I have a question for whomever decided that the above picture was a good marketing tool for a Back to School sale. Why, dear advertiser who makes copious amounts of money, would you write a '2' in place of the word you so awfully represented with a number? A large majority of kids butcher the proper English language when they text and/or write on the internet. I don't have to go to school to do either of those things. In fact, some preteens and adolescents would strongly argue that they would much rather give themselves premature carpal tunnel of the wrist with a myriad of electronic devices than go to classes. You are encouraging this.
In an economic sense, why on Earth would I spend money on school, much less school supplies, when the advertiser behind this sign probably makes more than my college tuition in the span of a few contracts? He is, for the purpose of my argument, a successful businessman. Perhaps more impressively, he was able to become wealthy without proper English. Essentially what this sign is telling me is that I never have to go to a single Language Arts class in my life if I want to be affluent. So no, store with poor choice of advertisement, I will not go to your 'Back 2 School' sale. I'll be on Facebook instead.
Let's expand on this post using the tools we learned in class for future weeks.
ReplyDeleteWhat might be a lesson from class in this post? You mention that this advertiser likely made tons of money without even knowing proper grammar and spelling. What does this say about how we make money? What does this say about our values? Maybe the lesson is that something need not seem valuable or useful to all of us in order for it to be good for society or good for some of us. There must be some consumer out there who thinks this sign is kind of cool or some store who wants to use it, so it need not seem useful or well-designed to you or me, but it does to someone else. This is reason enough for it to be produced and for it to make a profit. Though you might think it is entirely useless, someone values it.
And what does this say about values? Values are subjective! There are no objective values or costs as these are a value or a cost to someone and we all have different preferences. Though this sign probably gives you negative pleasure, for another person they may love the sight of it and cherish it's placement. Values depend on who we are talking about and they are subjective.