TED Talk Outline

Thesis:

  • I am looking at the paradigm shift of how Americans and the U.S. have thought about and treated our mentally ill population.

 

What is mental illness and how has the definition we use today changed from that of 50 years ago?

  • As defined by today’s mental health experts, mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors (Mayo Clinic).
  • Several issues surrounding mental illness diagnoses:
    • Tricky to differentiate between normal mental health and a mental disorder
    • Doctors typically look for a few key signifiers to help them
    • The first aspect they look at is a person’s behavior. Something like obsessive hand washing or drinking too much alcohol could be a symptom of a mental health condition
    • Next they discuss a person’s feelings; signs of deep sadness or ongoing anger can signify a problem
    • Finally, mental health experts review a person’s thoughts and their thinking. A person with a mental health condition sometimes has fixed beliefs or thoughts of suicide that are tell tale signs (Mayo Clinic).

 

History of mental illness:

  • In the 1880s, reporter Nelly Bly while on assignment for a newspaper, agreed to be institutionalized in a mental facility to see firsthand how the inmates were treated. Her article was a huge success and was the first real piece of literature that described the horrors of these mental institutions. Before she was brave enough to experience the torture first hand, people were happy with throwing anyone who showed signs of mental illness in these terrible facilities in order to give the general public a sense of security. The approach to locking mentally ill people away in order to ignore the problem was going to be addressed in the coming decades.
  • In the 1930s, Sigmund Freud pioneered extensive research efforts to figure out what was causing the “madness” within the mentally ill. Unfortunately, the public was not willing to wait the years it would have taken to test all of Freud’s theories and health experts began taking radical steps to cure mental illness. The most well known forms of “medicine” doctor’s used in the early 1900s was electric shock therapy and lobotomies.
  • The deinstitutionalization movement began in the 1950s with a huge effort to get people out of mental health facilities and move them into living communities that would better fit their needs. Unfortunately, these new communities were overwhelmed with the huge influx of patients and were unable to provide shelter to everyone. Because of this, many people dropped out of the system and had no other choice other than to live on their streets. One study that was conducted in 1988 found that 28% of the homeless populations in the United States were mentally ill (Dual Diagnosis).

 

Analysis of shift:

  • One example of how we have changed our thinking about mental illness can be seen by looking at posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how it responds to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Early data suggest that CBT following a traumatic event can reduce the incidence of PTSD in those at greatest risk. Similarly, data from several studies support the efficacy of lithium for reducing the number of suicides in those with mood disorders. In a meta-analysis of 32 trials, persons treated with lithium showed a 74% reduced risk of death from suicide (Insel).
  • The growing realization of how much mental illness affects health care costs and the number of lost work days is changing the trend of treating the mentally ill as less sick than those people with physical illnesses (Doebbeling).
  • We have also figured out recently that many mental health disorders appear to have a biologic component, much like disorders that are considered neurologic, such as Alzheimer disease (Doebbeling).
  • Now, the public is more easily able to distinguish long-lasting (chronic) serious mental illness that severely limits a person’s daily activities or ability to work (such as an ongoing, lifelong psychosis) from brief but serious episodes of symptoms that are expected to resolve and from chronic symptoms that do not interfere with activities or work (Doebbeling).
  • With the movement of deinstitutionalization, greater emphasis has been placed on viewing mentally ill people as members of families and communities. A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1999 significantly aided this change. This decision, called the Olmstead decision, requires states to provide mental health treatment in community settings whenever such placement is medically appropriate (Doebbeling).
  • Research has shown that certain interactions between a person with mental illness and family members can improve or worsen mental illness. Therefore, family therapy techniques that prevent the chronically mentally ill from needing to be reinstitutionalized have been developed. Today, the family of a mentally ill person is more involved than ever as an ally in treatment (Doebbeling).
  • A newer technique called assertive community treatment (ACT) has been developed in order to provide a safety net for people with chronic serious mental illness. ACT uses a team of social workers, rehabilitation specialists, counselors, nurses, and psychiatrists (a multidisciplinary team). The team provides individualized services to people who have a serious mental illness and who cannot or will not go to a doctor’s office or to a clinic for help (Doebbeling).

 

How we view the shift & where it’s headed:

  • I think that most people would agree that any positive progress in the mental health industry is a good thing. An issue that is emerging from easily accessible information about mental health is that everyone feels like an expert in diagnosing mental illnesses and the severity of the situation isn’t fully comprehended. With anyone being able to WebMD some symptoms and get a mental health diagnosis, there are people who do not understand that these conditions are real and negatively effect millions of Americans everyday.

