The Downside to Apparel Advertising

   Advertising promotes modified reality, through its effectiveness of portraying bliss and narrowing societal standards unethically, thus leading the unbelievers to scrutinize at its infallible downside.
Every time monthly magazines arrive in the mail, pages are immediately leafed through. Readers' eyes are fixed on stunning snapshots of advertisements. Perhaps too much credit is given for such an unethical industry. If argued, the downside would have more bullet points.
   Most girls are easily influenced in what they see, hear, and this so results in the acceptance of what society has framed as natural. Walking into malls, there are posters on either side of the hallways, each encouraging shopping by offering attractive discounts. Consequently, consumers who think that they are saving money end up spending more. It's like a negotiation with a con artist. People soon realize that they have a hole in their pocket when they lack cash or have their cards declined. So while the advertisements are beneficial for corps, consumers walk out and into the majority crowd and its recession. Meanwhile, saving money isn't the only way costumers thought they were achieving happiness. Websites like Abercrombie and Fitch advertise with fresh phrases such as, "Here's to longer days & short dresses" and "Here's to laid-back days and lightweight layers" with photos of models drenched in bliss. It is misleading when costumers think that wearing what these euphoric models wear will bring them happiness, for it will be happiness of materialism, which is unquestionably temporary. True happiness cannot be bought, but rather found and kept. Still, it enforces the harsh truth that happiness could be gained by following current trends. Schoolgirls of recent years appear to turn their hallways into a runaway and fashion bullying is on the rise. Back in 2008, girls were shut out of the "in" group for not wearing Abercrombie in Clifton, Virginia, "the sweetheart suburban town of estates and grandeur." It contributes to the bitter truth that advertisements set standards that determine happiness. Certain clothes, although portraying similar images of people shot with happiness, do not carry out happiness as fashion bullying does suppress it. On the critical point of view, happiness should not be determined by what people wear, and moreover, by shopping for clothes.
 Advertising establishes the notion that how you drew makes who you are in society. First impression, labels, stereotypes... no wonder advertising proves to be effective. On the other hand, teenagers dress in ways that they want to be perceived as. Maybe behind those black, sleek clothes, there's a sweet, shy girl who wants to find her place in society. She is who she wants to be... with her clothes. Likewise, there could be a girl who dresses so floral, with flutter layers, but she's more of a fit for metal-pointy clothes that matches her everyday, get-out-of-my-way attitude. Advertising, with its false promise of happiness, also seals deceitful impressions from society. It's America, yes, and you can dress however you want, of course, but sometimes dressing just to fall into the space instead of finding your place isn't what our founding fathers would agree on. They fought for a freedom of expression among many other freedoms, and there wouldn't be America if the patriots were all loyalists. That's one way to look at the advertising/perception situation: loyalists buying their labels. At the same time, dressing in certain labels results how people will accept you in society. This therefore explains the "wrong-girl-right-clothes" theory mentioned earlier. If the mean girl dressed in porcupine metal jewelry and clothes, she may not be as admired or taken in society as she would be. The serene, introvert wouldn't belong in a more noticeable clique if she didn't dress in intimidating Black Canary clothes. Acceptance is why people dress the way they do. Advertisements set those standards, as always. And the rest is how society will take you. Advertisements also implant the idea that "To really dress well is to fit well". While this might be true for its models, it certainly has a negative impact on society. In AP Psychology, students learn about various disorders that girls take in their endeavor to become skinny. Anorexia, bulimia, you name it. This originates with seeing models flaunt their high-fashion apparel in stem-like figures. So shopping would not be enough; girls had to make themselves a clone of what they see so frequently. "How you dress makes who you are in society, how you fit takes where your acceptance belongs in society." Although indirectly implied, there cannot be more truth to what advertisements are sculpting.
  At length comes a group of critical unbelievers, also known as researchers, columnists, parents, and psychologists, all of whom complain of the downside to apparel advertising. Advertising does display happiness, which would be considered the purest element among its artificial standards of trends and shape. But does outer beauty of contemporary age now considered more important than inner beauty? To think, advertisements have models indulged in happiness because of how they look, wear, and fit. Their photos do not tell anything of their inner beauty, and their smiles could be a ploy to make their mark on the world, but a mark of unethical standards should be disregarded. Seeing advertisements affect the way teenagers see and treat themselves. Students at Fort Lauderdale High, after being exposed to magazines and advertisements embedded within, are more likely to talk about what they think of themselves figure wise; advertisements succeed in sales as they succeed in destroying students' self-esteem. "I feel thick", "I hate myself", et cetera are a couple of random things one would hear while walking through the school's hallways, eating at the patio, or after school before extracurriculars. Photoshopping fashion snapshots frame unrealistic ideals that results in the questionable statement as to whether teenagers will ever be happy with who they really are. Perhaps how they feel will change as they realize that advertisements' photos of the apparel industry are edited during photoshopping. The attempt of boosting sales brings unethical advertisements, which in a karma-like backfire, reveals the photoshop trick. Though advertisements could be deemed unethical, there are and in continuance, costumers who buy their fictional standards. Credulous page-turners and "in-style" consumers will shop their way to shallow happiness, which could cause impulsive buying. Parents are concerned about their teenagers' financial instability, and while they hope their teenagers' allowances will be managed wisely, advertisements slowly hook teens to break their budgets, which leads to a possibility of the inability to pay tuition for future education. Education is part of the American Dream, and advertisements could be ruining it. Besides that, trends and new arrivals could be distracting in the schools' environment and interrupting the success of students' true potential. Some years ago, Tyra Banks hosted a talk show that brought out the popular and unpopular girls on stage. Advertisements sneakily smuggle their standards into the schools' environment, and thus results in what has become of the schools. Parents who went through it understands that fashion bullying is comparable to a reign of terror, and columnists collect research on the analyzation of that matter. With advertisements, researchers will always have more to add to their statistics and its downside appears to be never-ending, or its end, if ever lived to, seems distant.
  Advertisements minimize the freedom of expression, with labels for certain trends and certain collection of styles, thus bringing consumers to be narrow-minded and ignoring their self-impressions. Audacity rules, but suppressed by the recent reign of modified reality. While corporations are eager to put out persuasive ads, which are deemed successful in carrying out its profitable purpose, the unethical procedure towards cash for the headquarters and its branches may be impacting America in ways underestimated. With luck, criticism of the unbelievers could find an egress to the dystopia of impressions advertising has created.