Food for Thought

While most of YouTube is fluff at best, there are some eye openers. I started this journey by clicking on the 70's commercials link provided by Learn and Play and watched the Kool Aid commercial, which reminded me of other commercials from my childhood. I viewed the classic "I Want to Buy the World a Coke" commercial from the 70's (nothing like good old fashioned peace, love, harmony and consumerism), and then marveled at the difference in the messages and images behind commercials from 1967, the mid-70's and 1978 for McDonald's. Then there was a local news story of a meat processing plant for McDonald's that promoted eating McDonald's hamburgers as a way to support a farmer providing for his family. Yeah. And finally, I found a video featuring Morgan Spurlock of "Super Size Me" demonstrating McDonald's french fries that had not even begun to decompose after 10 weeks. He posed the question to viewers of what was in these things to keep them from decomposing, and what did that do to our bodies when we eat them?

I think what I find most eye-opening about sites like YouTube, though, is not the occasionally thought-provoking subject matter that pops up, but the vast array of inarticulate and simple-minded responses from users. I continue to be amazed at the vast majority of responders who are not only unable to write coherently but who seem completely unable to formulate an independent thought. I'm saddened by this. Time after time I've seen social media that has so much potential to educate and to provoke thought; yet most of these efforts seem lost. My hope lies with the occasional user who does scratch his or her head after viewing a video like the Morgan Spurlock piece and thinks about things.