The documentary The Merchants of Cool talks about teenagers being the target audience for “cool” in America. The documentary mentions this market being a $150 billion dollar industry. The market of “cool” to teenagers by creators of popular culture has different marketing techniques in order to appeal to the teenage population. The marketing of cool is still very prevalent today as there are always new trends coming in everyday and with every teenager having access to the internet, these trends get spread very fast. One recent trend of “cool” is the fidget spinner toy, where it has now become a huge market. Every time I go on youtube, there are so many fidget spinner videos with millions of views and I can see fidget spinners being sold out everywhere - with absurd prices starting from $20 plus shipping for something that probably costed less than 2 dollars to produce. This documentary also reminded me of the controversial pepsi ad, where the company attempted to make their brand more appealing by appropriating a social movement. I also think that the market of “cool” can be very harmful because often times it creates a divide between what is considered masculine and feminine like in clothing, accessories, gadgets, etc - which is a very big market for teenagers.
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