Garcia 1

Enrique Garcia

Professor Cody Deitz

English 115

September 21, 2014

Project Web Essay Rough Draft

Chinet Bakeware, a disposable tableware brand owned by Huhtamaki Inc., has been

around since the 1930s, so a business that has been around for so long must have observed the

numerous changes in American culture that have taken place in the last 80 years. One such

change is how we now socialize and interact with one another. We utilize the very convenient

capabilities of social media and the internet to not only commune amongst our own circle of

friends, but often times be randomly introduced and acquainted with people whom we more than

likely would’ve never met if it weren’t for technology. Unfortunately, at the price of

convenience, some people find themselves sitting in front of a computer or smartphone hours at a

time with not so much as speaking a word or personally interacting with anything other than an

electronic device. This lack of social interaction is exemplified in one of a series of Chinet

Bakeware advertisements.

The advertisement centers around a scene of a cocktail party in a large glass case with

someone on the outside of the glass peering in. This is reminiscent of how people peer in to

museum exhibits, which is what the advertisers were likely hoping to achieve. In addition to this

glass exhibit, there is a plaque on a stand that reads “Revisit a time when being social drove

Garcia 2

people to houses, not home pages.” If seen from a particular perspective, the sign could be a

description of someone who is looking back to our time and reminiscing of the days when we

weren’t so dependent on technology to partake in social interactions. The product itself is

significant in the ad because it is meant to be a typical part of a social gathering, such as

somebody needing some kind of container to bring the delicious desserts in. Disposable

bakeware is all this ad is about. “Keep your food fresh so nobody at your friend’s party gets

sick” and “Peel away from your screen, buy Chinet bowls, and truly socialize for once” are

rather blunt interpretations of this ad. The message of reviving good old-fashioned social

gatherings would have never come across to someone viewing a picture of just colorful text

hovering over large pictures of plastic bowls. Chinet’s advertisement promotes the idea that we

as a society turn to technology for comfort before we turn to another human being. That’s not to

say we don’t care about personally interacting with each other as much as we are used to or

aren’t as social as we were years ago, it just means that the methods we use to communicate are

what could be partly to blame for any sort of decline in physical social gatherings, as opposed to

virtual ones.

The intended audience of Chinet’s advertisements is basically anyone who attends social

gatherings and is one who usually brings homemade food as a friendly gesture. Anyone that can

be categorized by the VALS2 Network diagram makes up the audience of Chinet’s ads.

Actualizers and Strivers may be an exception because Actualizers might simply use plastic wrap

around a platter instead of going out to by specialized containers and an old Striver could very

well be too bitter to care about taking any food at all, perhaps this applies to everyone else to a

degree as well.

Garcia 3

James Fowler, a Political Science Professor at the University of California San Diego and

co-author of the book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They

Shape Our Lives, along with other experts on a radio talk show explain the impact technology

has had on people and human interaction as a whole. Fowler mentions that society has become

“different but the same” while being fully aware of that sounding rather unimaginative. By

saying things have stayed the same is to say that the relationships people share with each other

are what keep people interacting in real life and the feelings people have towards one another are

what motivate them to build upon these relationships away from any electronic device and

through more personal means. By saying things are different is to say that people are now more

aware of how easily connected they are to people who would otherwise be strangers or to friends

of friends and so on.

Chinet obviously did its homework when it came to putting this advertisement together,

going as far as making a lengthy PowerPoint report of their findings from research studies and

surveys they had conducted. Based on one of their findings, a majority of those surveyed (93% in

fact) used social networking as a way to do an activity that would have, in the past, consisted of a

personal face-to-face meeting, for rather serious tasks such as making a big decision. 42% of

those surveyed even reported meeting up less often, with well over half of them saying this

would “just happen”, according to Chinet. Social media and technology was shown to be the

cause of 57% of those who would see each other less. Participants age 18-34 expressed a greater

interest in getting together than those ages 35-64 by 12%, which indicates that social media does

not remove anyone’s interest in socializing; it actually seems to increase their desire to do so.

Garcia 4

Despite its many implications, social networking has several significant disadvantages.

One of the most serious, especially between people who have no interest in creating any kind of

meaningful relationship, is cyber-bullying. Trolls, as they have been so commonly referred as

online, seem to put a disturbing amount of effort into harassing people, whether it be online chat

rooms, the YouTube comment section, online gaming, or even product reviews on company

websites, the list goes on. There have even been instances of the victims of these cyber bullies

committing suicide. Sure, precautions are being put into place to help reduce any kind of online

harassment, but the fact of the matter is that as long as there is any kind of outlet for normal

people to communicate with one another, someone will always come along and abuse it.

The topic of Narcissism arises in an excerpt from Dimensions of Leisure for Life by

Human Kinetics. Social media is one of the biggest, if not largest, centers where people tend to

reveal their narcissistic characteristics. It’s no secret that there are people out there who post

collages of themselves every other day because they can’t handle how in love they are with

themselves. The authors even goes as far as to question whether people use social media to

promote a vain imagine of themselves to the world, or to develop any kind of meaningful

relationships with other users.

In essence, Chinet tries to appeal its product line of disposable bakeware to viewers

through the use of visual rhetoric in its advertisements to communicate a much larger message

which is the decline of social gatherings in recent years thanks to the increased use of technology

and social media. Despite the overwhelming statistical information Chinet provides and personal

examples many of us have seen, social media is the proverbial glue that keeps most people

Garcia 5

together in times of separation and is still an essential medium of communication for those who

only want nothing more than to keep in touch.

Works Cited (Tentative)

Cavanaugh, Maureen. “How Technology Affects Etiquette And Social Interaction.”

kpbs.org . http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/jan/12/how-technology-affects-etiquette-and-social-

intera/ . KPBS Public Broadcasting Radio. Web. January 10th, 2010.

Human Kinetics. “Technology can have positive and negative impact on social

interactions.” http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/technology-can-have-positive-

and-negative-impact-on-social-interactions . Excerpt from Dimensions of Leisure for Life.

Individuals and Society. Print. Web. 2010.

“Quantitative Exploration of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior” mychinet.com .

https://www.mychinet.com/uploads/lostart/Results.pdf . Report of Findings. June 17,2013.