New Media's Age of Anxiety

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• PBS's excellent documentary, "The Merchants of Cool," notes that marketer try to target the 20% of teens who are trend-setters, on the assumption that the other 80% will suddenly want to listen to this particular record or drink that particular brand of soda.

  The Monty Python reference really helps make the point! I enjoyed that.

• Oops! There was supposed to be a "do not" in my comment. Most people only think they understand what influences them, and in study after study people are found to grossly overestimate their ability to resist influence.

  Yes, the Napster generation is just the MTV generation all over again. As in Life of Brian, I think I hear a crowd shouting, "Yes, we are all individuals!"

• Good observations, Ron and Heather. I always find it amusing what I contemplate how thorougly the entertainment industry has cultuvated acertain kind of consumer, after several generations of producing counter-cultural music and marketing it to alienated teens. I was fiddling on the radio the other day, looking for some peppy music to keep my daughter awake (so she wouldn't fall asleep until we got home) and I came across "Radio Disney." I left it on because I was fairly certain I wouldn't hear the f-word there, but otherwise the lyrics were pretty much exactly what I would have expected on an adult station -- the torments of first love, written in very passionate language. I'm guessing that all the songs on this radio station are by artists hoping for crossover appeal, that is, they're not trying to be kiddie stars. Anyway, where the demographics of the station was really obvious was in the ads -- full of themes like "It's your choice" "For you, not them" and so forth. So Disney is doing its best to use its name, which is popular with young children, to train them how to be consumers of popular music (with call ins, trivia contests (which reward their peers who buy Disney's preteen magazines and read the "Cliffs Notes" versions of biographies of various Disney stars) and so forth.

  And here's where the very amusing part comes in. By celebrating rebellion and independence, the marketers have created the Napster generation -- one that rebels against the very recording companies that created their own desire for the music they want to consume, and that leads them to expect to get their entertainment for free. "It's my choice." "For me, not them."

  (Ron, I turned your URL into a link.)

• My dad, who owns his own company, always makes a point for his children to look for the small, quick print that is on everything. His statement is if it's too small to read or is faster than a normal person can read on commercials or ads leave it be. We have discovered this to be a true statement by the advantage of TIVO which you can backup and stop directly on an ad to read the extremely small print. There's always a catch. There are also certain things that distract people enough that they don't pay particular attention to the "small stuff" in front of their face. While watching advertisements aren't a hobby of mine. I do find it humorous to hear people discussing the latest "whatever gadget." There are times I bring their attention to the small print to stop some of them from jumping in with both feet. We've discovered that a lot of ads tell just enough of the truth to hook you. Sometimes there are real "fools" I use that term lightly, that actually take the full bait and are reeled into some things without a second thought. Those are the ones my family get the biggest kick from watching them explain why to friends. Some people are unaware, A lot are pure blind!

• "Most Americans claim they don't believe what they read in newspapers or see on TV"

  Of course. It's just another case of being unskilled and unaware of it. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/permalink.jsp?id=1045 People think they understand the reasons for their own behavior, especially what they think influences them. But most people, with the notable exception of top advertisers and marketers, know enough about influence to make an educated guess as to what actually influences people.

  • If I were a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, now I'd say “Kowabnuga, dude!”