Merchants of cool

After watching this special from FrontLine, I was shocked to see how much the media revolves around the teen generations. But after thinking about it, it's so true! Everything is made for them since they have money just to throw away, so its an easy market to persuade. Teens don't have worry about spending money the "right" way rather just the "fun" way, they receive money from their parents so that they can just drop them off at the mall for an afternoon and not have to worry about them. Although this group is always changing and the interest's change daily by what is "hot" and what is not. Since they are always changing it would almost make sense not to make products for them rather for a group that will mostly stick to what they like or want. But that's not what happens the media wants TEENS.
I never realized how much money is spent to find out who are the trend setters and what is the "cool" as of right now. It is shocking to see that the networks will pay almost anything to get this information, and that you need to be a specialist to get this type of information. WHAT!!! I didn't think that it would be this hard to get the information; after all, all you have to do is ask the teens the questions. Even though it may seem hard to get the information out of them you really don't need a specialist, in my opinion all you need to do is offer them something for their time or be friendly.
In a part of the special they said that the media and teens go in a circle, they are always trying to change and shape each other. So if this is true then does this mean that they will ever be ahead of each other, will teens ever be able to choose for themselves? These questions came to my mind when I watching the special, the media shapes teens into what they WANT to be cool not what teens want. Its almost like the media try's to brainwash them into thinking what they are thinking not allowing teens to be themselves.
Overall I thought that this video was really interesting!