 

Significant moments of shift:

  • July 3, 1946: President Harry Truman signs the National Mental Health Act, calling for a National Institute of Mental Health to conduct research into mind, brain, and behavior and thereby reduce mental illness. As a result of this law, NIMH will be formally established on April 15, 1949 (PBS).
  • 1955: In the United States, the number of hospitalized mentally ill patients peaks at 560,000 (PBS).
  • In the early 1960s, states embarked on an initiative to reduce and close their publicly operated mental health hospitals, a process that became known as deinstitutionalization. Advocates of deinstitutionalization envisaged that it would result in the mentally ill living more independently with treatment provided by community mental health programs.  The federal government, however, did not provide sufficient ongoing funding for community programs to meet the growing demand.  Concomitantly, states reduced their budgets for mental hospitals, but provided no proportionate ongoing increases in funding for community-based mental health programs. As a result, hundreds of thousands of mentally ill persons were released into communities that lacked the resources necessary for their treatment. The system was, and is, broken, an assessment underscored in a 1999 report from the Surgeon General’s Office, titled Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, indicating that, “Even more than other areas of health and medicine, the mental health field is plagued by disparities in the availability of and access to its services.” Consequently, many of the individuals released into the community without support ended up incarcerated;  it is fair to say that instead of being “deinstitutionalized” a great number of individuals suffering with mental illness were, in fact, “trans-institutionalized” into America’s jails and prisons (Health Affairs).
  • 1963: In the U.S., passage of the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act provides the first federal money for developing a network of community-based mental health services (PBS).
  • 1979: A support and advocacy organization, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, is founded to provide support, education, advocacy, and research services for people with serious psychiatric illnesses (PBS).
  • 1980: Number of institutionalized patients drops to 130,000. This is possible because newly discovered anti-psychotic drugs allows people to live in communities without constant supervision (PBS).

 

Ramifications of shift:

  • Blaming mass shootings and violence on the mentally ill could lead our nation to lose all of the progress we have made in the past 100 years.
  • We could be headed towards another shift in the way we diagnose mental illness. Currently, we diagnose mental illness by late-stage symptoms. If the way we medically address mental illness now continues on the same path, we may be able to better treat those affected by illnesses with a more preemptive approach.

 

Violence and Mental Illness:

  • Due to the readily available and better research surrounding mental illness, the general public could have a sense that they know all about the mentally ill and can therefore make policy suggestions about mental illness. Unfortunately, a lot of important facts and figures fall through the cracks and people are not getting the full picture regarding mental illness.
  • Many people experience mental illnesses, so having had a diagnosed illness is not a very specific predictor of violent behavior. This means that many proposed policy approaches, from expanded screening to more institutionalization, are unlikely to be effective. Expanded access to effective treatments, although desirable, will have only modest impacts on violence rates. Most people with mental health problems do not commit violent acts, and most violent acts are not committed by people with diagnosed mental disorders (Freedman).
  • The dilemma with respect to our expertise in assessing the risk for violence in these patients is quite analogous to the evaluation of suicidal risk. Unless a patient specifically acknowledges an intent and plan, we can only determine the extent to which that individual is within a group at greater risk for violence than the general population. Factors that determine the time and place of a violent act, such as a later chance stressor or provocation, may not be known either to doctor or patient at the time of an interview. Violent behaviors are often well planned over a long time but then executed impulsively in a brief period of high emotional arousal. Potentially violent individuals may not provide information regarding their plans or schemas because they are exceptionally guarded. Warning signals may be more frequently observed in public settings than in the psychiatrist’s office, where lower levels of stimulation allow patients to remain more circumspect (Freedman).
  • Ethical concerns about inappropriately stigmatizing mentally ill patients as potentially violent and then mandating treatment reflect current limitations in the accuracy of our assessment and the effectiveness of our treatment (Freedman).
  • Advocates for people with mental illness respond by pointing out the often weak association between mental illness and violence, and pleading that isolated violent acts not lead to further stigmatization and loss of civil liberties for those with mental health problems. Some commentators call for widespread screening to identify those in need of mental health treatment. Others take a different tack, urging a return to an era when people exhibiting disturbed and disturbing behavior were more frequently institutionalized (Glied).
  • Epidemiological research suggests that nearly half the population-whether or not involved in crime-experience some symptoms of mental illness over the course of their lifetimes. A recent population estimate has found that 46% of US adults meet criteria for a major mental illness. Meanwhile, only 33% of the US population report seeking professional care for a mental health problem in their lifetime. The very high lifetime prevalence of illness and treatment seeking helps explain why virtually every story of a violent act can be linked to some clues of psychological abnormality or mental health treatment (Glied).

