns is social media. Social media is a great thing, infact I am sure than many including me could not imagine their lives without social media! It is a great thing, in connects people from one end of a country all the way to the other, actually it can connect someone from one side of the world to the other side as well! Now that's quite fascinating but on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter there are many strangers. And one of the great powers of the social media platforms in our day and age is to change someone's identity and this is what many of the strangers on social media do, especially to the young teenagers out there. Often we are scrolling down the notifications area on our Twitter page or Instagram page and notice maybe a “trending now” post or something to that matter, and many times we see guns present in the photo, and captions on the photo such as “love this thing, had so much fun” but for many teenagers this may be misleading. As many know the teenage ages are when you are at your most curious, and coming across pictures like this can tempt or pressure you to own a gun, so you can feel the same experience they are feeling, but you don't know what type of person they are and this could be super powerful because these strangers who post photos of guns could drastically change your personality. Seeing others using guns could make you want to try using them as well, and well if you don't have proper supervision or use it at the wrong time there could be many problems caused. Nonetheless social media is a great place to promote your interests, I know that many of my friends and I post or tweet pictures of me doing things I love. And for some shooting with guns in a firing range may be their hobby, but when images like this surf the internet where there are millions of active kids, it could raise many eyebrows and instigate many to try using guns. Social media is also great for connecting with friends and many kids don't connect with anyone but their friends as their school teaches them which is great but for those that do go outside their friend circle they notice that social media has many trends that people act on, gun is one of the small but powerful trends in the social media world that could influence/pressure people to join in on. We see that when there is something new on social media (a trend) many start to follow it especially teenagers, an example of this is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it was a small trend that started but as it surfed social media more and more, kids kept on trying it. This could be the same case with guns, right now it just a small trend but if governments don't watch over social media this trend could catch onto many young teenagers and cause worldwide issues.

The last big form of media that pressures the public into owning guns is Movies and/or TV shows. Nearly everyone at some point in their life have watched a movie or a tv show with friends or families, and about 50% of the time movies or tv shows portray guns. Often the cool or the big men in the movies have guns.This can make many young viewers of the movie or tv show think a certain way, and many times it makes the public think that if you have a gun you are “cool”, though not one movie make this change in people, this change comes over time as you watch more movies spreading the same message (having guns makes you cool) Examples of such messages can be found in movies such as fast and furious, and tv shows such as arrow. However on the other hand sometimes movies do show that people who think they are cool with guns etc show the downfall of that person. Though that is true and is good that some movies are spreading the message that guns can sometimes lead to downfall we notice more that owning a gun is associated with your status and how “cool” you are. What the movie industry should do is make more movies and tv shows that are aimed at kids and show how sometimes having guns is bad and how much harm it can cause to the owners of the guns and people around them.

Though there are many that think the rising rate of gun violence is related to the growing population, and media is a innocent platform that does not have an impact on people's on people's perspective on guns but media is one of the biggest influences that force people to get guns. Everyday we see stories of young people using guns, killing innocents around us, people who are kids and can't defend themselves, people who are too scared to fight back. And about 70% the time these serial killers don't really meant to do it, it's not them acting out on their behalf, it's the repeated influence that these people get from media and we can see evidence of this from nearly every news site that reports on what influenced the murders to perform actions that they did. Now the media does not need to be stopped but it does need to be controlled, and this is critical, if you want your kids and their family to grow up in a safe environment where they are not given exposure to this, we need to start controlling the media. Because if we don't change the media now, it will be too late, there will be too many murders on the loose to stop, and nothing we can do, but that's the future of us doing the wrong thing, if we however work together and and make petitions to control media we can live in our dream world. As for video games, we must have a team of professionals that carefully evaluate the violent video games before the hit the markets and have millions playing them, we must ask violent video games to go back to their roots and once again show how harmful guns are through video games like they did back in the day. As for social media’s we must start to restrict pictures of guns or any hazardous items. For instance if there is a picture of a gun posted it should be striked and taken down, we should give each account 3 strikes and if they exceed the strike limit we shall permanently ban their account. This will encourage people to not post photos of guns that will influence others to get them because no one wants their account permanently banned. Lastly we need to change Hollywood, we must stop showing guns and power together, instead maybe show how guns give temporary power but in the long term we should show the harsh consequences, when doing this we should target the the younger audience, so that from an early age we can start to teach kids that these guns are bad if this done people will have that idea engraved in their heads. I strongly believe that if these actions are taken as soons as possible we can still have a sustainable, safe future. But what we should not do instead is ban media. Media is a great resource and we have come to the day and age where we kind of need it in our life, it provides entertainment, connects people and much more. If we can control media we can have a sustainable tomorrow.


Change starts with us, let's start now.

Unrealistic Beauty Standards In The Media

Unrealistic beauty standards have resulted in a number of young girls and women to develop eating disorders, mental and physical health problems.

