Is Cool, taste?
Watching Merchant of Cool scares me! It seems that kids are getting older and older, whatever happened to innocence!! What I’m referring to is the young girl who is 13 but acts like she is 18 through her dress, make-up and her behavior. She dances with boys like she is in adult night club, I wonder what her parents said after they watched the vidio. I know my reaction would be to ground her for life. (Oh my God, I sound like my mother!)
However, media loves these ‘tweeny boppers’, they are their best customers! Why? Well, they definitely have more money than we did as teens, we were lucky to get 5 bucks a week, I can only imagine what kids get nowadays. Teens, expecially tweens are easy to influence. They like the idea of being cool, and the ways to be cool is to buy into what media has to offer. The more that is offered the more teens will buy.
Can you imagine the amount of stress this puts on parents? Parents want their kids to be cool so they will buy their children whatever they basically want, no one wants a ’geek’ for a child, parents want their kids to be cool.
Competition also plays a huge role in this as well, parents will compete with other parents in buyging things for their children such as the latest fashions, cell phones, mp3 players… the list goes on and on. The media does not only love the tweens but they love the parents, they have captured their audience in which they are making their millions off of. 
I have to admit, I have bought into the media ploys for certain things for my daughter, my family and myself, and to be quite honest I don’t think I’ll stop, I am part of this thing called CONSUMERISM! (doesn’t mean I like it!) Who isn’t?
The following clip gives you a little bit of an idea of how much $$$ tweens actually spend in Canada, (actually what parents pay)
Happy Blogging
Cindy
4 Comments »
Leave a comment
-
Recent
-
Links
-
Archives
- March 2007 (5)
- February 2007 (4)
- January 2007 (3)
-
Categories
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
Wow, I loved this blog. I have a ‘tween’ and I agree with you that after watching that 13 year old girl in the video, I was horrified to see my own daughter in that light. It is so true that we as parents give in to this “consumerism” and get them whatever they need to be ‘cool’. I for one shell out a large sum of money to all three of my kids so they have pocket money when they go out with their friends in order to keep up with the latest. My 11 year old wears the little hoochie belly shirts and carries a cell phone and an IPOD Nano every where she goes, I ask myself what has the world come to? Well it’s like you said, we are in a time where the world of mass media controls our actions and shapes the lives of the next generation. I can only cross my fingers and hope that my daughter realizes that it is more fun to just be a kid and that adulthood will come soon enough, however with the way consumerism controls our lives I am holding out little hope. What ever happened to just playing Barbie’s on a Friday night?
I have always told myself that I won’t give in to the whim of what media has to offer, but I am, and I probably always will. What’s scary is that it’s getting expensive. With all the new technology coming out like VISTA (people with not so new computers are going to have to buy new one to have this luxurious software!)soon the iphone! Poop! I’m going to have take out a second morgage on my house to just make sure my daughter has the best of what technology, clothing and whatever gadgets come out (NOT!!) I am glad that my daughter plays with Barbies on a Friday night, for how long, I’m not sure!.
Thanks for the reply!
Cindy
The Tween years are very scary and I am not looking forward to my child/children being caught up in the media and what is cool! I am such a hipocrit. It is too bad by the time we realize what the corporations and media do to us it is too late. By to late, I mean thousands of dollars $$$$$ already in the drain (wasted). Every month a new iPod enters the scene and it is the exact same as the last months but the color has changed. Do you really need a new iPod because the color is better, oh my god!!! This consumerism has become to crazy. Tweens are being sucked into this trap. Tweens have access to all types of sources to warp their minds such as; television, internet, radio, magazines and billboard advertisments. These sources are telling them that their old stuff is not adequite and need to stay on top with the trends and newest editions. It makes me sick!
I would like to recommend the “Thirteen” video to you all. I am not sure, you may have already seen it. But I found it truely terrifying. It quite vividly demonstrated the life of two insecure teen girls who get sucked into a life of drugs and sex. It really gets you thinking about the direction of today’s teens…and the forces that are influencing them.