Rebel Teen

I find the concept of 'raging against the machine' or rebelling against corporate control extremely interesting. This concept is nothing new; I find multiple parallels with the hippie movement of the 60s and the corporate support behind that (ie. the music industry, textile, media). In my generation, the biggest rebel movement to hit was the emo-punk rock fad. Suddenly everyone, from "book nerds" to the "popular girls" were were teasing their hair and wearing skinny jeans and converse sneakers...marketed at 'rebelling' against mainstream...marketed so as to become mainstream.


"Merchants of Cool" used the example of Insane Clown Posse as an outlet for the 'rebelling'; this example is perfect. These teens were so eager to rebel, they failed to understand that they are feeding the machine as well. The following are some lyrics from Tool's song "Hooker with a Penis" which about consumerism and 'selling out.' Again, this idea of ignorant rebel comes into play.

I, met a boy, wearing Vans, 501s, and a
Dope beastie-tee, nipple rings,
New tattoos that claim that he
Was OGT,
back in '92,
from the first EP.

And in between
Sips of Coke
He told me that
He thought
We were sellin' out,
Layin' down,
Suckin' up
To the man.

All you know about me is what I've sold you,
Dumb f*ck.
I sold out long before you ever even heard my name.

I sold my soul to make a record,
Dip sh*t,
And then you bought one.

Ironic, no?

Merchants of Cool

I was really surprised by this video. I had no idea that all of these TV stations were owned by just a few companies. I was not so surprised to hear that MTV and Comedy Central were owned by the same company because they seem to target the same audience and feature the same type of "characters" (the "mook") but other companies seem to own channels that span a wide variety of age groups. I had also never really thought about how marketing companies find out what is "cool". The cycle of things being "cool" seems so much more clear to me now. I had never really thought about how something is marketed basically until it is dead.

Merchants of Cool

The most curious question posed by Merchants of Cool was whether or not these companies are following what teens like, or whether teens are following what the companies are saying is cool at that specific moment. Interestingly enough, there was a movie called Josie and the Pussycats (that I am slightly ashamed to admit I own) that came out in 2001 that tackled a similar question while ironically using mass amounts of corporate sponsorship. In the movie, teens are subconsciously being brainwashed through underlaying tracks in “cool” music to keep them buying the latest cool thing on the market (i.e. - Red Bull, Big Mac’s, specific fashion trends). Unlike Feed and Merchants of Cool, Josie and the Pussycats wraps up nicely and the bad/"bad" guys are vanquished.

The whole idea that huge corporations hold sway over our likes and dislikes is nothing new to me. Nonetheless, the bombardment of “cool” that all three sources confront is quite disturbing and makes me wonder how much of what I’ve done and bought throughout my teenage and young adult years is indirectly because of mass media despite my unwillingness to conform to passing fads.

Lesson? ( - death and apocalypse) + (Merchants of Cool - ) =

Oh, I'm so funny...

The Influence of The Media

After watching "Merchants of Cool", I hadn't really thought of how much the media tried to cater to me as a teenager. Looking back, that was the "richest" time of my life considering I had no bills, and could spend all my paychecks on anything I felt like buying. I never really bought into the whole MTV TRL scene, but I definitely remember going through different fads and feeling the need to fit in. I thought it was interesting how the episode talked about Britney Spears and the Mid-drift being a form of empowerment for women even though they also talked about Mooks and how males don't have to care about what they look like, but females are shown in media to be obsessed by appearance. I guess I've never really thought of exposing my mid-drift as empowering considering all the derogatory comments and gossip there has always been toward female icons such as Britney Spears. I also found it interesting how ICP first talked about how the teens could feel they were a part of their music even though they later decided to get a record label and fit in. Overall, I thought the episode brought up some interesting insights into the minds of the media and advertising toward young adults. I had not thought much about the symbiotic relationship between the two.

Young Adults and Advertising

It is pretty interesting to me how well "Feed" plays into the idea that teenagers and even society as a whole will completely play into and allow themselves to be manipulated by the media. Often, I am not the type of person who puts much thought into the so-called influence of the media, because I typically like to believe that I am not easily influenced. However, after reading "Feed" I realized just how much impact advertising and the media has on my buying trends. The parallels between the feed in the book and advertising in real life is so similar in that we are confronted with advertisements, commericials, web pages, books, movies, and TV shows every single day that attempt to sway our thoughts, opinions, and consumer trends. We are programmed in the same way that a feed programs the brain. Between the government and the media (which may be one in the same) we are caught in a never ending parade of attempted sway.