With almost all magazines and media photoshopping their models to have thigh gaps and fixing all their ‘flaws’ These outrageous beauty standards in the media affect almost all children, especially young girls and teens. Showing them that this is what society expects them to look like and if they have ‘flaws’ or don’t fit into a certain weight category it will effect them in a negative way. With a lot of dangerous diets and ‘cleanses claiming that this will make you look 100 times better, ’ there is a result in a number of young girls and women developing some mental and physical health problems. Within the last couple of years society has supported the idea that the ‘thigh gap’ since then there have been a number of dangerous diets to try to achieve the thigh gap.

“I wish that I had a thigh gap” “Have you seen this model's flat stomach? I wish I had a flat stomach” “I hate my body” A young girl, who will remain nameless (age 9) Her mother responded “I think that it's heart breaking that young girls and women hate their own bodies because the media has brainwashed them into thinking that they need to look a certain way”

Unrealistic Beauty Standards In The Media

What shapes our perception of beauty? When we answer that question we tend to think about models with unattainable standards of perfection. Why is that?

Earlier this month 19 year old australian model Essena O’Neill had released a video called “Why I REALLY Quit Social Media” In the video she talks about how all the photos in her instagram are not ‘candid’ and how it was not real life. She goes on to talk about how she had an unhealthy obsession with looking perfect and ‘beautiful’ when the beauty standards in the media are so unrealistic. “I was measuring my self worth by the number of likes and followers I had, I was measuring my own self worth on someone else's opinion” She said in the video.

Young adults and the media are obsessed with looking a certain way or being a certain weight to be considered beautiful or pretty. This is unhealthy and pressures people, especially young girls to look like all the unrealistic beauty standards. The media tells us that this is what an average girl should look like.

This impacts a lot of young girls self esteem and feeling of self worth. Lexie Cohen, only 9 years old would ask on a daily basis “What’s wrong with me? Am I too fat? Am I too skinny? She is easily influenced and not very confident. It’s heart breaking because she is only 9 years old and she is already obsessed with what others think of her. When we were 9 years old we would go play outside all day and hang out with our friends, we were not always behind a screen looking at models and movie stars that have ‘perfect bodies’ and think to ourselves ‘why don’t I look like that?”

Every day we see ads and models on magazines that have been photoshopped or had gone through hours of hair and makeup to look the way they look. Kids are being affected by social media at very young ages. Society makes you think that you must look like models to be confident and love yourself.

“Unrealistic beauty standards are getting out of control, they are pressuring girls everywhere to be a certain weight or to fit a certain size.” says Kimaya Shahi grade 8 student at UWC east, she continues to say “This is unhealthy because some girls are going on dangerous diets or starve themselves to be ‘pretty’” Over the past couple years, a new beauty trend has been to have a thigh gap. Media has claimed that if you have a thigh gap you are healthy and fit, but this is not actually the case.

There have been a lot of extremely dangerous diets circulating that claim that these diets will help you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time. A lot of people that have tried these diets have been hospitalized because they were starving themselves and/or over exercised, Just two examples of these diets are ‘Purging’ and the ‘K-E diet’.

Purging includes making yourself vomit, chewing food and spitting it out, and abusing laxatives. “These unhealthy and unsafe behaviors are not uncommon on college campuses, pose serious health problems, and are the first step in the development of eating disorders,” says Connie Diekman, RD, the director of nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also counsels students who have eating disorders. Regular vomiting or abuse of laxatives also causes fluid loss that can cause serious dehydration.

One of the more physically repulsive diets that has become popular recently is the ‘K-E diet’. This diet involves sticking a tube up your nose and ingesting your food through the tube. The fluid drip that must be left for 10 days to work and has protein, fat and water. It constantly drips through the nose. These are a lot of dangers with this outrageous diet, having no physical energy, kidney troubles and sometimes kidney failure, in serious cases this diet has caused death. But anything to lose a few pounds, right?

Sadly there are a lot of people that do go on these stupidly dangerous diets just to shed pounds. Is losing weight that important to risk your life?

A shocking example the unrealistic standards of beauty is Abercrombie and fitch CEO Michael Jeffries, he had said that he only wants ‘cool and popular kids’ to shop at his stores, which is why he refused to stock anything above an AU size 14. Imagine being a young kid going into a store and not being able to buy anything because you are ‘too big’. That would hurt your self esteem and make you feel like you have to be a certain weight or size to be able to fit in or love yourself and how you look?

“There are always going to be people that judge you and everyone will have to deal with it in life all the time so there is no point in obsessing about what others think of you, you will be a lot happier if you learn to love yourself and be happy with who you are.” says 13 year old Jee Jee, a grade 8 student at UWC

The media is emphasizing that to be happy you need others approval, because that's all that matters, not your happiness, not your personality, but the number that tells you if you are worth it or not.