"The Merchants of Cool"

This Frontline documentary, The Merchants of Cool, highlights the consumer culture that is geared towards the "millenial" generation of today. Having the millenial population exceed that of its parent generation, this audience is the perfect target for mass consumerism as corporations notice that this new generation has more disposable income than any other previous generation. In order to sell to the millenial generation, companies have to have a general survey that allows them to see what is "cool" at the moment among the teenagers so that they can market their products in their direction without having any drawbacks of being old fashioned for the millenials. The consumer culture of the new age (late 90s to 00s), exposes the new generation to a lot of direct marketing by companies who want their money. It's mind-boggling to me, now that it has been brought to my attention, that it is true that everywhere I go, there is always a company pushing its product at me without me really being weirded out by it. The monopoly that certain media outlets have in directing teenager behavior is ridiculous yet by now, people who grew up watching and learning these type of media portrayed behavior is completely normal. Take the young girls in the video who see Britney Spears perform and participate in beauty and talent pageants in order to someday achieve that high level of status as a celebrity. The brainwashing that the media experiments onto the young consumers is then proven to be effective as the young consumers are easily influenced and impressionable by those examples. Similar to how other cultures are, there is a type of hegemonic consumerism occurring here, as teenagers watch movies about themselves doing certain things and in return also do it in real life. This repeating cycle of influence is very fascinating to watch as it shapes their perspective on what life should and should not look like.