What if there was a plot against your teen? Every piece of data that was every collected was researched, relentless question and probing, interviews of the unsuspected would be conducted in the schools—malls—and streets. Hot on the trail and eager to bite your teen where it hurts most, their future and a piece of a $150 billion a year. This is no fiction. The hunt is on.
They are the marketers of today’s teens: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?
They are the marketers of today’s teens: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?
Teenagers are the hottest consumer demographic in America. At 33 million strong, they comprise the largest generation of teens America has ever seen--larger, even, than the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom generation. Last year, America's teens spent $100 billion, while influencing their parents' spending to the tune of another $50 billion.
But marketing to teens isn't as easy as it sounds. Marketers have to find a way to seem real: true to the lives and attitudes of teenagers; in short, to become cool themselves. To that end, they search out the next cool thing and have adopted an almost anthropological approach to studying teens and analyzing their every move as if they were animals in the wild.
Take MTV. Long considered to be the arbiter of teen cool, the late 1990s saw MTV's ratings on the wane. To counter the slide, MTV embarked on a major teen research campaign, the hallmark of which was its “ethnography study”-- visiting teens' homes to view first hand their lives, interests and ask some quite personal questions.
We’d like to introduce you to two new terms, the "mook" and the "midriff" -- the stock characters that MTV and others have resorted to in order to hook the teen consumer.
But what lessons do MTV and other companies draw from this exhaustive and expensive study of teenagers' lives?
Does it result in a more nuanced portrait of the American teen? MTV and others have resorted to in order to hook the teen consumer.
The "midriff"--the character pitched at teenage girls, is the highly-sexualized, world-weary sophisticate that increasingly populates television shows such as Dawson’s Creek and films such as Cruel Intentions. Even more appealing to marketers is the "midriff's" male counterpart, the "mook." Characterized mainly by his infantile, boorish behavior, the "mook" is a perpetual adolescent: crude, misogynistic--and very, very, angry.
What this system does is it closely studies the young, keeps them under constant surveillance to figure out what will push their buttons. Then they shoot it back at them relentlessly and everywhere."
But also very lucrative. To appeal to the "mook," MTV has created programs such as Spring Break -- a televised version of teen beach debauchery--as well as a weekly program capitalizing on the current wrestling craze.
Of course, there is resistance to the commercial machine. Downtown Detroit, where media analyst Douglas Rushkoff of Frontline spoke with teens at a concert by the Detroit-based Insane Clown Posse, purveyors of a genre of music that's become known as "rage rock." When asked to describe what appeals to them about such music, the teens invariably respond that it belongs to them; it hasn't yet been taken and sold back to them at the mall. Full of profanity, violence, and misogyny, rage rock is literally a challenge thrown up to marketers: just try to market this!
But marketers have accepted the challenge: rage rock is now big business. Not only has Insane Clown Posse become mainstream, but much bigger acts like Eminem and Limp Bizkit are breaking sales records and winning industry accolades in the form of Grammy nominations and other mainstream music awards.
And as more and more teens look to the media to define what they should think and how they should behave, will they have the independence they want? Or, has the tomorrow’s ghost cursed their beginning. Not even the coo hunters know the answer and many do not care.