Ramblings about Merchants of Cool

I, too, watched Merchants of Cool with a cynical eye. Sure, I remember when Dawson's Creek and TRL were cool, but I haven't heard about any of them in years. This documentary was made ten years ago, about content that was relevant 20 years ago. If "cool" changed daily in the book Feed, then imagine how much has changed since 2001. I have heard, although not really recently, that MTV isn't cool anymore because they are more about reality TV shows than the music. I never watched MTV, so I ask others who have - is MTV still cool? Or are they so corporate that they're audience no longer appreciates them?

Also, another thought I had, I was a teen growing up in the nineties, so this documentary was about me. Sure, I listened to Brittany Spears, but I didn't watch MTV, nor did I go to Cancun for Spring Break, nor did I turn into a model at 13. Does this mean I am abnormal? Or, in their search for cool, do they only look at, and therefore attract, the "extreme" teenagers. Like when the correspondents were taking photos of people with tattoos - that was not me as a teenager. In fact, that wasn't anybody I knew. Maybe growing in rural Michigan meant that I wasn't cool? I think, as much as my opinion counts, that cool is not universal. Cool to me is completely different than cool is you, which is completely different than what is cool to my younger brother. How do the corporate people decide which cool to go with. They grabbed the "average" teenager for focus groups, but who are these "average" kids? They weren't me. Is there such thing as an average teenager? I don't think so. So what these researchers are doing, is finding a certain kid and then advertising to a certain kid. They catch other kids along the way, who think they are acting cool because MTV is showing them this, but really they are just seeing one personality type. I feel like I am talking in circles here. If I don't make sense, feel free to comment and let me know.

Thanks for listening!

TRL? LOL!

I never really bought into MTV or TRL as a teenager, but looking back, I can remember how big of a deal Limp Bizkit was. These days, at least among people I know, they are considered one of the biggest jokes of the past decade. Fred Durst was an absolute turd and yet was arguably the biggest rock star around the turn of the millennium. The problem was that he was almost entirely a manufactured product of MTV. His music was produced, packaged, and promoted as cool; he ruled the air waves. The great irony is that he became a victim of the cycle himself, becoming so cool that he was eventually uncool. As for his record-breaking album? When is the last time you heard "Nookie" or "Break Stuff"?

Now I'm sure Fred Durst and the rest of Limp Bizkit laughed all the way to the bank, but their status in pop culture 10 years later is non-existent. If their music and videos were good enough to own MTV for 3 years, why don't they have staying power? Shouldn't the same kids that voted over and over for their songs still have a soft spot in their hearts for "Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog-Flavored Water"? Now granted, taste changes constantly (after all that was kinda the point), but I think the saddest part to me was the fact that kids don't even really care about what the cool thing is as long as they can fit in with it.

In closing, consider these lyrics from the immortal Limp Bizkit.

"You think you're special You do
I can see it in your eyes
I can see it when you laugh at me
Look down on me
You walk around on me

Just one more fight
About your leadership
And I will straight up
Leave your shit
Cause I've had enough of this
And now I'm pissed"

LOL.

Coolagraphy

Marketing and Advertising have never been this responsible for culture. It's interesting to see the mechanics and systems that MTV and other corporations have developed to get inside the minds of teens. When I was watching the film, I thought about how I was and perhaps still am a target for the teen market's interests. Although I don't follow too many mainstream pop culture trends, I am still a customer. This puts me as well as everyone else into pools that categorize us by everything from age to hair color. 3,000 advertisements a day flood our heads that plant seeds for recognition and response.

Just last year, I was one of the final top 12 male candidates to be on MTV's The Real World: Cancun. It was really interesting to analyze the questions and interviews I had. They asked what my favorite alcohol was, how prone to fighting I was, how much I listened to certain bands, etc. The purpose was to find another cast member that would stoke ratings and attract more viewers. Obviously, I did not make the cut (which I'm really glad about) but it did give me a different perspective about how screened, scripted, and critiqued media is before it ever reaches anyone.