 

How do mandatory sentencing laws effect the mentally ill, specifically regarding drug usage and abuse?

  • During the 1990s the prison population grew at seven times the rate of the U.S. population and is expected to continue to increase well into the new millennium (Wees, 1996).
  • Transinstitutionalization, the entry of mentally ill individuals into the criminal justice system, has also changed the face of prisons (Bonovitz & Bonovitz, 1981; Snow & Briar, 1990; Steadman, Monahan, Duffee, Hart- stone, & Robbins, 1984; Teplin, 1990). Although Steadman and associates (1984) concluded that deinstitutionalization did not lead directly to the increased numbers of mentally ill found in prisons during the decade he studied (1968 through 1978), he did not dispute that the numbers of men- tally ill in prisons were increasing at rates greater than one would expect.
  • It’s estimated that 20% of America’s prison population suffers from a serious mental illness. According to the American Psychiatric Association, on any given day, between 2.3% – 3.9% of inmates in state prisons are estimated to have schizophrenia or other psychotic disorder; between 13.1% -18.6% have major depression; and between 2.1% – 4.3% suffer from bipolar disorder. Across the nation, individuals with severe mental illness are three times more likely to be in a jail or prison than in a mental health facility and 40% of individuals with a severe mental illness will have spent some time in their lives in either jail, prison, or community corrections (Aufderheide).

 

TED Talk Introduction

In 2013, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 44 million American adults suffered from some sort of mental illness. Of the number, 10 million of those adults suffered from a serious mental illness. That’s 5% of the adults in this country who have to live their lives day to day with something serious and strenuous going on in their brains.

Before the 1920s, mental illness was treated like a sickness rather than a proper health disorder. We threw people into insane asylums or “snake pits” for disorders we now know today as serious illnesses. Fast forward 25 years to President Truman’s signing of the National Mental Health Act when the United States finally began to see that people with mental illnesses are not monsters or crazies, rather people who are sick and need medical attention. In the 30 years spanning from 1950 to 1980, America saw a drastic drop in the number of institutionalized patients living in psychiatric hospitals. This seems like a step up but all we have done is take patients from one place and thrown them into another. It is estimated that nearly 2 million mentally ill people in this country end up in jail every year instead of going to mental health facilities where they belong.

Now, that’s not to say that we have done a completely terrible job of treating the mentally ill. It is definitely an improvement from the olden days when we used to throw women into hospitals for disorders like postpartum depression or chronic fatigue syndrome. More recently, the United States has almost quadrupled its spending on mental health treatment since that of the mid 1980s, with most of the money going towards outpatient treatments and prescription drugs. This all seems well and good but what about the millions of Americans who cannot afford the tremendously costly medicine that would change their lives? Another major problem regarding mental health in America is the negative stigma surrounding mental illnesses. How can we expect people who are in need of medical assistance to reach out for help when they are taught to distance themselves from their illness in order to avoid discrimination and victimization?

I am going to detail the shift from the outdated way of thinking about mental illness to the new, slightly more positive light we shed on the mentally ill and the possible slippage that could happen in the near future.

Possible Paradigm Shift Research Paper Ideas

I think I am going to write and research the paradigm shift regarding mental illness and mass shootings. When Professor Spielvogel mentioned mental illness during Tuesday’s class, it reminded me of this great piece that John Oliver did the other night on his HBO show about mental illness and I would love to expand on his research. With the recent shootings and murders that have hit the news, I think that there are a lot of people who are searching for a scapegoat and that tends to be mental illness. There is a really interesting paper by two Vanderbilt University researchers who examine how people tend to blame shootings on people with mental illness and how that is the wrong thing to pin the blame on. By looking at people like Sandy Hook’s Adam Lanza, Aurora’s James Holmes, Ft. Hood’s Nidal Hasan, and Charleston’s Dylan Roof, I will discuss how people once treated and currently treat mental illness as it pertains to mass shootings.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Draft

 

When I hear the word smoking, my initial thought is not of someone my age puffing on a cigarette with his or her friends outside or a classroom or restaurant. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that that is the exact image people should be picturing. Many organizations have released advertisements aimed to stop young people from smoking or to get them to quit. Two ads in particular that should be highlighted are the Left Swipe Dat ad by the truth and the FDA’s series of The Real Cost ads. Both commercials have the same message – stop young people from smoking – but they go about their relaying of the message in very different ways.

