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Luis Hernandez
Professor Alvarez
English 113 B
6 May2015
Life Changed
In Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, Tyler Durden the friend of the narrator says many
things that shows society is falling apart. In this novel it says how people buy stuff from
catalogs; the narrator is a big consumer of Ikea because it pleases him when he gets stuff from
there for his house. Catalogs tend to have one of the most influential advertisements for the
narrator because that keeps him occupy when he is in the bathroom which leads him to buy
things from Ikea. For me one of the most influential advertisements that I have notice that
personally influence me are athletic things like sports and healthy eating, which are advertise
through all social media, commercials, magazines and including movies tend to persuade me to
buy things to be like the movie characters. Even on to this day I fall victim to consumption, in
order to become a healthy person, but that did not happen until three years ago in my high school
junior year.
For as long advertisements have been existing, every individual has been influence by an
advertisement. I have seen many advertisements throughout my life for example toys, fast food,
and many more. The younger generation tend to fall victim to advertisements a lot and
McDonalds have done a great job on catching kids attention. One way they have persuade kids
to go buy a Happy Meal is by putting their commercials on kids channels, which shows kids how
good a cheeseburger or chicken nuggets looks but another way they have capture kids attention
are by promoting kids movies that are well known for example the movie Cars. In the article
Advertising Influences on Young Childrens Food Choices and Parental Influence by Christopher

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J. Ferguson has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Central Florida, Monica E.
Muoz a professor with a Ph.D. from Texas Tech University, and Maria R. Medrano all working
in Texas A&M International University, Laredo, TX talks about a study that they did to see if
kids between the ages of three and eight years old get influence by what McDonalds promotes to
them. They got seventy-five kids to participate in this study and the statement they made was that
Childrens primary motives for attending fast food restaurants varied considerably, although
only 32% were attracted primarily by the food, with the greatest percentage (36%) attracted by
playground facilities, and 25.3% attracted by toys packaged with food items. A small number of
parents (6.7%) did not report on the primary appeal of fast food restaurants. This means that
kids are attracted to the fun things like the playground besides the food, so kids tend to be
influence by getting advertise fun places to go to and mean while they eat an unhealthy meal.
Just like Tyler/the narrator is being influence to buy furnisher for his house, which is bad for him
cause he is wasting money, kids are being influence to eat unhealthy meals and become obese,
which is bad for them at a young age. I remember seeing commercials of McDonalds promoting
Power Rangers which led me to go buy a lot of Happy Meals because Power Rangers was my
favorite television show to be watching. McDonalds was able to influence me that I was fallen
victim to junk food as well like chips, candy and drinks that had characters on them. This
resulted me to gain so much weight that by my high school sophomore year I was two hundred
and twenty two pounds, but all this started to change the year after.
As a result of kids being advertise bad things, some advertisements that are shown
through media and television that caught my attention in a really young age as well were the
fitness pictures of guys who were strong and athletic. I saw that those guys seem to get a lot of
attention from females, so by a young age during my fifth grade year I wanted to be like one of

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those guys from the magazines that I saw. Unfortunately, it was really hard for me to get in shape
because I was a short little obese kid. This all change once I reach my high school junior year,
when my life turned around for the best.
In the book Fight Club, the narrator states that people just sit down and look through the
Ikea catalogs and buy unnecessary things to make themselves happy, but there are other ways
that people get influence besides being advertisement unhealthy stuff. Other people get persuade
to look a certain way in society, like for men they have to be strong, masculine and do some kind
of sport to be attracting to females. In the article Corporate Web sites in traditional print
advertisements by Carol J. Pardun a Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications College
of Information and Communications states that, For example, Kolbe and Albanese (1996) chose
men's magazines having a high percentage of male readership because they were investigating
male images in male magazines. This explains that men look through male magazines where
there are shown a fit male that is in shape to promote clothes, so other men could go and buy the
same thing to attract women. This could have its pros and cons on someone, but for me it was a
great way to change the way I look at myself today, which motivates me to do a lot of things. A
passage that Tyler Duren says, Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've
lost everything that you're free to do anything. Nothing is static, everything is evolving,
everything is falling apart.(Page 70) What this means to me is that, in the beginning things need
to be hard in order to see the hard work in the end, even though once you have reach your
destiny things will still be hard, but that is how life is meant to be. I could relate to this passage
the same way Tyler Duran is going through a phase where he is Project Mayhem to deal with
society by causing destruction around the world. Even though he is causing destruction around
the world and he is happy for what he is doing, the narrator soon realizes that it was just a

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hallucination, so he tries to stop it before it is too late. Tyler Duran/the narrator on his attempt to
close down Project Mayhem notice how the world has turn. The reason why this passage caught
my attention was because in my junior year in high school I was noticing many advertisements
about healthy eating and also there was a movie that persuade me to workout. Some healthy
advertisements had healthy people that were in really good shape that made me workout but it
was too hard because I did not feel like I was going to achieve my goal. Soon after I saw a movie
about a college teen who goes to college and gets persuade to join a fighting battle but in the
beginning things are hard for him, and still ends up succeeding. What the movie influence me to
do was buy MMA equipment because I thought that was going to make me be in shape a lot
faster. Also, the brand MMA made me believe that there products were the best thing to buy, but
there are many more equipment to workout with that gives better results. All this happened three
months before heading to my summer vacation that I started to look for advertisements that
would motivate me.
In other words, advertisements that were positive and showed results persuade me to do
things without hesitation. In the article Consumers Response to Commercials: When the Energy
Level in the Commercial Conflicts with the Media Context, by Nancy M. Puccinelli an Associate
Professor of Marketing from Harvard, Keith Wilcox Associate Professor Marketing, and Dhruv
Grewal the Toyota Chair in Commerce and Electronic Business and also the professor of
Marketing at Babson College, the authors talk about how the energy of the commercials
influence people to buy stuff and do the things were they state, If ,after watching deactivating
media (e.g., a sad program), consumers find it difficult to watch commercials that are high
energetic, it is vital that managers understand consumers response to such commercials. This
explains how a commercial could brainwash a person without them knowing because what the

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commercials try to do is persuade the people using pathos in their commercials. I relate this with
Tyler Duran also because he is influencing people to do what he wants by telling them how
society is corrupt.
Although in the book Fight Club, Tyler Duran persuades people to do bad things, the way
I was persuade helped me become a healthier person, who know weighs one hundred eighty-five
pounds. I am glad advertisements and the movie influence me the way I am today because I am
living a healthy life. Even though the book was written a long time ago, people to this day are
still being influence by advertisements because they tend to influence people emotionally.
In conclusion, the way I relate to all this with my personal experience is that
advertisements have controlled what people supposed to be like in the American world. Some
things that are shown through advertisements are bad that make people waste money on stuff that
they need and also on bad food that is causing kids and adults gain weight. Even though there are
bad advertisements out there, there are still some advertisements that are pretty good because
they cause people to be healthy or spend money on necessary things they do need.

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Work Cited
Pardun, C. J., & Lamb, L. (1999). Corporate web sites in traditional print advertisements.
Internet Research, 9(2), 93-99. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/62393175?
accountid=7285
Munoz, Monica E., and Maria R. Medrano. Advertising Influences on Young Childrens
Food Choices and Parental Influence. By Christopher J. Ferguson. Vol. 160. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N.
pag. Print.
Puccinelli, Nancy M., Keith Wilcox, and Dhruv Grewal. "Consumers' Response to
Commercials: When the Energy Level in the Commercial Conflicts with the Media Context."
(n.d.): n. pag. Web. 4 May 2015.