Media giants like MTV are successful because of this in-depth research, however I personally see "cool" as something that can't be studied- it's too fluid. Studying the demographic is definitely the best way to angle your advertisements but lately, I'd have to say that MTV is heading towards a big problem. You can't thrive on reality TV and cash in ultra-tanned Jersey Beach kids for too long. That. is. NOT. cool.

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.

What I Never Noticed Before...

While reading "Feed", I was not really able to relate to the idea of constant advertisement. However, when I watched The Merchants of Cool, I realized that I was wrong. There are so many things in today's society that focus on ads and who to gear those ads towards. The clip that I found most interesting was "The MTV Machine". I remember watching TRL when I was in middle and high school, but never even noticed that EVERYTHING is an ad. I really enjoyed watching when an MTV exec went to "a typical teenager's" house and conducted research. I guess I never really thought that TV stations such as MTV had to do research and found it interesting that company's think of children and teenagers as customers. Now, I understand why MTV was so successful. However, it is scary how much advertisements and TV shows effect our society today- shows such as "Jackass" and "Real World" are entertaining to watch, but they dont necessarily send the best message to teenagers.

Merchant of Cool

I found this program very interesting. I think that in a world where adolescents are constantly exposed to media, commercials, etc. that the feedback loop is unavoidable. As much as it bothers me that old executives and advertisers control youth I do not see how we could escape it. The media sells us what teens are, or what they should be. As a viewer we see these images and live up to them so as not to be out of the loop. It is a big circle. That is exactly why they created young adult archetypes of the "mook" and the "mid-drift." Although teens may not actually be like these characters we see them as cool on television, and therefore we idealize them and want to act like them. By acting like them this perpetutates the cycle and means that the media has to always keep pushing the enveleope. The media has to make these archtypes even more crude, crazy, risque, etc to keep up with the youth. The question is when do things go to far? The show seems to think that it has already gone too far because even the act of rebellion has become commercialized and marketed. Although this is a interesting topic to discuss I do not think that this is by any means a new phenemona. Ever since there has been advertising, and media it has affected youth culture. I do not think the report shows how past generations have been affected by the same kind of commercialism, etc. In the 50s there was a show American Band Stand, which promoted songs and bands through a television show much like TRL. That affected what the youth was listening to. You always have bands that do not just sell music but sell an image. During Madonna time period you had girls that wanted to dress like her, and in turn companies sold things that modled after her style. I do not think any of this is new...maybe it has just become even more of a big business with more people getting paid and benefiting(the artists, execs; not the youth).

On another note I was kind of shocked that a program that is fighting against how youth have no voice and no control did just that. The only real people interviewed seemed to be old people. There were very few interviews with the youth and how they felt the media affected them. I think that maybe the youth should have had more of a voice in this report.

Cool, 2.0

Clearly a victim of the same elusive, fleeting nature of “cool” it attempted to pin down, The Merchants of Cool seemed to me, above all, dated. After almost ten years since it first aired, I’d go so far as to say it seemed “uncool,” as the kids like to say.

I say this respectfully, of course, with real appreciation for the fact that Frontline cared enough to give average viewers of public television (very much not YAs) a glimpse into the foreign, hyper-consumerist culture of which early-2000s teens were a part. In fact, the “TRL generation” the documentary sought to describe is very much my own: I can’t remember a day coming home from fourth through seventh grade without being greeted by Carson Daly, and, although I can remember all their lyrics, I still wonder what was so appealing about Limp Bizkit. (I suppose Merchants cleared some of that mystery up, since it appears even a rock with an effective-enough marketing campaign could find some measure of success!) MTV, Limp, Britney, Sprite -- all of these were big figures in my formative years, and, I would guess, helped shape me into the consumer I am today. Any adult unaware of how children lived in 2002 would surely have his eyes opened after a viewing.

