Cool killers.

Although "Merchants of Cool" was a little dated, I thought it was incredibly interesting. Maybe I daydreamed my way through my YA life, but I never realized just how complex the system of finding, marketing, and moving on from trends could be. I'd like to take a second to respond to the "Cool Hunting" section of the documentary. The film suggests that teens view around 3000 discreet advertisements every day (and this number is from 2001; imagine now with all the sidebar advertisements on sites like Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube). These advertisements have a subtle way of influencing the purchses young adults make, the clothes they choose to wear, etc. However, just minutes later, the film recognizes that once a company has found and marketed a trend which was just "underground", the "cool" factor quickly fades and the trend is killed.

So, the brands are influential.
And also, the brands kill the trends and perpetuate further change.

I'm sort of confused.

If the marketing of trends by large companies quickly makes them uncool, why and how do the advertisements work? Are the advertisements that influence young adults formulated around themes (ie. drinking, sex icons, high fashion) or specific brands (ie. Budweiser, Britney Spears, Marc Jacobs).

I think I'm leaning towards the latter. Although I do believe the brand is worth the money to many young adults, it seems that a trend as an overall concept is the more important transfer to make. This is prominently portrayed in a lot of YA magazines for girls. Pages are devoted to "look-alike" items, with pictures of celebrities in the latest fashion trends side-by-side with pictures of clothing which look similar but are available at affordable prices from stores like Target, Forever 21, etc.

I would be interested to get into the minds of current YA's and understand the way the subtle advertising affects their style, their money, and their relationships.