Merchants of Cool Response

I had a lot of reactions to Merchants of Cool and I wanted to say something about them, so this is going to be a little long.
The first segment of the show reminded me of Scott Westerfeld's novel So Yesterday (I realize this is the second time I've written about him). The story starts with a teen "coolhunter" and the job he does. However, it's a teen novel, so it develops the teen into something a little different.
One of the segments describe Sprite as "selling a lifestyle"; which sounds like something from the essay "Advertising on the Edge of the Apocalypse". The essay talks about how companies get you to buy their products because having those products will supposedly give you the life you want. It's a scary thought, because in reality, products aren't substitutes for life.
Some of the quotes I heard were a little ridiculous. For example, "Smuggling messages to kids" sounds creepy. I realize that is what the companies do, but I don't like the idea at all. "Natural habitat"? What are we? A new species? It's frightening to think that this is just going to get worse, because teens are so volatile. And finally, "Teens are like Africa." They compared it to colonization, but I thought that sounded odd.
So overall, I found the movie to be very interesting, but a few parts were a little too odd. I saw that they liked to show how the media generalized teens. For example, the show said teens talk about sex. Well, that's true, but they talk about other things too. I was wondering if show like "Dawson's Creek" talked about things other than sex. They also say that mooks and midriff don't really exist, but with the feedback loop, they do. Teens act like they have been told they should act, without knowing it. The subliminal messaging is intense. It's a crazy world out there and so many people buy into it.