Nonetheless, whether or not it’s a result of my familiarity with this culture, which extends far beyond what was portrayed onscreen, I found that much of what the documentary had to say broke no new ground. Adults are always a few steps behind the young, but with enough money, new techniques, and advertising outlets, their corporations can weasel their way into the psyche of many YAs. It used ubiquitous cultural figures (who hasn’t gossiped about Britney Spears?) to make this point, plus a tired symbol, MTV, to represent a phenomenon that actually spanned much further, into choice of stores, food, clothing, etc. It seemed, frankly, that the producers had only a vague, conceptual definition of "cool," as articulated by Malcolm Gladwell and big-name CEOs, without many cutting, groundbreaking examples of it at work.

But because I understand the need for a dissection of a youth culture that can seem so cloudy to outsiders, what I’d really appreciate is an updated Merchants of Cool. Britney has been talked to death, but the revival of Disney (High School Musical, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus) and the Twilight juggernaut are fresh, pervasive figures in today’s elementary/middle school culture -- so fresh that such investigative journalism has yet to lay into them. Further, since I’m not as directly involved in this movement, I’d be curious to know how the same ad execs have encouraged their popularity, and how current subject matter has run counter to the angry, crude, and over-sexualized adolescent idols of the late 90s.

In addition, the mention of cool being killed as soon as it reaches the mainstream begs the question of the indie music scene (and accompanying fashion trends), which relies on older YAs competing to discover obscure artists of increasingly innovative/strange (take your pick) genres. As someone who’s actively interested in learning about this music (I work for the campus radio station, the Impact), I know first hand the bittersweet feeling that comes when a favorite band is no longer “mine alone,” even if they are gaining the fame and recognition I know they deserve. I see this subculture as having an even touchier relationship with media and corporate advertising, so I’d be curious to learn how consumerist trends are propagated via blogs, magazines, television, in more subtle manners than MTV is capable of (maybe MTVu?).

Hopefully, then, the producers of Frontline will take it upon themselves to update this documentary someday soon. It will be to the enlightenment of both adults and aging YAs like me, who may need their own “cool hunters” to keep themselves in the know.

Sheep

This is what The Merchants of Cool prove. Teenagers are willing to follow whatever fad comes there way. It is a shame this is what our country has came too. Teenagers are shown following trends that are over marketed and give into peer pressure. Why blame the marketers. We are all marketers especially us that are going to become teachers. We our marketing our subjects, our lessons, our way of thought. We should not blame the marketers for doing there job they just caught on to the way teenagers think. Teenagers are followers and not leaders.

Cool hunting

This video reminded me of Feed the entire time I was watching it. While reading the book I could not imagine being bombarded by so many advertisements within my own head and wherever I went. After watching The Merchant of Cool I realized that I am confronted with more advertising than I could ever realize. I'm looking around my room right now and seeing that I am trapped in a world of merchandizing. It's an incredibly sad thought to me that almost everything I watch or read is full of advertising and commercializing.

I also found it interesting that once a company exploits what is "cool" it immediately kills it. This search for cool is a never ending cycle that to me seems a huge waste of time, since I have no interest in the workings of the corporate world. It's just sad that a company has to go through so much and try so hard to appeal to us just to sell their products. Yet, we buy into it. And, honestly, it seems to be irreversible.

Is anyone else saddened by this fact?

I'll buy it.

The idea that the work done by the coolhunters ultimately “kills what it finds” reminds me of an entomologist who, in cataloging all the beautiful insects they seek, must pin them down in lifeless grids. Moreover, I am reminded of the nature of fashion in Feed, which mutates not over the course of years or decades as we tend to think of currently (e.g., 80’s or 90’s fashion,) but rather hours or days, probably because the Feed is constantly indicating what is in style and thereby putting it out of style within a twenty-four hour period.

The second segment of the video conveys the notion that kids begin to see marketers as “the enemy,” which cannot help but remind me of Violet. While she is a minority character in Feed, I feel as though this kind of persona is more ubiquitous in the present day; after all, you would have to be blind to ignore the looks of contempt on the faces of the young men in that research panel. I was forced to consider the possibility that these boys were being Violets—that they might have been deliberately misinforming the researcher due to their resentment.

Let me warn you in advance that I’m about to go meg scientific on this—far more than Feed dared to, at any rate.

