Brainwashed

Next week's edition of my section in the college newspaper will be on St. Valentine's Day. A relevant, time sensitive and entertaining enough topic, you would think. Still in the process of editing the articles, I get the same odd idea from most of them--my writers have been brainwashed.

When they write about love and romance, they immediately associated it with the same vision--Mr. Right who plans a romantic dinner, surprises them with a pompous bouquet of red roses, treats them to a gentle massage with lavender oil and whispers sweet nothings to them. This couldn't have gotten closer to Hollywood's teachings and marketers' goals.

Naturally and unfortunately, this scene could be every 15-year-old girl's dream. But we are not 15 any more. On the contrary, we are enrolled in a higher education institution to learn to think critically about exactly that kind of media messages. Although the younger crowd doesn't have the necessary knowledge to filter such brainwashing visions, we are equipped with the adequate skills to do so.

Then again, maybe I am exaggerating and generalizing. Maybe it was just a word, a phrase, or a sentence that threw me in that train of thoughts. Certainly, it was another realization about media's enormous influence over our mindsets.