Outcome

My alarm rings at 9:30 AM. I wake up and immediately reach for my phone to turn off the alarm. Inside my phone case is a screen cleaner I attached for easy access, branded with the Indeed logo. I put on my Warby Parker glasses, and remember that I am wearing a Google t-shirt. I return to checking my phone and see various icons on my screen: Gmail, Snapchat, Facebook, Google Drive, Google Chrome, Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, SoundCloud, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, GroupMe, and others.

I get out of bed and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth with Colgate toothpaste. When I am done, I go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Looking around the kitchen, I can see that I am completely surrounded by products with brands and logos I never cared to notice before: Goya olive oil, Palmolive dish soap, Red Cross iodized salt, Campbell's soup cans, Old Bay seasoning, Kikkoman soy sauce, Kirkland Signature chicken stock, Bath & Body Works hand soap, an Island Bamboo cutting board, and Target plastic shopping bags. I'm sure I've missed a few, but I go ahead and open the fridge to grab some food.

In the fridge, I see Simply Orange orange juice, Land O Lakes butter, Philadelphia cream cheese, Oscar Weiner sausages, Giant Eagle bread, and some Eggland's Best Eggs. I decide to drink some orange juice and make toast, so I take out the Simply Orange orange juice as well as the Giant Eagle bread and the Land O Lakes butter. I pop the bread into the Sunbeam toaster and notice that there is also a Zojirushi rice cooker on the counter.

After preparing my food, I take a seat at the table, seeing Pringles, Pocky, and Nature Valley granola bars. I glance at the newspaper on the table, not interested in reading The Tartan while I eat my breakfast.

Eventually, I finish and head to my desk, where I see an abundance of products: Master lock, Superlux headphones, Westcott scissors, an Apple Macbook Pro, my Warby Parker glasses case, a Society6 laptop sleeve, a Facebook notebook, Google sunglasses, a Google puzzle, a Google blanket, a Nalgene water bottle, a Palantir cup, Palantir gloves, a Palantir beanie, Milano cookies, a North Face bookbag, Kleenex tissues, Goldfish crackers, a Teespring mousepad, a Teespring pen, and a Panera gift card.

I open up my laptop and immediately notice my deck.

The icons I see include Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Dropbox, Google Drive, Steam, Spotify, Android Studio, Atom, Audacity, and Mumble. I open Spotify to listen to some music and since I don't pay for premium, every few songs I encounter an ad. I encounter a Verizon ad as well as a Cricket Wireless ad.

I switch to Firefox and go on Facebook, and see a Coca-Cola ad. I also see Facebook games, like The Price is Right and Words With Friends. I browse for a while and then click on a link to a TechCrunch article. There are articles that mention Lenovo, Uber, and Samsung. I scroll to the bottom of the page and see the social media buttons that TechCrunch uses: Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Instagram, Tumble, Facebook, and YouTube.

At around 11:15, I decide to head to the gym and put on my Vans sneakers. While walking to campus, I go through the parking lot and pass by a Carnegie Mellon bus. At the gym, I see people wearing Nike shirts and sneakers, as well as Adidas sneakers. There are various LifeFitness exercise machines, and I recognize one of the songs playing on the speakers: Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off."

I finish my workout and head to The Underground for lunch. I get there at around 12:57, and when entering, I pass by a bulletin of ads. I only take notice of one.

I order and see some Dannon yogurt as well as various brands of cereal, but decide not to take any. The lady hands me a Pepsi cup to fill with a drink of my choice. I go to get a drink, and see Crush soda, Sierra Mist soda, and Heinz ketchup. After eating, I head back to my room.

I decide I have enough of taking notice of all the brands that I pass by, because I realize I'm surrounded by them.

Although I don’t notice these logos most of the time, they are there. Even if I see an ad, I’m most likely to ignore it because I’m not interested in what is being shown to me.

While working on this project, I really felt like I was just making a huge list of everything I saw, because almost everything I own has a logo or a brand somewhere. Even right now, I’m currently listening to music on Spotify and hearing and seeing ads. I may not pay attention to these ads, but I unconsciously acknowledge that they are there.

After recording all the times I experienced media in some form, I am now more aware of how much media I am exposed to on a regular basis. I find myself glancing around my surroundings only to notice another logo I never seemed to notice before. By forcing myself to pay more attention to what is around me, I have now become hyper-conscious of my actions with regards to media. As opposed to simply ignoring or passing by ads, I make a mental note in my mind that they are more proof of how much of a media driven world I am living in.