Customer Reviews

Frontline: The Merchants of Cool

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are a parent of a teenager, a teacher, or a youth minister, or anyone else who works with teens, somehow get them to watch this. I found it downright chilling and I watched it again right before I wrote this review.

This documentary isn't about bashing teens. It's about exposing a very small number of huge media corporate conglomerates (just seeing who ownes who is fascinating) who work around the clock to determine the next "cool" trend among teens. They study the teens who are on the cutting edge to determine what the next cool thing is and then they package whatever it is and mass market it to the general teen audience. Of course, once whatever-it-is goes mainstream, it isn't cool anymore.

They also study the strictly average teen, not the super gifted or the overachievers, to determine how to reach this population with their marketing. Teens then conform to what they've been sold. They buy products with money often given to them by their parents. The media moguls pocket the money, and then try to figure out the next "cool" thing, and the never ending cycle continues.

I could go on, but I can't really do justice to what is my favorite episode of Frontline. I've leant my copy to several friends and they've all been enlightened to things that they never suspected were happening. Truth is often stranger than fiction. This might have been sci-fi fifty years ago.

The take home lesson to me is that being cool sucks. It sucks your brain out of your head and your money out of your wallet. This is true particularly if you're trying to buy coolness. It's best to be who you are and let others decide how cool that is.

If you are a parent of teens, pull the TV cable out of the wall and stop giving teens money. Make them earn it.

Finally, be sure to get the movie "Josie and the Pussycats" to see the same subject dealt with in a fun and satirical way.

This film exposes some of the marketing techniques used on young people.
I'm glad to read that another reviewer shows it to his students each year.
Another teacher who showed it to her class was less impressed with the response it received from some students who thought it was dated. There are some more recent documentaries on this issue from the Media Education Foundation, but this Frontline presentation is a good place to start.

I learned in the film The Corporation that some psychologists hired by the corporate world work to achieve a high "nag factor," that is an intense pressuring from kids on parents to purchase particular items for them. The techniques are many, and are constantly used on adults as well. Another related field to marketing is public relations. PR's founder, Edward Bernays, wrote a book called Propaganda, that was utilized by Joseph Goebbels during the rise of fascism. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, boasted that "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it."

To counter all of this propaganda, I'd suggest the following resources:
Adbusters - Adbusters also offers items for teachers to use in the classroom.
Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel
So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids
New Moon: the Magazine for Girls & Their Dreams This commercial free magazine written by and for girls, includes a lot of insightful comments on media manipulation from the girls.
Teen Voices This magazine is for young women.
Hopefully there will someday be magazines that aren't manipulating boys and young men in the service of corporate interests.
Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media This documentary has become something of a movement, inspiring a new level of media criticism and countless efforts to create grassroots media.
Chomsky's work has been a big influence on Amy Goodman of the independent news hour, "Democracy Now!." Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times

I love how the teenagers come to Amazon to defend themselves against this Documentary.
"I AM MY OWN PERSON!!!! I AM NOT CONTROLLED BY MTV DAMN YE!" Hahahahahhaa.

Anyways, this thing here gave me nightmares.
You can watch it for free online through several sites.
Definitely worth the time...ONLY FOR THOSE WITH A STRONG STOMACH.
IT'S TRULY DISTURBING AND INFURIATING.

I teach a popular culture class at the high school level, and usually begin the class with this documentary. It gets students thinking about important questions, specifically: "Why do I do what I do and make the decisions I make?" To reduce the answer to this question to something as easy as, "Because corporations and advertisers tell me to" is obviously an oversimplification, but that can be part of the answer, and this documentary provides a very watchable way of presenting that side.

Great documentary, rebelion against the system is the new product the system is selling

Since I was a teen in the 90's, I found this a pretty interesting documentary, if dated. However, I feel it did not go in-depth enough on covering certain events, and should have provided more historical context. Marketing to young people was going on long before this, so was co-opting and commodifying what is "cool" and edgy. Rock and Rollers of the 50's and 60's, once considered subversive and even dangerous, have found their songs eventually being used to hawk some cheap product at grocery stores. The sexual revolution became the porno industry. Even denim jeans, once worn by college student activists to show solidarity with the struggles of union-workers, became hip, then became trendy, until we have designer jeans costings thousands of dollars. This got me thinking about the entire concept of "youth culture" as a side-effect of cultural homogenization that erases other forms identity. Unfortunately, this episode of Frontline doesn't really leave room for that discussion, but it could be a jumping off point.

