8 ms·
Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? ...or any film for that matter where the main characters seem so "cool, unfazed and untouchable". To a young (mostly male) m
by nobleach 2y ago
Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? ...or any film for that matter where the main characters seem so "cool, unfazed and untouchable". To a young (mostly male) mind, that's the ultimate goal; to be in charge. For most beginning smokers, it's not about the inhalation of tobacco, but the subversive "screw the rules, those don't apply to me" façade. This might sound obvious but, if we want 7th graders not to glorify smoking, we quit glorifying it in our media. Make the stupid guy in the movie the one that's dumb enough to smoke. Make everyone laugh at him every time he tries to look cool.
- matthewaveryusa 2y agoExactly, these are the kinds of ads we need: https://www.advocate.com/news/daily-news/2010/02/25/anti-smoking-campaign-uses-oral-sex-imagery https://www.advocate.com/news/daily-news/2010/02/25/anti-smo...
- PhilipRoman 2y agoI was thinking more like this https://www.theonion.com/new-anti-smoking-ads-warn-teens-its-gay-to-smoke-1819594854 https://www.theonion.com/new-anti-smoking-ads-warn-teens-its... But that one is not bad either :)
- npteljes 2y agoGot a good laugh out of me, thanks for sharing!
- mrob 2y agoThis has been tried before. In Waterworld, the bad guys are literally called the "Smokers" and smoking is a big part of their culture. It's so over the top it seems more like a parody of anti-smoking campaigns. I doubt it ever convinced anybody not to smoke, and I think any similar attempt is doomed to fail in the same way. Kids are good at detecting when you're trying to manipulate them, and it doesn't matter if you have good intentions.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoMost adults claim that they're not influenced by advertising, yet studies show they are. I'm quite confident the same effect would be found in teens.
- throwaway22032 2y agoNegative advertising and positive advertising are quite different. I'm definitely affected by both, but generally if I feel I'm being nannied my instinct is to go the other way. People don't need to be "convinced" to do things that are good for them - if they're not doing it, they likely just have reasons that you don't understand.
- toxik 2y agoKids want to do what they see, if they see people smoke, they want to smoke. If mommy and daddy drink coffee in the morning, it doesn't matter that it tastes like ass, a literal 3-year-old will just by sheer force of will drink that bitter nectar just to feel like they belong.
- pwg 2y ago> If mommy and daddy drink coffee in the morning, it doesn't matter that it tastes like ass, a literal 3-year-old will just by sheer force of will drink that bitter nectar just to feel like they belong Then I must be quite different from that "literal 3 year old". Mom and Dad both drank coffee, and around the 3-year point I did want to try it, for the reason you say, because it was something "they" were doing. And, yes, that sip did taste like ass. So much like ass that to this day 54 years later, I do not and will not drink coffee.
- emchammer 2y agoI thought it referred to the smoke from their engines? They were the only ones in that world who used internal combustion engines?
- vundercind 2y ago
- sandworm101 2y agoRather than uncool, just kill them. In british historical drama there is an old standard that any character that coughs will soon die. If the butler even sniffles, they are doomed. So make smoking the new coughing. The kids will then associated smoking with death, living in fear every time their favorite characters go anywhere near cigarettes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Karellen 2y ago> In british historical drama there is an old standard that any character that coughs will soon die. That reminds me of the classic short-film subversion of this trope: The Man Who Has a Cough and it's Just a Cough and He's Fine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtQNULEudss&t=67s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtQNULEudss&t=67s
- parpfish 2y agoMedia is part of it, but seeing the real life adults in your life smoke influences you a lot. It’s not necessarily about emulating people you admire, it’s about adopting a signifier of adulthood.
- nvahalik 2y agoRequiem for a dream still haunts me.
- throwaway924385 2y agoAs a non-smoker, I’ve never felt like I needed a cigarette more than when the credits rolled on Requiem. Certainly scared me off of harder drugs, though.
- ta2112 2y agoJust when I finally almost forgot about it, this comment rips it back into my poor brain.
