THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING ON AMERICAN YOUTH The Effects of Advertising on American Youth Abstract American youth are in various stages of life where they want to be popular, accepted by their peers, and feel successful; because of these emotions advertisers have targeted American youth as viable consumers. Advertisers exploit children and adolescent’s inability to fully understand the advertisers’ intentions, as they are unable to differentiate between fact and fiction and accept the ads stated value. The use of Pop-culture Icons, Professional athletes, and animated characters help give children and adolescents a false sense of reality and empowerment. Advertising has a wide spread effect on American youth and due to television, magazines, internet, and social media networks; advertisers have increased their targeted market. This increased advertising exposes young consumers to several potentially harmful products and social stereotypes; such as, alcohol, tobacco, and sexually motivated content.
Entertainment media has shaped American culture in many ways over the years. With the newer generations taking over the entertainment audiences the content of media is becoming controversial with the older generations. Sex and drugs are displayed more frequently in the media of today than it was thirty years ago when those trends really started becoming a wide spread part of American culture. T.V. shows, movies, and music are using sex and drugs to capture their audiences; and it works.
Twenge states, “To many older people, it’s funny. But too many younger people the main consumers of the reality shows on, say, MTV it shapes their views of the world” (pg 7). Narcissism is shown often, and without hesitation on reality TV younger viewers are being conditioned by the depiction of narcissism. Slowly, the excess amount of narcissism seems normal. For instance, on “America’s Next Top Model” young viewers wish to be thin, tall, and overall a model, but go about it in the wrong ways.
In “The Merchants of Cool,” the author investigates the rising fascination with teen pop culture. Teenagers are constantly vying for attention, causing them to imitate popular celebrities. Major corporations try to capitalize off this, showing productions and advertisements to influence them further. The era of family friendly programming has no longer any place in primetime television; shows such as Dawson’s Creek and Cruel Intentions have completely infiltrated the TV schedule to reflect teens’ all-consuming fascination with sexuality. One of the major networks responsible for influencing pop culture is MTV, telling kids what’s cool.
“The unrelenting consumerist bias of television distorts our view of reality and social priorities, leaving us entertainment rich and knowledge poor” (Elgin 104). These commercials leave the viewer with a distorted perception of reality; leading one to believe that overconsumption of personal goods is the norm in society. This belief of continuous spending is the flawed outlook on life, but is actually becoming the norm because society is not given another option. “By excluding visions of more sustainable ways of living and consuming, the mass media perpetuate the status quo while simultaneously crippling society’s capacity for envisioning more promising alternatives”
This is believed by Dr. Manny to be because of the lack of power within the lower 2% of popularity. This article also states that a reason for bullying is to “increase popularity” which is proven through their research. These teens feel the need to “antagonize their peers to raise their status”. Which shows a more common result of bullying “in the teens with high social status, but not the highest”. In the movie, Mean Girls, Cady Heron lacks social skills when moving into the public schooling system.
In today's society, many people subconsciously stereotype. This is the effect of popular culture and media. The mass media includes influential advertisements that manipulate anyone from age two to ninety- two. This manipulation isn't beneficial to anyone; it alters their own beliefs to believe what everyone else believes. Manipulation such as this can be found in the essays, “Putting Down the Gun” and “Why Johnny Won’t Read.” It is popular culture that sets the trends.
But this drug is ruining the game just as fast as it is ruing people’s lives. It’s being abused in many ways because in today’s world, you need to be the biggest, the strongest, and the fastest in order to be the best. Steroids give athletes an easy way to do that. Professional’s use it, and it rains down through college athletes, who only want to become professionals, and all the way down to youth athletes, who only want to be like their idols. What all these athletes are overlooking is the serious harm that it can do to your body, inside and out.
The reality TV shows effect on individuals can be dependent on that viewer’s individual desires and motives for watching the show in the first place. Many viewers end up living vicariously through the reality stars lives that they are watching. American Pop Culture has changed the face of reality television in our country drastically. Randee Dawn of Variety Magazine is quoted as saying “It used to be enough for reality producers to confront a contestant with a zip line over a chasm or give audiences an off - key singer to laugh at. But what succeeded in reality TV 10 or 15 years ago is not what makes the engine run today.” Dawn also states “unscripted television is evolving from its earlier cruder beginnings into something sharper.” The concept of reality television is not new; in fact it has been around since the early years of television.
They have made bad decisions in their life and they are getting publicity out of it. Is this really the type of thing that you want your child to be looking up at? Seeing these popular movies, television and teen icons influences us to think that it is cool to be pregnant at a young age. The media is influencing us too much, we follow whatever the "trend" is and we don't think for ourselves. Casual naked people dancing around, thin and built models, and teen pregnancy is subconsciously affecting us to think all of this is okay.