Anyways, this episode mostly consists of interviews with people in the marketing industry or those who were very successful at selling to young people. There is a lot of emphasis on MTV, particularly, TRL and also people like Tom Green and Spring Break. The parts about the sexualization of teens and the "mooks" could have easily been mistaken as conservative moral panic. The parts about the focus groups or the market researchers dropping by a kids house and asking to see his wardrobe were more interesting. Although they mentioned the Sprite hip-hop show with the paid concert goers, they barely addressed the overall commercialization of concerts that had been going on. In fact, they go into detail about Limp Bizkit and Woodstock 99, but they completely left out the part about the lack of drinking water, toilet facilities and price gouging that had been a major cause of the mass stress at the concert (Keep in mind it was 4-day show, they didn't allow re-entry or food or drink brought in, water was $4 a bottle, which was outrageous at the time). Woodstock 99 was the breaking point of this over-commercialization that had been going on ever since Lollapalooza. The most egregious example is the still the "Vans Warped Tour" featuring old punk rock bands like Bad Religion, NOFX, Anti-Flag, even 7 Seconds, and others, who were once icons of anti-establishment culture, playing in front of a young audience herded between kiosks featuring the latest energy drink, Sony Playstations, and overpriced designer jeans. Considering The Simspons already had parodied this phenomenon in the 1996 episode called "homerpalooza" (5 years before this doc was broadcast), I don't think their coverage was much of a revelation. Insane Clown Posse was an interesting choice for a "counter-culture" band that eventually sells out. They certainly have a small but devoted following. It would have been interesting to see bands like Fugazi that were actually making an effort to defy the consumerist culture by refusing to merchandise, and keeping their ticket prices low.


If you are using this as a teaching tool, I think this is best viewed in a larger context of marketing, propaganda, consumerism and youth identity. Keep in mind that not only have kids taste in music, clothing and entertainment changed since this was aired 10 years ago, but marketing tactics have also changed considerably. Instead of looking for the "typical" teen to sell to a broad audience, they now tailor-market to the individual, utilizing the massive amount of data from social networking systems like Facebook and Foursquare. Also keep in mind that the recording industry, the radio and TV stations no longer have such a tight control over what kind of music is available to hear. Anyone who puts their music up on Youtube has the potential to go viral and become an overnight sensation (or laughing stock) with no additional marketing or planned hype. 25 years ago, if your band wasn't on the radio, you found out about new bands through friends, mix-tapes, reading music zines and hanging out in indy record stores. That's a considerably slower way to propagate information than say, posting to your blog and giving all your friends instant access. In the documentary, part of the allure of ICP is that to be a fan is to be privy to something that most people don't have access to. I must admit, part of my attraction to some metal bands when I was a teen was the fact that most other kids hadn't heard of them. Is that kind of underground exclusivity possible in age where you can find out about anything by typing it into a search engine?

I purchased this title to show to my senior high school Economics students thinking it would fire up a lot of discussion about how teenagers are manipulated. Instead it elicited yawns and many comments about how the material was dated and didn't apply to them. I'm still deciding whether or not to include it in next year's curriculum.

This is another interesting documentary on marketing from the folks at Frontline on PBS. If you are into this check out The Persuaders. This doc simply shows how marketing information is gathered and used to market to young people.

The info was very good, thought provoking. A true picture of the culture we live in. I feel it could have been less graphic in some of the imagagery. It would of been a real benefit to show this to the youth of our generation. Made for pbs I expected it to be a little more toned down.

the part about the underground marketing to make Sprite hiphop was interesting but didn't cover the campaign beyond one promotional event so i didn't really learn anything about how successful it was. this film is mostly propaganda for people with no style who think anyone who likes something they don't must be braindead and feel clever telling others "you only like that because it was marketed to you". if you're willing to accept the equation that if 1> a product is marketed, and 2> someone buys that product, then 3> that person bought the product because the marketing is so successfully insidious, then you'll enjoy this film. if you require the question of whether marketing makes a product cool (i.e. brainwashes people into liking it) or merely makes people aware of a product which they then make up their own mind about to be addressed you might find a lot of the conclusions the narrator reaches prejudiced.