Sharing

[jkrazy52]

I guess it depends on where you live.
(disclaimer: I occasionally go in for a coke.)

What I see locally are:
1. average suburban moms buying the kids a Happy meal, and letting them run off steam in the playplace.
2. blue collar guys working at any number of jobs--housepainters, construction, landscape, whatever, having lunch.
3. Teens with disposable income.

again, perhaps that's just my area.

This is what the McDonald's are like in my area too -- with one major addition ... senior citizen coffee groups. I know one woman who actually sold her home to move closer to "her" McDonald's. The difference may be "my area" is basically country; the largest town in the county is under 16,000 people. I, personally, may stop at Mc'Ds 3-4 times a month -- it's quick, tasty (all those additives, huh?) and reasonable. Eating at home is not always an option. When I have to eat out, McDonald's costs ~$5.00, a cheap 'dine-in' restaurant runs $12-$20, without the tip.

But, back to the original thread ...

It's a pity the advertising world has decided we're all selfish, self-centered idiots. I haven't seen the ads in question here. My least favorite (most abhorent?) type of advertising would involve a wonderfully intelligent child making his/her parent look like a moron. Kids already believe they know more than the adults -- why add to it? This is why I watch very little "boob tube". Books have no commercials, Thank God!

~Judy

[chas]

That's not a proper diet! Tha's gonna kill ya!
Breakfast. Dark beer that looks like coffee. Drop a raw egg in it. Beer nuts.

Lunch. Leftover St. Paddy's beer, green, the color of salad. Red Ale, the color of tommatoes. Brown ale, the color of bacon. Drop in another raw egg. Like a chef's salad. I call it a chef's beer.

Snack. Beer sandwich. That's one can of wheet beer for the bottom, a can of dark beer for the meat, and another can of wheat beer for the top, all in a quart jar. Pour and drink carefully.

Supper. Dark rum or Whiskey, the color of a grilled steak. More green and red beer for salad. Vodka, made from potatoes. Followed by stout, the color of chocolate cake.

VB, I didn't include beer, because beer's not available at McDonalds. The Enquirer or one of those had the Amazing Beer Diet awhile back. I never bought the issue to see what it was, but figured I was already on it.

[MarkB]

I would like to share this with all you, below is a link to a lot of reviews of Eric Schlosser's book "Fast Food Nation."

It should be required reading by everybody.

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ ... hlosse.htm

From the Guardian:

"...Behind the front counters of the fast-food chains, the familiar menus and logos of McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut or Kentucky Fried Chicken (the last two owned by the same corporation, Tricon Global Restaurants), lie other assembly-line operations, ownership of which is concentrated in ever fewer hands, allowing even greater economies of scale. Thirteen large slaughterhouses, or meat-packing houses in US terminology, now supply most of America's beef. Three companies, Simplot, McCain and Lamb Weston (which is owned by the even larger conglomerate ConAgra), control 80 per cent of the US market for frozen french fries. In the wake of the launch of the Chicken McNugget - made from reconstituted chicken, flavoured with beef additives and containing twice as much fat for its weight as a hamburger - eight chicken processors ended up with about two thirds of the US market. They too are wary of their employees. AD Anderson, one of the founders of the slaughterhouse giant Iowa Beef Packers (IBP), said of the new assembly-line slaughter and carcass-dismembering system he helped pioneer: "We've tried to take the skill out of every step."

I found the book disturbing and something I really didn't want to know when walking into any restaurant,let alone a fast food joint of any name.

MarkB

[Flyingcursor]

I don't object to advertising in itself. Nobody will buy a product if they don't know it exists and nobody will by YOUR product if they don't have a reason to believe it provides a payoff to themselves. Either better quality or lower prices or ideally both.

Unfortunately the advertising industry goes way beyond simple hawking by attempting to paint pictures of society and how we should behave/think/purchase that have little basis in reality. The cosmetic commercials already mentioned for example. Or as Satyricon pointed out, blatently promoting dishonest behavior. The two worst offender being Disney and Mcdonalds. In one of the Disney commercials the husbands are playing golf but seem compelled to lie about what they are doing. Why?

That brings up other phenomena propounded by commercials; the smart mouth punk kid, bitchy domineering wife and stupid father/husband.

[janice]

I too recommend "Fast Food Nation." You will never think casually about eating in a McD's et al again (if indeed you ever do!). Schlosser's latest book, on various aspects of the underground economy in the U.S. (and which the name of currently escapes my brain), is also a very illuminating, albeit depressing, read.

[MarkB]

Schlosser's newest book is: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/cat ... ber=688450

Alas, just as depressing but also an overview just not of the United States but what is also happening in other western countries.

MarkB

[starman]

i want a bigmac, now.

