HW 29 - Merchants of Cool

Do the teenagers know what is going on in their lives? So what if the corporations sell absolute nothing to the “victims”, would they be able to come up with something on their own to live a “meaningful life”? Watching the “Merchants of Cool”, it seems like the corporations are so wicked that they are trying to sell the teens tons of things and manipulate them as puppets. But we are puppets in many ways; the strings are infinite to cut off from. If the advertisements or commercials are not sending out any manipulated messages, the parents or teachers or friends, might be offering some messages also. It is nearly impossible to have your own identities without the ideas from the others. We are all connected somehow living on this earth, and we are not just individual bodies like what Banach claimed. By saying that, I am arguing that we cannot blame the corporations for selling “cool” to us, and advertising do not have to be banned from young people.

If we are smart enough to come up with our own ideas of what “cool” is, then the corporations would not even be able to enter the teens mind and manipulate it. It is because we are not smart enough to be aware of what the corporations are doing to us, that’s why we are just puppets that re following the trends created by companies. Are we really the victims after all? Did we born with no freedom to think, or to decide who we want to be and what we want to do with our lives? It sounds like we walk to this world like prisoners and we have no right to do what we wanted. It is true that we all have the temptations to fit in to this society, and it is extremely important to keep up with the flow. But after all, everything in life is about choices that we make. If the teenagers were smart or conscious enough to make choices in their life, the corporations would not be able to enter their world so easily. It is not really the ads that are brainwashing our minds and shape us to think in certain ways of what “cool” is, it is us who gives permission for these “monsters” to take advantages from us.

From the clips from 2001, the experts reported that we saw 3,000 ads a day. It seems like a massive amount of ideas are flowing out there every day in our life that we will be able to choose from. It could be seen in both ways, either we could consider it as a manipulator that shapes our lives, or we could see it as massive choices that we could choose from. If one claimed that ads should be banned from the young people, then it should be banned from everybody. It is definitely possible that adults do not know how to make smart choices also, or even be aware of in the first place. If they were aware enough of what the corporations are doing to the juveniles, then it doesn’t even matter whether these ads exist or not. The parents should be able to control what their children should perceive at a young age. They should be able to know what is best for their child. If nobody consumes or buys the message from the ads, so what if they took these ideas from the teens and sell it back to them? I believe we do or should have the knowledge to be aware of what is going on to us, and it is totally two different issues to consider between the ads fault or the parents’ fault Furthermore, we should at the very least have the power to shape our lives when there are so many choices that we could choose from.

From the “Merchants of Cool”, there was a part talking about how market researchers are following a task called “hunting for the cool”, it is basically going into the teens’ mind and “speak their language” to understand what they want and sell it back to them. Although it might seem the corporations are evils that are controlling the teenagers mind, nevertheless, these ideas are from the teens themselves. If what the “experts” are saying is true, that they took the ideas of cool from the teens, then that is the life that teens want to live. Other than they are paying for it for losing their money, I don’t see the problem of living off your own ideas of cool or what most teens are consider “cool”. If that is the trends that most teens has created and goes back to the corporations, and selling back to them, then in some levels, I would say it is the trend that the teens wanted. Therefore, you can’t really argue that the teens are manipulated by the ads from corporations. Some point, these ideas of creating new trends are from the teens themselves.

Additionally, on Tuesday Matt Fried said that we all have the tendency to feel “good” and we often look for that feelings from somebody else instead of ourselves, which it makes us “vulnerable”, because we letting the others to control how we feel. If we learn how to get the feeling of satisfying or good within, then we won’t try so hard to be cool and get the acceptance from outside to make ourselves to feel better. I do agreed with him that looking for the sense of acceptance from the others will make us “vulnerable” and it is true that having control over ourselves is better than letting the others to control who you are. Just as what I previously mention, some of the ideas are from the teens although they got amended by the corporations. Thus, at some levels they are our “own”, ideas of what cool is. If that is true, why do we still look for something to fulfill the hole? Regardless of the corporation’s fault, I think the roots of each person; their parents should be another factor to be considered of this issue.

Are all messages from the commercial or ads are considered bad? I don’t think every single company are trying to harm the youngsters, and just trying to make a profit off of them regardless of the consequences. I think there are some valuable messages that might worth to follow. Thus, advertising should not be banned from the teens. It is all up to the teens to make the decisions of what they want to do. It is a choice, not something that is mandatory to do in lives. The reason that the teens opened up the doors for the “wolf” is because they look at the world in the simplest way although it is so much more complex than they think it is. They nearly have any idea what the “truths” are behind the simplest things, and neither do any of us know what the ultimate truth is also. Perhaps, truths do not even exist or it is impossible to know, but teens are just too lazy to learn how to realize it and be aware of it by themselves. Or they do not want to know and just wanted to live in the world of fantasy. There are many possibilities why teens are being shaped the way they are and corporations are not the ultimate fault why the teens act the way they are. I believe there are good ads out there that send out “cool” messages that is relevant to the reviewers and they are for our own good.

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