Merchants of Cool

In class, we watched a film called Merchants of Cool. It discussed businesses' desires to find out what is "cool" and sell it to teenagers. However, as companies are searching for what is cool and as teenagers are trying to match what is cool portrayed by the media, the line between media and teenagers is blurred. The video introduced interesting phenomenons such as midrifts and mooks. Midrifts are an archetype where young girls know how to act sexually as the result of media's oversexualization. Mooks are an archetype where young people are arrested in adolescence, never grow up, and "don't care." Midrifts are very common in our society today. We can see them all the time. Mooks are also very common.

During a part in the video, someone went in a teenager's room to gather information on what is "cool." That part has gathered mostly negative reactions from many people, considering it creepy. However, I am pretty sure the teenager is getting paid to do this, so it must have been consensual. I do not see what is wrong with it.

We shut the door in their bedrooms and talk to them about issues that they feel like are really important to them. We talk with them about what it's like to date today, what it's like dealing with their parents, what things stress them out the most, what things are, like, really on the hearts and minds of them and their peers.

This type of information seems like it is not very secretive and it would be great if a person could be paid to tell that information. However, this does contribute to the issue I mentioned earlier about the blurring line as this type of information is helping out the media create content that is more appealing to their audience. They use this information to create a cool image and teenagers try to match that. I do not know how many people they surveyed by going in their house, but it should have been a lot because one person is not a good sample size.