I'm with you and I am educated.

Sincerely Mike, Ph.D.

[mvhplank]

Basically, eating an Atkins-style diet, fresh fish, or any fresh fruit and vegetables, is much more expensive than eating at fast-food restaurants. One person interviewed said the typical Atkins diet was costed out at $25/day/person, while more modest budgets for food were likely to be $4/person/day--still much less than a non-Atkins fresh-foods diet. Buying foods that give you more calories for your dollar becomes something of a survival mechanism.

I'm not sure where these numbers come from -- ONE meal at McDonald's costs $4, at least around here; it would cost, I suspect about $10 a day to have 2-3 meals there. I don't dispute the numbers for the Atkins diet, but I don't think it's typical, certainly not of what I pay for food.

I don't know where the numbers came from either--I don't tend to take notes when listening to the radio . The woman they were talking to at the beginning of the report ate from the 99-cent menu and skipped breakfast (as I recall).

M

[satyricon234]

How did this go from advertising to fast food and the modern day equivilent of Sinclair's "The Jungle"?

That's the way it goes.

I'll read that book but it won't stop me from eating pizza.

[jkrazy52]

How did this go from advertising to fast food and the modern day equivilent of Sinclair's "The Jungle"?

That's the way it goes.

I'll read that book but it won't stop me from eating pizza.

I think it's called thread hijacking -- favorite game of Chiffsters everywhere!

~Judy

[toughknot]

[quote="satyricon234"]Does anyone recall the concept of sharing?

Can I share your whistle's? Meet me at Micky D's,I'll share my large fries.

[jim stone]

I haven't seen the ads so I don't know and must defer
to those who have, and isn't it possible that they
are tongue and cheek or not trying to teach anybody
anything, and we are taking them overly seriously?
Maybe we are losing our sense of humor.

As in, 'McDonald's: so good you don't want to share!
Get yer own Big Mac!'

One has to see this in a grim
light to take it to be teaching selfishness or anything
else--indeed,
it works as a commercial precisely because it
trades on the prevailing idea that one should
share. Not with McDonalds, the exception to
the rule!

I once drove across the country with some Marxist-Leninists
who were incensed by the movie 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,'
which they saw as preaching the destruction of
third-world cultures by Western imperialism.
'Raiders!' they kept saying. 'RAIDERS of the Lost Ark!'
Around Kansas I told them that maybe they were
taking the movie too seriously. Had to walk to California.

I agree that advertising is often good at getting
people to want things they wouldn't want
otherwise. But I doubt that it teaches much of anything.
'I'd rather fight than switch' ads weren't teaching
violence.

When I was in India in 1972 people
complained to me that their transistor radios
broke down in six months. They wanted what we
in the West have, they said. I said that they were
making a mistake. I said that they were rich in
their culture, their close relationships with one another,
and their families, and that having TV sets (they didn't
have them yet) would harm their relationships.
People wouldn't talk to each other, they would
watch TV. I said that the factories that built these
things would pollute the environment, that people
would leave the villages to work in them and
the fabric of society would be altered. At the
end they would wish things were as they were
before. It wasn't worth it.

They looked at me as though I was insane.

In Goa in 1987 the family in my hotel brought
out a TV set. As the sun set over the ocean,
unbelievably beautiful, they watched idiotic
comedies. I said: 'For heaven's sake, why not watch
the palm trees, the sea, the sunset!'
They answered: 'You don't understand. We've
been here all our lives. We're bored by the
sunset and the sea. We want to watch television!'

Apparently what we have in the USA is what people
will create if they have the money. I expect
that we are more restrained than many
will be. Advertising has little
to do with it or the way we treat each other; it
facilitates the general trend of what we will do anyway.

[Flyingcursor]

As usual Jim comes through with balanced insight. I know that I unfairly attach sinister motives to everything.

[Rando7]

Does anyone recall the concept of sharing? Apparently modern television advertising has decided that it is OK to be stingy and selfish if the product is good enough.

Well this thread has meandered around but getting back to your original point it does seem like the concept of "sharing as a virtue" has disappeared from commercials. I can think of several commercials back in the 60's/70's that applauded sharing - I think there was a candy bar (Kit-Kat maybe?) that's selling point was something like "half for you, half for a friend". I also remember commercials emphasizing sharing chewing gum (no, not the same stick), the famous Joe Greene commercial where the kid gives him a Pepsi, the old Cracker Jack commercials, etc. I'm not a big TV watcher now so maybe I'm missing some modern equivalents.

[amar]

sorry to digress a wee bit, but when i was a kid, there was this commercial, i wonder if any of you recall:

'hey momma, this is your big boy bubba, eating his big candybar.'
this bubba fella i think was a football player, if anyone can find a clip that would be great.