The first advertisement, which was released one year ago, is entitled Left Swipe Dat and it was produced by an organization whose goal is to spread awareness about teenage smoking. The video features celebrities, widely recognized by students of middle and high school age, like Becky G and Fifth Harmony. The premise of the video is to call attention to young people smoking, rather than to persuade them to quit. The actors in the video are on a dating app like Tinder and they are pointing out how gross and unattractive it is that some of the profile pictures they are seeing include cigarettes.

As for the second advertisement, or set of advertisements I am going to analyze, we need to look at the US Food and Drug Administration. The FDA released their take on a teenage smoking ad complain within the last year as well. The FDA produced a series of advertisements with a dark and negative outlook on smoking which were aired as commercials both on television and online. In one video, we see a young girl, probably in her teens or earlier twenties, approaching a convenient store counter to purchase a carton of menthols. When she goes to pay for the menthols, the cashier tells her that the money she placed on the counter is not going to be enough. To the cashier’s amazement, the girl peels off part of her cheek skin and offers it as additional payment. The ad’s message is that smoking ruins your healthy, young, beautiful skin.

The FDA’s The Real Cost advertisements are a far cry from the truth’s Left Swipe Dat music video. For example, in the advertisements published by the US Food and Drug Administration, scare tactics are used to get teens to quit smoking. Their main message is that tobacco is a bully and takes over your life. The FDA does a great job of taking every day situations and turning them into alarming examples of how smoking is omnipresent. Unlike the upbeat and whimsical Left Swipe Dat video, these ads are designed to shock teens into realizing that they are wasting away their precious adolescent years. There is no fluff in the FDA advertisements, most likely on purpose. In another advertisement in the The Real Cost series, we see a science classroom where the teacher is performing a science experiment. The teacher begins listing how the chemicals he is using in the experiment are very harmful. He lists effects like stunted lung growth and cancer as two examples of what the chemicals cause. Then, the creature comes alive and terrifies the students. The message of the ad is that if cigarettes looked as dangerous as they are, no one would smoke them.

One commonplace that can be seen in the Left Swipe Dat ad is that smoking is unattractive and may discourage a person from pursuing a romantic relationship with a partner if they smoke. While there is no mention of how smoking portrays a person in the FDA’s videos, this theme is a major part of the truth’s advertisement. The commonplace functions within the artifact because the actors are swiping left to profiles with cigarettes in the picture. Since only 8% of teens still smoke, the point of the ad is to call to action all teenagers to get their friends to stop smoking. Groups that are most likely to support this commonplace would be groups of teens who don’t smoke or who know the dangers of smoking. On the other hand, smokers will not accept these claims because they may believe that it’s not a deal breaker. The timing of this ad is perfect because a lot of the people featured in the video strongly appeal to the pre-teens and young people who are at risk right now of picking up a cigarette.

A second commonplace that is widely understood in the Left Swipe Dat ad is that in today’s world of hookup culture, first impressions are very important. The ad uses the presumption that physical attributes matter a significant amount when looking for a partner. Whether that be a guy judging a girl on wearing too little makeup or a woman not approaching a man because he isn’t physically fit, vanity is a dangerous component of dating in today’s culture. The commonplace unfolds throughout the video as the actors are describing the attractive qualities in the profile pictures but then they swipe left because of the cigarette. Examples that are given in the music video are the adorable kitten in the picture or the woman who was in a cute workout outfit. With respect to the commonplace that online dating is a mostly physical game, we see the actors mentioning the girl’s choice of makeup and the statue’s six-pack of abs.

