Merchants of Cool

Todays media is very powerful and it is penetrating the teen economy today. The media with the power that the society has given to have the power to define 'cool'. Being cool or in the state of Hip and on-going trends, the media is able to shape for the society today, and the tag of being 'cool' has to be a little ahead of the teen's thinking, because teens enjoy things which are creative and innovative. These corporations look at teens as purely consumers and money-makers and not like human beings with needs since they don't focus on people's life but rather specific issues and needs of the people the media can attack to make the consumers feel unfulfilled and unsatisfied with their lives. The corporations need to stay updated and current with the generation, so at many times, corporations need to compromise to meet the interests of their consumers. The extensive manipulation of the corporations and the media on the society today has successfully been able to create a mainstream products which are trend setters for the society today.

The corporations are big money makers. And media is their weapon to attack on the economy. The corporations set standards for the society through media and they have to compromise on their products to align with what is "cool" and appealing to their consumers. The corporations have the power over large population through the idea of mainstream and therefore a lot of artists, including actors, singers of different ethnicity are bound to change their names, nationality culture and public image in order to stay "hip" in the public eyes, because as we have seen, the biggest targeting audience of these corporations are teens, therefore a lot of artists to remain in mainstream, undergo aging treatment. The corporations set the standards for the society, and also the corporations who own the media, they set the platform for the artists, therefore these artists are used as role models to promote their products. The reason why so many artists even at older ages are able to remain "hip" and attractive in the public are because they change their physical appearance to fulfill an image which is pleasing to the audience. For example, Carlos Santana who is considered a legendary Mexican origin guitarist from the 70's who is in his 60's currents is so popular in guitar culture because of his ability to combine traditional guitar rifts with the modern guitar techniques and able to make unique music which sells and attracts so many young population. Another example has to be Jennifer Aniston, who is very popular mature actor in her 40s who enjoys a lot of popularity amongst the teen population and why? What is the logic between teens and a 40 year old? It is because Jennifer Aniston is able to maintain and preserve her her authentic young beautiful face and body which comes across as surprise to many people and this is how Aniston is able to remain hip and a role model for many young women. But we also have to see that, when the media defines 'cool' in a society, it is trying to enforce a sense of uniformity amongst the whole consumer population, therefore when some one comes up with an original idea, which goes against these uniform norms or codes, they immediately become popular or a taboo topic because they are considered rebellious and out of the box, which the youth really enjoys and admires because they like innovative ideas. The documentary shows a contrasting example of rock band which is completely against the idea of marketing and main stream. The mainstream defines and sets an image to what people should build up to in order to gain fame. However, in the documentary we see that later the band sells out to the corporations therefore, we can assume that money did influence their morale values. So we can learn that media does have the power to influence people a lot if not buy them out. Immediately when the artists sign under corporations, the teen followers of the artists also fall under the influence of the corporations. With the help of corporations, the band becomes popular and sell. The documentary ends on a note of popular teen culture. Teens today do not have their individual culture, rather they reflect and grind their perspectives from what is presented through the media. There is no sense of self discovery, instead teens accept what is told and reflected by the media and make it a part of their identity. The constant change in the trends set by the media, and the changing ideas publicized to the consumers, makes us think, if the true value of individuality has been lost. For example, the show "Skins" shows a lifestyle of teens who are deeply under the influence of drugs, alcohol and have a very active sex life, therefore showing a very desiring lifestyle image and provoke every teen to adapt that life style. This culture affect the young minds but the choice is ours because this culture imprints their values into everyday minds.