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.
In today’s modern and fast paced society, teenagers have had to rush through life and begin adulthood earlier than the generations before. Many teens have also been expected to make this step in life without the help of a parent or mature adult, because they are too busy with their own lives. The media has replaced parents’ jobs of teaching their children about life, and the media surrounds teens with mature themes which affect teenagers in a negative way. Many teenagers have lost a section of their lives by having to skip to adulthood where they are unprotected from many negative parts of this world. I agree with David Elkind that “teenagers have lost their privileged position” and that unlike generations of teenagers before, this generation
Many alcohol advertisements are placed in different types of media that are popular among adolescent.” They spend billions of dollars in developing an advertisement to capture the publics’ eye, especially the young adolescents. The alcohol industry target a specific group mainly teenagers, but they don’t realize is that all of the colorful effects, the music, and the atmosphere of fun and excitement makes the teenagers want to take a shot or two. At John Hopkins University made a estimate, “the likely effects of several alcohol policies on youth drinking behavior in the U.S. population concluded that a complete ban on alcohol advertising would be the most effective, resulting in 7,609 fewer deaths from harmful drinking and a 16.4% drop in alcohol-related life-years lost.” Banning alcohol commercials can affect the life of young adolescents and adults by not having the influence or the temptation in front of you will decrease the amount of drinking in teens. Commercials have a lot of power over a person’s judgment persuading them to act like different
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.
Despite the films comedic tendencies and its simplified subject matter, it manages to provide some interesting insight into high schools social pyramid. It helps illustrate how difficult it is to resist being popular when everyone in society is so invested and unwilling to change it. People can lose themselves when they just accept what everyone else believes to be ‘worthy’ of social acceptance. This movie preaches the judgments that are rolling off teenagers tongues and out in the open where it can hurt someone. As a society we are incapable of accepting that we are all unique and different, but we need to just accept
Therefore unlike the Daily Mail, which delights in demonising teenagers, The Observer encourages people to “try a little love instead”. Indeed if everyone tried a “little love” it would not only support teenagers but it would encourage them to behave and to well at school which would ultimately make them more successful. In conclusion the representation of teenagers in the media is completely unfair and wrong. I believe that we should all give teenagers more support and less criticism, including the Daily Mail. Being a teenager is a very difficult process as your body dramatically changes and you are subject to over-whelming hormones.
This increasing trend of cosmetic surgeries in America attribute to media and famous public figures who promote cosmetic surgery as corrective surgery. Teenagers believe that their appearance has to be flawless, similar with celebrities as a result about 326,000 teenagers had plastic surgery in 2004. The author suggests that it’s the parent’s responsibility to teach their children about the damages of cosmetic surgery, also parents should not support their children by paying the bills for unnecessary plastic surgery. Teenagers are not well informed about the damages of cosmetic surgeries consequently they put their lives are at high risk. Teenagers only focus on the cosmetic aspect of the procedures they desire, and forget that it is actually a surgery.
Now a days videos are more proned to be shown with scantily cladded people (i.e. naked) and it is embarrassing to sit with your children family to watch that. Majority of young people when asked what they would like to become they would say they want to be a singer because they can make a lot of money. This is an easy way to make money and they wouldn’t have to think about college or university, they are more interested in the fast lane, like getting a flashy car, blings and so on. Coming from people on the streets they are concerned about their children and other young people in today’s society.
In 2000’s teenage society most of the teenagers confirm too many things because they want to fit in. all the things they do, the brands they wear, or even sometimes the words they use to communicate. It’s all different ways teenagers try to confirm and be part of the teenage society. As evidence “Kristin Houghton” states in the article “Sadness of Conformity” “we don’t celebrate who we already are because according to the statistics we want to be like everyone else” (Houghton, 2). That quote is showing how people don’t praise their individuality because they always want to be like someone else
Celebrity Influence vs. Parental Influence ENG 121 It is said that our children are our future. Are we doing enough to insure they are going to be prepared for the world they have ahead of them? You have parents that want nothing but the best for their children and then you have those that leave them to be influenced by what they see and hear on television. In some cases, these scenarios can be completely different where the celebrity is the positive influence and the parent can be the negative influence. Parents influence their children with their actions and lifestyle as much as celebrities do.