In the dental industry, there are not really many things to advertise about other than oral hygiene products. Oral hygiene product commercials are always on TV, but I am never really bothered by any of them except for mouthwash commercials.

Mouthwash commercials are very good about placing a high importance on the use of mouthwash. Most of the mouthwash commercials do a great job describing the benefits of using their product, such as enhanced teeth cleaning, removal of bad breath, enamel preservation, protecting against gum disease, and more. All of these benefits of using mouthwash are excellent and should make you want to go out and buy it, but the way in which they describe the enhanced cleaning ability of mouthwash leaves a bad taste in my mouth ;). Many of these commercials say their product is able to remove upwards of 99% of bacteria from your mouth that you missed while brushing. The commercials always make it seem like brushing your teeth is never enough to have good oral hygiene. In some commercials, the companies even go on to say that brushing your teeth only reaches  25% of your mouth and that by using their mouthwash you will be able to clean almost 100% of your mouth. Some commercials do mention the benefits of using mouthwash as a pairing with brushing your teeth rather than brushing alone, but a lot of the commercials just talk about how much better their mouthwash is at cleaning your mouth than brushing.

Within the study of telecommunications or more specifically the college of journalism there is a worrying trend. In recent years there has been a massive boom in online revenue due to targeted advertisements, with this increase in revenue a massive amount of online content followed. Now with an oversaturated market each and every website and article is forced to compete with each other. It has been shown that the average person will read a title and if interested stay and if not move on seeking to fulfill their interest. These two trends have caused the less popular websites and pages to start using misleading titles or clickbait in an attempt to gain viewers.

This worked as titles such as “10 THINGS YOU NEED TO SEE AND DO NOW OR YOU WILL DIE!!!!!! NUMBER 7 WILL SHOCK YOU!!!!” grab a reader’s attention this was successful at first and really fit some websites well. But where this went from a nice little trick to just over kill was when it made its way to social media. Once on a social media platform, (such as Facebook), it was quickly brushed aside by many users as a scam, that is until it started to produce results and results breed copycats.

Credible news outlets, webpages, and websites quickly copied this as it again produced views, which produces revenue. This uptake in clickbait has turned what was once a nifty way to gain views into a disgusting common practice that has left many with seeds of resent and distrust towards the journalism industry.

As a food and resource economics major, most of the debates that we take a look at are based on food pricing, consumer behavior and the allocation of food. We take into consideration that, like in all other businesses, there is a certain amount of supply coming from companies and a demand from consumers. 

In the past few years, prices for organic food have risen, while fast food chains keep lowering their prices and increasing the number of franchises. In some cases, people may think the solution to fixing issues in America, such as obesity, is just by lowering the food prices of “healthier alternatives”. However, as any economist would say, there is much more to it than just that. Considering the physical work, time and resources it takes to produce and manufacture organic food or fresh food, the resulting price will be higher than that of frozen "beef" patties and other fast food elements. While this does seem like a decent solution, fast food restaurant franchises have taken over a huge part of the food industry already and it would take some time to modify this issue as these franchises don’t want higher expenses. 

In the pharmacy industry, one of the most controversial issues is the ongoing opioid crisis, leaving many at loss for what advances are to be made in the direction of painkillers. Many painkillers are advertised, such as Aleve, Midol, or Advil, which are seen as harmless advertising; however, oxycontin was also advertised as a chewable tablet. The happy advertising for oxycontin used so freely could be an ethical issue in the era of the opioid crisis. This meme is reflective of this issue in a satirical manner, showing oxycontin as a drug that is now available in chewable tablet form. 

Oxycontin is an opioid (oxycodone hydrochloride) used for pain relief, but it has detrimental side effects such as high dependence and addiction, clearly exacerbating the opioid crisis in pharmaceuticals. Upon seeing this meme, I laughed internally, assuming that although Oxycontin may be sold as a tablet, it  would probably not be encouraged or prescribed for children. Surprisingly, I was wrong; the FDA just recently approved Oxycontin to be sold to children ages as young as 11 years old, taking child cancer patients into consideration.  Obviously, this is a strong narcotic that was not originally designed for chidlren because of its addictive properties; chewable tablets are easier for children to handle than large pills and patches. 

I chose this meme for its satire and criticism of pharmacies that advertise the tablet form of oxycontin, because children often watch TV and this could lead to ethical issues within the industry. The FDA even acknowledged that young children might abuse this drug for non-medical purposes due to its easy accessibility. Evidently, when I searched for memes in the pharmacy advertising industry, a meme with the caption that read,“remember coming home from school and popping these in your mouth?,” featuring pictures of hot pockets, bagel bites, pop tarts, and oxycontin under the caption. I agree with the issue that these memes reflect; putting an opioid tablet next to commonplace snacks for young adults is a very desensitizing way to present opioids. 

I chose this image for my meme because it shows how I feel every time I see someone throw away a perfectly good plant. The field of horticulture doesn't really make many ads that talk about their products just a general statement of where to find them to get plants at. But one of the most common misconceptions that so many customers go through is the idea that their plant has died after the flowers fall off and so they throw the plant away and buy a new one. A lot of people when buying a plant often do not know how to properly take care of it or know much about plants in general to know what to expect.  They most commonly get information by asking the seller or employee from the store on what to do.

So when the pretty flowering plant that they bough a few weeks ago starts losing its flowers as normal when its flowering season may be ending, may simply discard the plant into the trash and replace it with a new blooming one. Growers specifically go through a lot to make your plant flower so it looks pretty when you buy it at the store, eventually though those flowers will go away until the next time its to bloom. I went to a convention for growers and other industry professionals and many said they felt hurt when the plants they grew end up wasted or trashed. One lady gave a speech about how even though customers buying more plants brings in more revenue it still is sad that the plant you spent months growing got wasted when it could have lived.

I used the History channel’s Ancient Aliens meme template because I wanted to draw attention to the way American media and politicians have latched onto Facebook as a scapegoat for the past few years of political disaster. Facebook has received a lot of negative media attention about its targeted advertising and data collection in the past few months. Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress and the proliferation of media coverage of Facebook’s ad platform’s possible role in the election have shifted perspectives on the ethics and dangers of targeted advertising and data mining. However, most of the focus has been on whether or not Facebook’s ad platform influenced the election, and not on questioning the ethics of how Facebook, Google, and other technology companies have been using their invasive data collection for advertising for years.