Time to Choose.

I came across this today as I was perusing my Facebook. It was written by my friend Paul Fisher. Paul is a model agent in Los Angeles and is the host of the reality show about model agencies called  "Remodeled". It is a good read. Enjoy.

Time to Choose: Social Responsibility and the Modeling Industry

We see it happening all over the world: huge multi-national corporations changing their practices – and their public image – in response to the pressure to become socially responsible. In the past decade, as environmental awareness has increased exponentially and anxiety about global warming has grown, major industrial companies have realized they have a choice: change their practices in response to the growing outcry, or cling to an outdated and destructive model. Airlines like Virgin Atlantic, energy companies like BP, auto manufacturers like Ford: all have chosen to make major changes in how they do business. They have chosen the path of responsibility, and are discovering that being good corporate citizens doesn’t mean forgoing profits or their responsibility to their shareholders.

The modeling industry, however, remains stuck in the past. Though some old agencies have folded and new players have emerged, the essential dynamic remains unchanged: beautiful, young – very young – girls are brought into a world which has little regard for their vulnerability, and little regard for the colossal impact that the images they produce have on women across the globe. Once considered an isolated and rare phenomenon, eating disorders and body dysmorphia (distorted self-image) are now a genuinely universal phenomenon, affecting girls as young as six and seven and causing incalculable social harm. For too long, the modeling and fashion industries have either ignored the problem, or paid lip service to “being part of the solution” without making any enduring and substantive effort to bring a sense of social responsibility to the business of beauty.

It’s time to choose. The choice is not between doing the right thing and making money. As other good corporate citizens have shown, a willingness to undergo an ethical makeover can enhance rather than diminish profits. The choice is between remaining stuck in a business model that is unsustainable and destructive or embracing a new and responsible way of discerning, cultivating, and marketing beauty to the world. The Network has the vision, the program, and the tools to help modeling agencies and those whom they serve to transform an industry, to transform lives, and to transform our world.

It’s time to choose.

Enabled and Entitled

The world has been overrun by the "Enabled and Entitled". Who are these E&E's? Where did they come from? How can we rid ourselves of them?

Most of us have seen the following scene at least once. Supermarket, 3 pm, any given weekday, mom getting groceries with little ones in tow. Time to go through the checkout and one of the little ones sees a bag of Skittles that has been strategically placed at eye level by the supermarketeers.

 " I want, I want!", comes the shrill cry. Mom, who is probably at the end of her rope, gives in. Toddler has just won his first battle and has been initiated into the E&E club. The men in suits at the ad agencies in NYC and Toronto know this and continue to lambast our eyes and ears with the latest and greatest thing that we all 'must have'.

The worst culprits of the E&E club are teenagers. I should know, I live with 3 of them. They think that the world revolves around them and that they should get whatever they want whenever they want and by any means necessary. Even if this includes emotional blackmail or manipulation. When parental divorce is thrown into the mix, it becomes even worse. Guilt becomes the commodity.

Getting a summer job? Heck no! Not the E&E crowd. That might involve actually WORKING!

The E&E crowd that the world has become familiar with is the Quebec protesters. For those who are unaware, there have been protests in the streets of Montreal for the past three months because the government wants to raise the university tuition in Quebec. As it stands right now, Quebecers have the lowest tuition in Canada. They pay the same amount of tuition now as Albertans paid in 1990, including inflation. But they don't want to pay the increase that has been proposed to them. So off they go to the streets and protest, break windows and cause major havoc because they have been brought up to expect to get things for nothing in return. My message to them? GROW UP!

Seriously, it gets worse.

There is a teacher in Edmonton who was suspended by the local school board for giving out zero's in his classroom. HELLO??? If a student doesn't do his work, why should he get anything? He deserves a BIG FAT ZERO. When I was in school, we got marks docked for improper grammar and spelling mistakes! Not any more. Kids are not allowed to fail in the school system. Teachers can't give them zeros! These kids, who have been coddled and told that they are special, and haven't learned that doing good in school is an expectation and not a cause for celebration, are the ones that will be looking after me when I am old. SHUDDER! One only learns from failure, not by being coddled by the world.

So my message to the E&E's out there? SUCK IT UP AND GET REAL. The world is an unfair place and is not the wonderful world of Disney or Barney or whatever shite you were influenced by when you were young. When you screw up, there are consequences for your actions. You are no better than anyone else, so stop thinking that you are 'all that'. You aren't.

The world revolves around the sun, not around you.