Call me nerdy, but I really liked "Merchants of Cool." I had to watch it last year for my Comm 110 class, so I noticed a lot more this time around. Yeah, the situations they portrayed were totally out of date, but it was a definitely a trip down memory lane. I never thought I would see Carson Daly during his TRL hipster days again:) It made me really nostalgic for my teenybopper preteen days.
When I was in junior high, I watched MTV religiously. I voted for my favorite boybands on TRL. I laughed and cried along with the casts of the Real World. I tried to talk and dress like the popstars I saw so often, because they were Cool. I remember singing Blink 182 songs with my friends and thinking we were really edgy, even though we obviously weren't. Oh, to be young again.
I wouldn't go so far as to say my friends and I were "midriffs." We weren't that obsessed. But we definitely dreamed of being midriffs. Do you remember the girl band Dream? Don't lie, you know you do. They sang classic songs such as "He Loves U Not" and "This is Me." My friends and I saw Dream on tv and decided that really, they weren't that different than us. We made plans to become the next Pop Sensation. Every weekend we would practice our singing in my basement, practicing not only Dream songs, but also Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and...the Ateens(I knooow.) We choreographed dances to Nysnc songs. We practiced being interviewed by teen magazines. We played with hair, makeup, and clothes. We were Ready. The sad thing was, we really believed we could do it. We were going to be on Mtv and sell hit records and maybe even change the world.
It never happened. But that's not the point.
The media shapes so much of who we are. Maybe you had a similar midriff experience. Maybe you aspired to be a Mook. Maybe you were really crazy and were a rabid fan of the ICP. Your story may be different than mine, but essentially they are the same. We are formed by the media in our preteen years, and there's really no way of escaping it.
The sad thing is, the makers of media realize this, as showcased in the Coolhunting segment as well as the ethnography scene. They know that young people are going to watch their programming and try their hardest to imitate what they see. Yet, they continue to fill the screens with mooks and midriffs, images of people who are not real, knowing teens are going to try to become the next Johnny Knoxville or Britney Spears. They know they're setting these kids up for disaster, yet they continue to do it. Why?
Because it sells.
When all is said and done, these producers aren't concerned about the morals behind what they're showing. It's not their job to be. Their job is to create media that sells, and the Mook and Midriff characters most definitely sell. As long as there are preteen boys out there who want to be the next Loud Outrageous Rude Boy and preteen girls who aspire to be the next Mega Pop Star Girl, the media producers will continue to do what they're doing. Really, we can't blame them for this. Can we?
1 comment:
Well, here's attempting to prove you right about each of us having simmilar desires as a result of media influence growing up. Reading your memories of singing to various 90s pop artists in your basement brought back a flood of scenes from my past. For me it was Amanda's basement. She, our friend Niki, and I would practice our Spice Girls routines almost every day. If we weren't doing that we were busy pretending to be the girls from the hit WB series Charmed.
This was also my second time watching "Merchants of Cool." I saw it last semester in my com 110 class. Both times I coulnd't help being disturbed by the testimony of that one girl (can't remember her name) that was at the modeling day, and later filmed at some sort of dance party. It was freaky to see the "feedback loop" at work in her life and her friends' lives.
Then, reading your blog and realizing I had simmilar expereinces as a preteen/teen was also a little creepy. It makes me wonder if and in what ways I'm still a part of this process now. I want to be aware of it.
Hold that thought for a moment.
"Can we blame them?" Can we blame the media producers for portraying midriff and mook images to kids just because they can make money off of it.... hmmm. Sure, why not. Many people have. But I really don't think that that is going to help. At least not immediately. Sure if someone out there has some great idea for ending the way men and women are unrealistically protrayed in the media then go for it. But it seems to me that there is a better way to do something about this issue.
Remember that thought you were holding? I was talking about how I want to know if and how I am stil a part of this media loop. Well, it seems that knowing what ways i'm involved in this messed up system that "Merchants of Cool" presented can help. Maybe we can't change the greedy media industry, but we have control over our own media consumption... and to an extent parents have control over their childrens' media consuption.
Oh no. I think i just connected class material here. It's the first step of being a media literate person isn't it? Yikes!
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