Week 12: Conspicuous Consumption and Teen Markets

This week for class, we were assigned to watch the documentary Merchants of Cool, a 55-minute episode from the TV series Frontline (produced by PBS) that is a sort of documentary on how businesses market to teens and the effect that this has on youth culture.

Overall, I found myself enjoying the program; I have never really thought of teenagers in such economic  terms (I recognize that they are a demographic that markets try to tap into, but I didn't realize they were quite so vital to the economy), and was surprised how many people dedicate their lives to market research specifically on teens, and on figuring out what's "cool" at the moment.

The program did a good job at representing teens as critical individuals who are capable of disseminating advertisements and what they watch, highlighting how advertising companies have to always change their marketing strategies because teens pick up that they're being manipulated. This was most evident when the program was discussing the evolution of Sprite advertisements, who went from making fun of traditional advertising models (which initially resonated with teens, but they caught on and turned against it), to becoming an icon within hip hop culture. They also showcase teens who discard the mainstream altogether, such as the fans of the rage-rock band Insane Clown Posse, and they do so in a non-judgmental way (towards the teens -- the bands under scrutiny are treated much more harshly.)

The narrator's epiphany near the end of the program resonated with me as well: marketing/advertising and youth culture creates what he calls a "feedback loop." Market researchers observe teens and try to produce things that teens will be willing to pay money for; teens in turn are affected (to a degree) by this, which shapes their culture; market researchers then in turn research that. As critical as teens can be, it's foolish to ignore that they are affected by marketing, whether for better or for worse. There are always going to be some who will go against the grain, but even they are affected by marketing -- they just react to it in a different way. In this regard, everything that teens do is a response to the marketing they are inundated with every day. So it raises the question (which is brought up at the end of the program): can teens have their own culture? Something that is truly and 100% their own? After watching Merchants of Cool, I don't have an answer, and it's become one that is incredibly hard to answer.

Of course, the program isn't flawless -- after watching I did a quick Google search about the program in search of its IMDB page. What I found was a whole webpage dedicated to discussing the program. One of the pages was an interview that Frontline had with about a dozen teens who watched the program to see what they thought. The first two questions and the answers given highlight how the teens who watched it felt they were not given enough screen time -- they were being told all this stuff about their culture from adults who are just trying to profit off of them. If you want to read more of the interview, click here.

The merchants of cool. Dir. Barak Goodman. Perf. Douglas Rushkoff. PBS Video, 2001. Film.