Still reading? Okay. So, perhaps you are familiar with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which, in laymen’s terms, states that the act of observation inherently modifies the state of the system being observed. Of course, the Uncertainty Principle applies most properly to the state of atomic particles; Immanuel Wallerstein, however, elucidates in his 1999 essay, “Social Sciences in the Twenty-First Century” that these principles do in fact operate at our macroscopic level. For example, the subjects of sociological studies, because they are aware of the fact that they are being studied, are not acting in their most natural state—this is exactly what we are seeing in Merchants. Violet’s rebellious shopping habits demonstrate that same desire to throw the proverbial wrench in the cogs of corporate marketing. Just like the Juggalos, it is clear that Violet is trying to “break so many rules that [she becomes] indigestible.”

In reality, it would seem that the feedback loop and our dependance upon it

are not something we can effectively resist—after all, Violet is not saved by the Feed companies because they cannot market to her, and even the Juggalos themselves arepackaged and sold (yes, literally). What we really face is a compromise between controlling our own experience, and having that right completely delegated to corporations. Fortunately, companies do include (some of) us in their process, so it is not as though they are arbitrarily mandating our desires. This is not to say that we should abandon criticism of their actions, just be mindful of what we would and would not have without them.

The Feedback Loop

I have always seen programs on television emulating high schooler and college students lives and thought "that is not how it really is in high school and college." People do not look like Gods and Goddesses every day in school, or have this huge perfect house which always seems to be empty, or throw massive parties where big breasted women end up duking it out in a swimming pool filled with jello, mud, or some other weird substance. That is just not how really life is (at least in most cases).

After watching the video I became intrigued with the idea of the feedback loop. I had never thought about the fact that the media companies study teenagers to portray them on television, to just have teenagers try to emulate what they see on TV. The question as to whether teenagers have a culture that is just their own left is a very valid question. With all the advertising for clothes, music, technology, "coolness" it is no wonder there is nothing unique left out there. Everyone wants to be cool and cool is currently being mass produced. I don't think teenagers have their own culture anymore. I think it was completely taken over by the media and is now being sold to teenagers for a price; that is their new culture and most of them do not even realize that it is happening.

"Mooks", "Midriffs", and real-life Feeds

I thought the documentary was really, really interesting. Although the images of teenage males and females that they discussed (Mooks and Midriffs) are ones that I've recognized in the media, I hadn't necessarily seen them as products of the MTV-style advertising. It was interesting to see how the research the corporations did lead them to those models; when they were showing clips from their research interview with Jeff (?) and then they cut to the "Mooks" I was confused how they could make the jump from one to the next logically. The question the narrator posed, however, of whether MTV was trying to research Jeff as a person or as a consumer made the distinction clear: they create what they think teenagers want to be, which in turn creates the image teenagers try to emulate, and so on (not so unlike the consumer profiles the feed creates for each individual in the novel).

The narrator called this a "feedback loop," and the connotations of that, in light of our most recent reading, were almost too close for comfort. Isn't it a little shocking to find just how closely our reality parallels that of Anderson's novel?

Week 5: Intertextuality, Science Fiction, Marxism & Feed

This week we'll be drawing on Marxist theory, intertextual connections, and criteria for evaluating science fiction to inform our readings of Feed by M.T. Anderson. Remember that we'll be working on-line for the first part of the week and then will have our face-to-face discussion on Thursday.

For Tuesday (on-line):

• Watch the Frontline "Merchants of Cool" documentary on-line. (~1 hour)
• Write a short blog post that poses a question or suggests a idea you would like to discuss related to "Merchants of Cool", marketing to YAs, or a related topic. (If someone else has already started a strand related to what you want to discuss, just write a comment, rather than doing a new post.) Be sure to label it "Merchants of Cool" so others can find it.
• Respond to at least 2 other people's posts by Thursday. 

I'll be curious to hear what people think the pros and cons of this on-line discussion format are!

For Thursday (face-to-face class):

• Come prepared to discuss Feed
• Critical reflection paper due. 
• Use Marxist theory as a lens to read Feed. For ideas, either consult Tyson or the slides from the presentation. (I'll post them to Angel as soon as I get them from the group who presented.) 
• OR
• Do an intertextual reading in which you read a specific marketing campaign or a segment from "The Merchants of Cool" against Feed. Remember that you'll need to establish the connection, but also make an argument that reading one helps us see something new in the other.