For my leap project, I chose the shower songs campaign and had a fun time finding and collecting funny memes. Personally, I think when there is a funny meme about a rather serious topic it is more memorable. The truth is, everyone loves to listen to music and sing while they shower. However I know from personal experience, I can sometimes get distracted and not pay attention to how long I have been in the shower. By finding, sharing, and making up to 5-minute playlists you can listen to a few great songs and then know when it is time to wrap it up and come out. After reading the information on the DoSomething.Org page about this campaign, I learned that Americans use more than a trillion gallons of water for showering each year. That is an insane number that I cannot even fathom. It is actually enough to supply all the water needs of New York and New Jersey. A great solution to this is reducing the shower to 5 minutes, and listening to that playlist, and then the average person can save more than 1500 gallons of water a year. After seeing this data on the website, I wanted to do some more research on how to save water. According to Climate of Our Future, the average shower lasts about 8 minutes. If you use a standard shower head with a flow rate of 2.5 gallons per minute, each shower uses 20 gallons of water. Assuming you shower once per day, that amounts to 140 gallons per week and 7,280 gallons per year. We also may think there is plenty of water to go around since 71% of the earth’s surface is covered in it. In reality, less than 1% is available for human consumption. Also, the less water we use the less energy we use which leaves less of a negative impact on the environment.
Another reason why I was inclined to choose this campaign is that back in September, I moved into my first house away from my parents with a couple of my friends. By being on our own, we have had to pay more attention to the cost of living and how working to save water, heat, or electricity can really make a difference in the charges you get at the end of the month. By being mindful to save money, I also really started to think about how saving water is good for the environment as well. Thankfully, my shower runs out of hot water pretty quickly so I am never in there for too long. Coming across this campaign is also a nice coincidence since I have been queuing up a few good songs before I hop in. Then once I hear the songs I chose are over I know it has been 5 minutes, and I should get out soon.
As I mentioned before, I think when you come across a meme that is humorous it is more memorable. All of the memes you see here I found through Google and Pinterest. I think this idea of creating a 5-minute playlist will make people be more inclined to stick to those 5 minutes. I enjoyed finding these memes for my project. I hope it catches people's eye and makes them laugh. Out of the four keys of propaganda, I think these memes will activate emotions. In this case, it would be humor as well as reminding the audience how much they enjoy listening to music in the shower.
Work Cited:
Kamprad, Dennis. “Is Taking Long Showers Bad for the Environment?” Impactful Ninja, https://impactful.ninja/long-showers-environmental-impact/.
How Does Taking Shorter Showers Help the Environment? https://www.climateofourfuture.org/taking-shorter-showers-help-the-environment/.
“Shower Songs.” DoSomething.org, https://www.dosomething.org/us/campaigns/shower-songs.
