The merchants of Cool

The Merchants of Cool was a pretty interesting film about how advertisers today find out what is ‘cool’ to their intended audience. I thought the film kind of pointed out obvious things, like that much of advertising is directed towards teenagers. No shit, most people that spend 3 hours in front of the TV and 5 hours on the computer every day are teenagers. We by far consume more media on average than a middle aged person, so the advertisers focus mainly on advertising to teens. It makes perfect sense.
It is very interesting to me the cycle of products and how new products are created. These researchers literally go out and see what the ‘cool kids’ of the group are wearing, develop and change the product, and sell the style right back to them. It is easy money for many companies, and for them, advertising to teens is custom. Many stores and services focus on teenagers as a target audience.
As a child I never really followed the norm; I was always wearing bright colors and stand out clothes, pushing me away from many fads and trends. I was happy when the film mentioned that many teens do break away from the norm, but a little disappointed to think about how that is only making a new audience for the ‘merchants of cool’ to develop a style and advertise to. The first example that comes to mind is gothic style. When it first came out 5 to 10 years ago, it was the weird anti-conformists cutting holes and attaching chains to their jeans, and wearing their hair in ridiculous styles. The idea of goth wasn’t all style, it was a mentality. After the media discovered this style it developed and advertised goth til it became a popular style. This also affected the whole gothic mentality, people were becoming goth cause they thought it was cool, not cause they had that mentality. (again that’s just the easiest example that came to mind, I have nothing for or against gothic kids.)
The film definitely was an interesting watch, it really got me thinking about my own style, and if I am being watched or studied by the media to find out what’s ‘cool’