Ridiculous media pressure

caffeinehit

Just found this thread and I've been nodding vigorously along in agreement. Cosmo (I think) has a page featuring four designer items that you're supposed to buy each month, usually starting with a handbag costing about £700 (title: 'Yes! Payday!') and ending with a £200 bracelet ('Hit the overdraft!').

I mean, for god's sake.

I have no problem with them featuring designer clothes and so on - nothing wrong with a bit of escapism - but encouraging people to believe that they can actually live like this by throwing financial responsibility out of the window (or worse, glamourising credit itself) is just not on.

spaghetti_monster

Things like "hit the overdraft", or the article mentioned earlier (about items being "cash", "cheque" or "credit card") - makes me think how people think being in debt is just normal, a regular part of life.

Cos the language is so flippant it seems to imply it's not a disaster or a problem to be in debt, but something more on the level of a bad hair day....

ZTD

My OH was talking to someone who used to work in magazines such as those, but who is now (her words) "a real reporter" with a newspaper. She described here erstwhile collegues as vacuous and superficial, and said that many of them spent their lives in desperate anticipation of the next shade of eyeliner from the "big names".

She said that when a new lipstick or whatever was released, they would all become more and more excited up to the point...well I'm not going to use the word she did, but it began with "org...". :eek:

She described them as living charactures out of Ab Fab.

She wasn't impressed.

MinnieSpender

I echo all the views on here.

And to think that I felt guilty because I spent £50 on three pairs of shoes in the Office sale on Friday!

I needed some new stuff for the gym so tonight I popped into Primark - they're having a sale (I know, a Primark sale - they pay you to cart the stuff away).

Trackie bottoms - £2.50
Vest top -£2.50

I also splashed out on an oh-so-fashionable polka dot scarf. For a quid.

If I keep going at this rate, it'll take me all the time between now and my 40th to find £1,000 worth of clothes to buy!

happyformonths

This entire thread makes me want to cheer and certainly makes me think "I love this forum".

I've been "thanks"-ing all over the place and virtually ruptured a ligament in my neck from my vigorous nodding.

Thank God there are sensible women (well - sensible people; don't want to exclude the sensible men!) out there, and people who realise that IT'S NOT REAL (to quote someone else!).

I feel so alienated by these things, on the occasions when I read them - i.e. twice a year at the hairdresser's - and it's such a lovely antidote to hear you lot speaking the truth.

Thanks everyone.

HFM

MinnieSpender

Maybe we could start our own magazine and call it, erm, "Real" ... or "No! This is REALLY Real!!"

sam_b_3

But anyway, as I predicted in an earlier post, they rather patronisingly pointed out to me that it was a light hearted article meant as entertainment and nothing more. I had actually mentioned in my email to them that I was aware that this sort of article is not meant to be taken as a serious set of instructions, so that explanation doesn't satisfy me......I still think its irresponsible.

Hi Thriftylady

My tutor told me the other week, that the media always make light of something they dont want the public to get its teeth into. Something like a big outbreak etc, then joking about it in the cartoons or in another article a week later. She was saying that if the public are alarmed or scared they will act accordingly but if they can laugh at it, it becomes part of the norm and people accept it as part of their lives.

jessicamb

I used to love reading magazines - I was never into the must buy things of it because they were always so expensive even before being DFW (I discovered Primark many years before MSE) - but now if I read them then its just like being paid to be advertised at.

ZTD

jessicamb wrote:

I used to love reading magazines - I was never into the must buy things of it because they were always so expensive even before being DFW (I discovered Primark many years before MSE) - but now if I read them then its just like being paid to be advertised at.

The important to thing to remember with magazines, is that despite handing over money, you are not their customer. The advertisers are the magazines' customers. You are the magazines' product.

calleyw

I don't do glossy mags for this reason. I just get the freebies from places like Asda and somerfield. Sad I know.

There have always been these mags like vogue etc. But over the last few years there have been more and more of them. Why because of the amount of credit that is chucked at you everytime you walk down the street.

People believe that to be worthwhile person you need to be the latest "insert name here" with the £500 handbag and £150 shoes.

Yeah right my entire wardrobe of clothes including the wardrobe itself would not come to £500 :rotfl:

Just look at all the websites that have popped up selling us rubbish like boys toys these never existed when I first started using the internet back in 1993. And people feel the need to buy from them. What ever.

As a nation we have become very shallow it is all about brand names and how much you spend. Not about what good you do for the community etc. As has been said to look good does not need to cost the earth.

To be truthful even if I had millions of pounds in the bank I would still have a hard job justifying spending a £50 on a handbag let alone £500 and to be brutal who cares what you handbag/clothes/shoe cost. And who is going to rememeber then in a few weeks time no one. All that will happen is that it will end up in a charity shop.


Can you tell I am cynic

Yours


Calley