When comparing the two advertisements, there are several similarities and differences between the two. Both advertisements use everyday situations to appeal to a broad audience. For example, the Left Swipe Dat video takes place in a park and on a bus. Meanwhile, the FDA’s ads take place in a school classroom and at a convenience store. Another similarity that both videos possess is a comparable target audience. Both advertisements are aimed at pre-teens and teenagers. A third similarity between the two advertisements is their use of physical vanity as a selling point. As a caveat, even though both videos use vanity as a factor of smoking, it is used in two entirely different ways. In the FDA’s commercial, we see a girl who is forced to give part of her skin to the cashier to make the point that smoking is a sacrifice. In the Left Swipe Dat ad, the actors are judging their prospective dates based on how they are dressed and their physique. I think the FDA videos are more straightforward about who they are targeting, even though we as the audience can tell that both ads are aimed towards kids, rather than adults. An important distinction between the two ads is their lengths. All of the FDA’s ads are under forty-five seconds, while the Left Swipe Dat music video is over three minutes. I think that is one of the big advantages for the FDA is that they do not lose their audience after a minute or two. They are able to quickly pull in their viewers and deliver a timely and effective message.

One technique that the FDA uses that makes it stand out from the Left Swipe Dat ad is their use of scare tactics. Cigarettes are personified as an alien like creature in one of the FDA ads to show all of the disgusting chemicals that go into one cigarette. The purpose is to illustrate how dangerous smoking is and how we do not always think about the carcinogens and other chemicals that enter your body through cigarettes. The audience is shocked as the alien creature transforms into a pack of cigarettes.

One ideology or underlying belief that I deem serves to connect the two commonplaces together, and is upheld by both advertisements, is the idea that smoking is disgusting and dangerous. Smoking is unattractive and it usually defines a person in a negative way. Most people would agree that smoking is a major health risk. While some smokers believe that clinging to a cigarette is attractive, they’re living their lives according to the outdated philosophy that smoking is beautiful. These commonplaces invite viewers to form interpretations of the artifacts by offering an abundance of potential examples of how someone can be good looking but no amount of beauty or fame can offset the fact that they smoke.

 

RCL Stream of Consciousness

Taking in all of the presentations we saw, I would say there were a few commonplaces that flowed throughout. Some of the ads appealed to the civic in an emotional plea. In the Chinese New Year rice ad, for example, the ad was prominently effective because it made me cry. By an advertisement company or organization producing an ad that appeals to peoples’ big hearts, they immediately create a connection with their audience. Along the theme of emotional appeal, another commonplace that was evident was how humans value animals, specifically dogs, as their best friends. The commercials preyed on our feelings of love and admiration towards dogs to get us to either buy their product or agree with their message. A third commonplace that I noticed was the we are okay with an ad calling on us to take action. These ads evoke our civic duty to get off the couch and make a change. This commonplace can most easily be seen in the blood drive commercial and the voting ad. The primary message of those two adds was for us as viewers to take hold of our duties as American citizens and make a change. Whether that be donating blood or voting for the next president, we can make a big difference. A final commonplace that I came across while watching my classmate’s presentations was that we as citizens, even though we are only one person, can make a difference. This kind of goes along with the last commonplace, but I think this specific notion can be seen in both the Rosie the Riveter presentations and the Australian climate change protest presentation. Even though we are only one person, we have the ability to create a difference. I think these ads invoke a sense of power in the viewers and that’s an important feeling to give your audience.

Civic Artifact Essay Brainstorm (Compare and Contrast)

The FDA’s “The Real Cost” advertisements are a far cry from the truth’s “Left Swipe Dat” music video. In the advertisements published by the US Food and Drug Administration, scare tactics are used to get teens to quick smoking. Their main message is that tobacco is a bully and takes over your life. Unlike the upbeat and whimsical Left Swipe Dat video, these ads are designed to shock teens into realizing that they are wasting away their precious teenage years. There is no fluff in the FDA advertisements, probably on purpose.

 

Physical Attributes: While both videos use vanity as a factor of smoking, it is used in two completely different ways. In the FDA commercial, we see a girl who is forced to give part of her skin to the cashier to make the point that smoking is a sacrifice.

 

Scare Tactic: Cigarettes are personified as an alien like creature in one of the FDA ads to show all of the disgusting chemicals that go into one cigarette. The purpose is to illustrate how dangerous smoking is.

 

Similarities/Differences: Both advertisements use everyday situations to appeal to a broad audience. For example, the Left Swipe Dat video takes place in a park and on a bus. Meanwhile, the FDA ads take place in a school classroom and at a convenience store. Another similarity that both videos possess is a similar target audience. Both advertisements are aimed at pre-teens and teenagers. I think the FDA videos are more straight forward about who they are targeting, even though we as the audience can tell that both ads are aimed towards kids. An important distinction between the two ads are their lengths. All of the FDA ads were under forty-five seconds, while the Left Swipe Dat music video was over three minutes. I think that is one of the big advantages for the FDA is that they don’t lose their audience after a minute or two. They are able to quickly pull in their viewers and deliver a timely and effective message.

