Must See Freeper TV: The Merchants Of Cool (How the mass media manipulates our children)

Frontline ^ | PBS

[jodorowsky]

You are correct Sir.

"Advertising-created desires" is something I usually expect to hear from the anti-SUV crowd.

Schools, and people who selfishly have children and lazily abandon them into the clutches of schools, are to blame for this alleged "problem", such as it is.

[A_perfect_lady]

I'm with you. I really wish parents would take more responsibility instead of sitting around saying that advertising and TV need to be regulated so that they don't have to watch out for their kids. This country is NOT one big day-care center and I don't want it to be.

[WorkingClassFilth]

They can run the show, but they will never connect the dots that led to these conditions in the first place. Boomer leftists set into motion the culture suicide that has borne this fruit. PBS/NPR is the vangaard cultural voice for that self satisfied and insular market. Every parent with sociopathic children always says: "I just don't understand, I tried to do the right thing..."

[FBD]

But in doing so, critics ask, is MTV truly reflecting the desires of today's teenagers, or are they stoking a cultural infatuation with music and imagery that glorifies violence and sex as well as antisocial behavior and attitudes?

This is the same old liberal question, which came first, the chicken or the egg, is art imitating life, or vise-versa?

At the risk of sounding like a squishy moderate, both Okie and Objector have valid points.

While it is our obligation as parents to oversee what our own kids do, see, and buy, it's just not possible to follow a teenager around all day. How many of you actually know what your kids are doing at their friends house? You may have banned MTV at your own house; try to ban it at their friends, or your neighbors. The free market may be free, but it should have as much responsibility to not polluting our children's minds, as it has to not polluting the atmosphere.

And WE have a responsibility to hold them to it.
If we don't, then plan on living in Soddom & Gomorrah.

[BradyLS]

I'd rather have a gushing sewage pipe in my home.

Hmmm... CBS's Victoria's Secret Modeling Show? Or swimming in a living room full of raw sewage? Hmmm... I'll take "What's on TV?" for $1000, Alex.

[lavaroise]

"Kids feel frustrated and lonely today because they are encouraged to feel that way," Miller tells FRONTLINE. "You know, advertising has always sold anxiety and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It's always telling them that they are not thin enough, they're not pretty enough, they don't have the right friends, or they have no friends...they're losers unless they're cool. But I don't think anybody, deep down, really feels cool enough, ever."

Well being and privileges Swastika society vs. free privileging society.

[lavaroise]

I'd rather have a gushing sewage pipe in my home.

If that is your job and you have the freedom to take that job, I am 100% with that.

[I still care]

Today's child is a product of compulsary state education. As an experienced homeschooler of many years, I can confidently tell you that teenage angst does not exist in the homeschool population at anywhere near the same ratio as the public school.

On a car trip yesterday we were all talking about how MTV would be out of business if everyone was homeschooled - the desire for all this fad music and clothes is driven by the herd mentality. Check out any homeschool group - while they may like some things as a group, as far as clothes and music go, they are notoriously "uncool".

[FBD]

I have great respect for homeschoolers. Homeschooled kids are definitely more well educated, respectful, and thoughtful.

It's not homeschooled kids I'm afraid of; it's the out of control kids on the same block as mine. These kids are everywhere, in the country or the in the city, little Eminem wanna-bee's. These kids are EQUAL parts bad parenting, Calvin Klein sleeze, and gangsta rap crap.

What is being tossed around in this discussion, mostly, is what responsibility does the free market play in all of this? Some say everything, some say none at all. I say the kids that have no parental controls are being influenced by this garbage, which has an effect on all of us. If you don't agree, then tell me how safe you feel in any downtown area at night, with these little predators roaming about.

I think corporations have as much responsibilty to society as a whole, as do parents. We need to hold corporate boards to higher moral standards, or just like Soddom and Gomorrah, there won't be ANY safe haven outside of your own home, or car.

Which isn't really safe at all.,

[SnoM]

Manipulation of teenagers is very different to manipulation of adults. Teenagers are scared of being the odd one out, of being picked on for not fitting in. They are actually desperate to be like everyone else. The whole cool marketing is aimed at their fear of being different and uncool and not fitting in. Cool culture needs to say what or who isn't cool and make fun of the uncool and that can be very damaging to young adults and can scar their self esteem well into adulthood. Because teenagers want to be like each other rather than stand out they are effected by this culture on mass rather than individually. We have a teen culture that feeds on the fear of teens and tells them they have to be something they can't be and the marketers say they can be cool by paying a fortune for the right shoes or whatever. Whats worse is that the teen culture is based on rebellion and basically tells teens that everything bad is cool. Coolness ends up glorifying evil. It is hard being a teenager, and it is even harder with a world culture trying to use you to make money as they ruin your innocence and morality.

[SamAdams76]

ack London fought his way up out of the factories and waterfront dives of West Oakland to become the highest paid, most popular novelist and short story writer of his day. He wrote passionately and prolifically about the great questions of life and death, the struggle to survive with dignity and integrity, and he wove these elemental ideas into stories of high adventure based on his own firsthand experiences at sea, or in Alaska, or in the fields and factories of California. As a result, his writing appealed not to the few, but to millions of people all around the world.