After watching “Frontline Nbc’s The Merchants of Cool” I noticed
when the creator’s make mention of a feedback loop referring to the media
imitating teens and teens imitating media until the line between the two begins
to blur. Given the time this was created those same teens depicted in the film
are the same adults now my age. I recall watching the VMAs with friends at a sleep
over. Certain things at that time we did imitate and for the most part we were “cool”,
but what we thought was cool was imitating adults. We were watching artists
like TLC and Aaliyah and trying to mimic their presence. We weren’t mimicking
the kids on Nickelodeon we watched adults. Bands like Nirvana still had kids
appearing grunge-like. These teens were mimicking young adults and that is
where the “cool” is started. The repercussions of the media taking those hints
in the 90’s is currently seen in our young adult generation hence the reason
the nineties will never seem to go away it is engrained in the current young
adult generation.
The reasons we took to names like Justin
Timberlake and Britney Spears was because we all remembered being even younger
watching “The Mickey Mouse Club” on what I would assume was Disney Channel or a
Disney hour like “Walt Disney Presents” as this was before internet and digital
cable. We had a certain endearment towards some of these celebrities ingrained
very early. A lot of kids and teens
wanted to be these privileged kids they saw on television. In some aspects because teens aspire to be
like these teens the media bombards them with they do imitate them but in this
generational case in which I believe can be applied to others is the teens
imitate the young adults the media imitates the teens imitating the adults
repackage and sell it back to them exaggerated and that in turn pushes the teen
to constantly re-evaluate their “cool”.
At the same time this
film was made the biggest show on TV for us was “DeGrassi” what was ironic about
this was that only the “cool” kids knew about it because it aired on the
Canadian television network. What was great about this show was the show was
about a high school and a rotating cast of characters as kids would graduate
more kids would come in, the show had apparently been running in Canada for
years prior to its American debut. In this show these kids would deal with
racism, sexism, homosexuality, drug-dealing, father issues, rape, school,
futures, anxieties, love those entire whirlwind of emotions that run through a
hormonal pubescent teen. It home for all of us and that was cool. This is the
same show that turned out now superstar recording artist “Drake”.
That is where the feedback loop I feel lapses. There are still
unifying similarities in lifestyles and reasoning behind some of these kids’ choices
in what they watch and wear. Out of these common grounds amongst these teens come
the newest fads in which is why the media even needs “cool hunters” rather than
being the ones to set the standard.
None of these things were
mentioned in the film but these are the actual lasting repercussions of the
media influence that occurred at this time. Sprite is backing hip hop and
basketball, Justin Timberlake is a permanent celebrity figure, chuck Taylors
will never go out of style, and the first American generation to translate rage
into a musical culture are still pissed off at the state of our existence. The
rage rock band Insane Clown Posse is still touring and doing shows to a loyal
fan base. The band is also notorious for giving to charities and creating philanthropic
organizations. The media doesn’t exactly count that as headline worthy.