Civic Artifact Outline

 

Introduction: The music video is Left Swipe Dat by an organization called the truth. The video features celebrities, mostly from the Internet, like Becky G, Fifth Harmony, King Bach, Grace Helbig, Harley Morenstein, Anna Akana, Jimmy Tatro, Alphacat, Terrence J and Timothy DeLaGhetto. A quick synopsis of the video is that a few of the stars are on Tinder and point out how gross and unattractive it is that some of the profile pictures they are seeing include people smoking.

 

Main Point #1: Commonplace #1 is that smoking is unattractive and may discourage a person from pursuing a romantic relationship with a partner if they smoke. The commonplace functions within the artifact because the actors are swiping left to profiles with cigarettes in the picture. Since only 8% of teens still smoke, the point of the ad is to call to action all teenagers to get their friends to stop smoking. Groups that are most likely to support this commonplace would be groups of teens who don’t smoke or who know the dangers of smoking. I believe that smokers will not concur with the claims in this ad because they may believe that it’s not a deal breaker. The timing of this ad is perfect because a lot of the people featured in the video strongly appeal to the pre-teens and young people who are at risk right now of picking up a cigarette.

 

Main Point #2: A second commonplace that is widely understood is that in today’s world of hookup culture, first impressions are very important. Someone may pass on an opportunity to talk or meet you based on one picture. Therefore, posting a profile picture with you trying to act cool while smoking a cigarette is unflattering. With the simple left swiping motion, a potential date has passed on you all because you are addicted to gross cigarettes. The commonplace unfolds throughout the video as the actors are describing the attractive qualities in the profile pictures but then they swipe left because of the cigarette. Examples that are given in the music video are the adorable kitten in the picture or the woman who was in a cute workout outfit. The commonplace invites viewers to form interpretations of the artifact by offering an abundance of potential examples of how someone can be good looking but no amount of beauty or fame can make up for the fact that they smoke.

 

Main Point #3: One ideology or underlying belief that I believe serves to connect the two commonplaces together is the idea that smoking is disgusting and dangerous. Most people would agree that smoking is a major health risk. While some smokers believe that clinging to a cigarette is attractive, most people would agree that they would much rather kiss a non-smoker than someone who constantly has smoke on their breath.

 

Conclusion: In conclusion, I believe that although this advertisement is a bit over the top and dramatic, it does get the point across that young people smoking is disgusting. One of its biggest strengths is that the music video calls upon young people to encourage their friends to stop smoking. It makes a clear point that someone can be a great, well-rounded person but their entire reputation can go down the drain if they decide to smoke.

Civic Artifacts

 

With the slogan “we are here to inspire, not judge,” the truth campaign targets young people who smoke. The goal of this video is to turn an important message into a more relatable form of media to try and reach young people. By using the Tinder “left swipe” example, the actors in the video convey the commonplace that smoking is unattractive and that no one wants to date a person whose profile picture is of them with a cigarette. This act is civic because it calls upon young people to stop smoking and spread the word to others that smoking  is unattractive.

A second commonplace addressed in this advertisement is that smoking is bad for your health. The music video features celebrities that young people look up to and can easily recognize. By hiring these actors, truth was able to make a relatable and entertaining video. A final commonplace in this advertisement is that smoking is unattractive and may discourage a person from pursuing a romantic relationship with a partner if they smoke.

Similar to the ad above, this clip released by the FDA takes a more harsh stance on smoking. In a series of videos entitled “The Real Cost,” the FDA shows an exaggeration of an everyday teenage situation. In the advertisement above, teens are in a science class working with an alien like creature that comes alive and terrorizes the class. The commonplace of the ad is that cigarettes are dangerous and cause a laundry list of nasty side effects. As a teenager, this advertisement speaks to myself and my peers because the reality is that this is the age when people get hooked on smoking. Although cigarettes are legal, recent agencies and activist groups have taken a harsh stance on getting teens to avoid smoking at all costs. Just like the truth ad, the civic component here is the cry for help by the announcer. He calls upon teens to be aware of the thousands of chemicals that go into your body with each puff of a cigarette. He wants to make sure that you know the “real cost” of sucking on all the carcinogens and pollutants in cigarettes.