Amy Chan

After looking into the depths of snake oils last semester, snake oils are surrounding us in various forms if we look at everything that is in our culture today. I read a few articles about consumerism and how it alters our perspective and trust on many things. Then I looked into some common emotions and how that affects our trust along with the connection of color. Color affects the choices of consumers and it becomes associated enough with something that you would automatically trust it.

I then looked into a few articles that John McVey sent me awhile back about psychic scams and how it is somewhat a form of snake oils. These psychics would make false promises and spiritual claims by making you believe you are cursed or will be cursed if you do not do something for them. They play with your deepest insecurities in order to persuade you just like any advertisement if it were visual pleasing enough to capture your attention.

I thought about the herbal boxes I made last semester and tried to connect it to the idea of how everything is set with standards and everything we see is already expected, but what about the unexpected? I looked into consumerism and medicine and how it can negatively impact the communications between a patient and doctor. Why? because we have the internet to tell us information when we suffer a symptom of some sort and that alters how you would go about treating something along with a doctor's recommendation.

To get back into the swing of things, I made these small ads for some herbs, playing around with the idea of color and common emotions associated with them. I made them as vague as possible for the idea that one herb can cure or help various amounts of symptoms which can be overwhelming therefore I narrowed it down to one use.