- nvahalik 2y agoAnd now, if it hasn't already been playing in your head, Clint Mansell's "Summer Overture" will now haunt you. ;)
- jjgreen 2y agoHis worst film I thought, almost an Aronofsky pastiche.
- Der_Einzige 2y agoYup, that’s the real anti-drug movie. Stuff like this works. It’s not pleasant though.
- jareklupinski 2y ago> Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? Mia's OD scene in Pulp Fiction definitely scared me away from drugs even though I wasn't supposed to be old enough to see it >_>
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoSame. That scene stuck with me. Makes me wonder if over-protecting children from negative feelings backfires. Pulp Fiction was a risk-free and simple way to make vivid the risks of heroin.
- jareklupinski 2y ago> over-protecting children from negative feelings backfires it definitely hit differently to "see it myself", versus having it introduced by a parent/guardian, who probably would shy away from making the lesson so graphic
- zepolen 2y agoTrainspotting should be mandatory watching in schools.
- ics 2y agoI would put Pulp Fiction near the top of the list for "films with surprisingly wholesome moral examples". The overdose, Butch coming back to help Marcellus and their subsequent parting ways, Jules' acknowledgement that he's "buying" not "giving"... to top it off, nobody is trying to moralize or patronize the viewer. Jules was getting close enough to agitate Vince but that just strengthens the film; it's okay to feel Vince's side more and not feel what someone else does despite witnessing the same thing. I was probably late teens when I first saw it but pretty sure if I saw it as a kid that I'd have gotten the good with the bad.
- gwbas1c 2y agoThe ultimate thing that convinced me not to smoke was watching my uncle die of lung cancer, and being unable to quit the thing that was killing him. I'm somewhat relieved that tobacco references are considered "adult" now in entertainment. The amount of smoking I saw in movies and TV (and around my uncle) normalized it for me, even though I knew how unhealthy it was.
- itronitron 2y agoFor my high school cohort the video interview of the person still smoking after having had a laryngectomy really drove home the powerlessness of addiction.
- bombcar 2y agoWe had a guy who had one come to our school in person; giving his talk whilst smoking from his stoma was ... pretty convincing, to be honest.
- gwbas1c 2y agoThe problem is seeing all that... And then seeing family members and friends smoke on the weekend... It puts it in this weird "safe to try, but not safe to keep doing" slot. Nicotine addiction is very subtle, for many it's hard to recognize until you're hooked.
- mdale 2y agoI remember that ad. I think it did it for me as well.
- toddmorey 2y agoTrainspotting. Those scenes are burned in my memory forever.
- pjc50 2y agoIt is remarkable how dramatically smoking was intentionally removed from even period movies, and in some cases edited out of old content. Perhaps silence works better than negative mention? There's a real problem with anti-war or anti-violence media accidentally making it look cool, similarly with biographies of "troubled star" types detailing their drug uses.
- RhysU 2y agoSmoking by most teenagers is easy to solve: Make all cigarettes hot pink with garish other colors in ugly, ugly patterns. Teenagers don't like looking conspicuously ridiculous.
- astura 2y agoVaping already looks conspicuously ridiculous. Nobody ever looked cool vaping.
- buildsjets 2y ago"Douche Flute."
- ics 2y agoFinally get to use this anecdote... Friend: Do you have anything that doesn't taste like middle school girl lip gloss? Gas station attendant: *chuckles* No, sorry. Friend: Fine, cherry-berry then. I don't think it works.
- the_af 2y ago> This might sound obvious but, if we want 7th graders not to glorify smoking, we quit glorifying it in our media There was quite obviously a concerted effort to remove smoking from movies and shows. It's been going on for more than a decade. It's quite abrupt, go back far enough and everyone smokes, especially the cool guys and gals. Then fast forward and almost nobody smokes, not even the villains. Ads for smoking are gone from my country's TV and cigarette packs by law must display horrifying photos of emaciated cancer patients.
- treflop 2y agoFor me, the older kids doing cool things were smoking. A bunch of actors smoking never did anything for me.