Merchants of Cool {Media Literacy}

The way that corporations get teenagers to buy products is a lot more complicated then I ever thought. It makes sense though. It was always very noticeable that when something was cool you had to like it but it quickly stopped being cool because everyone liked it. This movie shows the planning and scheming it takes marketers to make their products appealing to the teenage generation, like having focus groups to ask kids what is cool and what is not and going out on the street and find up and coming styles that can be sold to teenagers because it isn't popular yet so they'll be able to sell more of it before it goes out of style. So what is happening is these Merchants of Cool are taking individuality and making it popular and by doing that killing that style. It is said that corporate America has created a character to appeal to male youth. The mook is a guy who acts like a jackass, just like the show on MTV. They're saying that boys follow the actions that they see on TV because they are portrayed as cool, but you also have to think that this mook was created in the image of these young men, this is what they want to see and so that is what is going to make money. On the other hand for girls there is the Midriff who is "prematurely adult", she is sexual and is proud of it. An example of this is Britney Spears, she started out when she was 16 in a very sexual filled music video. The quote "flaunt your sexuality even if you don't understand it" made me think a lot. I'm not sure what to think of it, but it's stuck in my head. Corporations soon learned that sex sells, ex. Dawson's Creek, 90210, and Cruel Intentions. The questioned is then asked, does tv mirror teenagers, is it the other way around, or is it too blurred to tell?