Sell Me Some Cool, Man

Last week in my Critical Thinking class, we finished a documentary by Frontline called Merchants of Cool. In it, we got to talk a look at 2001's world of "cool." We saw what "cool" meant to the teenagers, but, most importantly, the documentary focused on how media companies were using "cool" to sell their products.

 

In the world of "cool," teens have always had all the power in determining what is "cool" and how they spend their money on it. Marketers have always tried to find the best ways to discover the newest trends and turn it into a profitable product. Unfortu-nately for the media, as soon as they discover what's "hot," it  stops being "hot." Adolescents are often turned off by adults pretending to be them or attempting to understand them when it's clear they're getting nowhere. The trick is to market in a way that doesn't feel like marketing to the consumers. And eventually companies start to understand how to sell us "cool."

 

But what, according to the media, is "cool?" What is it teens want from them and are they delivering?

 

According to the marketing representatives of 2001, media is a mirror: a reflection of teenagers and their desires. Adolescents want sex in their T.V. shows, they want horror movies that are rated R. What the media presents to us is just a feedback loop of what they see us wanting.

 

On some accounts they were right: marketing is just a feedback loop... of sorts. The way I see it, the media views  a small minority who we'll call Minority X. They take what Minority X wants-- Product A. They then turn it into a product to sell to the majority-- Majority Y. They then see Minority X turn into the majority and Majority Y turn into the minority. They believe that Product A is what teens wanted the whole time and that Minority X was actually Majority X to begin with. This causes them to continue to sell Product A to their demographic. In this way, marketers get the false impression that Product A, and other products like it, are what define the generation they are appealing to.

 

Is this misrepresentation such a bad thing since you wind up wanting the product in the end? How do you think the media winds up finding these minorities to appeal to? Do they misrepresent us on purpose