Analysis: Merchants Of Cool And Generation Like

I watched several videos about consumerism and marketing. The two that were most striking to me were Merchants of Cool and Generation Like. These stood out to me because I was able to learn about the top five media corporations and how they market to teenagers. The documentaries show how these corporations would market to teenagers in the early 2000s versus now. With technology advancing, it only becomes easier for corporations to find out what teenagers like, and use this as an advantage to obtain higher profits. Before these videos, I used to believe that networks such as MTV were pure entertainment, and that Likes on social media were nothing more than Likes. Now because of these videos, I will be conscious of advertising within media.

Before

After watching them, I would go out to the mall to buy some of the beauty products and clothes these YouTubers were wearing and making videos about. I often was Liking videos and recommending certain YouTubers to other people whom I knew were interested in YouTube as well. This line of thinking led to me believe that the YouTubers I watched were just inspiring teenagers and showing us products for our benefit.

In my ChS 115 class, I watched Merchants of Cool and Generation Like, and they changed my way of viewing social media and current trends. The first documentary Merchants of cool was about how large media corporations such as Viacom, Walt Disney, News Corp, AOL Time Warner, and Vivendi Universal conduct research to find out what is cool among teenagers, otherwise know as “cool hunting” (Goodman, Merchants of Cool), in order to be able to sell products to teens. What stood out to me most was how people, known as cool hunters, spot the latest trends and sell this

Before watching the documentary Merchants of Cool, I used to be greatly influenced by fashion trends and loved fashion. After watching the documentary, I now plan on not following trends and instead, dressing comfortably in my style. This includes not buying anymore magazines because they scream, “Buy these products, because without them you are not good enough,” all over them. Thus, these magazines will no longer have a say in what I buy more than I do. Before watching the documentary Generation Like, I used to post pictures and videos of myself being at multiple events and buying multiple products. I learned it is not the best idea to post pictures to get a certain amount of likes, like Daniela’s Mom who said, “I hate to say it, but if I have a full body picture she will get tons of Likes and that’s just the reality of it” (Rushkoff, Generation Like). This just shows that Daniela is considered a “midriff.” As mentioned in Merchants of Cool, a midriff is a stereotype of a girl who is “consumed by appearances,” and uses her body as her biggest asset, such as Britney Spears (Goodman, Merchants of Cool). Being considered a “midriff” should not be a kind of female empowerment, but instead be everything a female should