A quick “hello and welcome” to anyone who is visiting from the Nick & Josh Podcast or who found out about us at the May Day Festival in Minneapolis. New readers might want to read this PEM Primer I wrote for a conference I attended last month.

Ariah Fine interviewed me last week for the Nick & Josh Podcast. We met at the Birchwood Cafe and talked about parenting in a consumer-driven world. I also spilled the real, true story of the Target snow-angel ad fiasco. Talking with Ariah and Mindy, his wife, was truly delightful.

Ariah was also kind enough to stop by our information table at the May Day Festival yesterday. We were right be the lake and it was a *tad* windy, so I spent most of the day wearing my winter down parka.

A common reaction from passers-by after reading our sign was “Good luck with that!” Seems people have given up or given in to the idea that marketing and advertising are inherently dishonest and that there’s nothing to be done about it.

On the other hand, I was inspired by the people who stopped to talk:

– A young woman in her mid-twenties who talked about how the manufactured images of thin girls that surrounded her as an adolescent contributed to her eating disorder (she’s now recovering);

– A high school teacher who tries to reach kids through media literacy courses but finds that it’s not enough to combat the marketing machine;

– A woman who works in an adolescent psych ward who signed up saying she sees the associated problems “all the time;”

– A woman who pulled her child out of preschool because she didn’t want to pay someone to introduce her five-year-old to childhood consumerism;

 – A college gymnastics coach, concerned about binge drinking, wondering why radio stations air ads for “all-you-can-drink” nights at bars; and

– A father of four, citing books being sold in schools through Scholastic (not prompted by me), talking about the value of addressing media messages with his kids head-on.

There were many more. The most motivating feedback was from several people who simply said, “Thank you for taking this on. It is needed.”

Thank you for your encouraging words.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5, 2008 at 11:07 am and is filed under Outreach, PEM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.