HW #29 The Merchants of Cool Response

I don't think ads should be banned completely towards young people because there are also the important ads that needs to be viewed such as don't smoke ads. There are also ads that tell everybody about abortion and what needs to be changed (for the greater good) in the world. But the ads that I am focusing on is the ads that teens look for, which is what's cool now. I think ads are put out there besides the markets getting profit is that it needs to be show to give the young people that "we care". Like how Matt, the psychologist said that we are born, to be value and nurture that if we do not see or feel it often, we would start feeling isolation and creating the need to get attention, which is to be cool. In a way, ads are out to make us feel better but also makes us crave for what we need to do to fulfill that need of value and attention.

However, I do feel that ads containing sexual or inappropriate should be banned in front of little children. Though I am not sure what age because as children reaches to teens, there are puberty and sexual desire so even if adults tell the teens/children not to do sex and drugs, it's rather hard since there is a need to fill the desire/need to be love and value/attention. Additionally, teens have to take (a) health class(es) that explains why we shouldn't do sex and drugs because we are young, still irresponsible from the "adult world", and it would ruin out lives. Because they tell us not to do it, we tend to go for it is what I hear a lot of people say when people do not wish others to do something. Of course, some teens/children are responsible but with the huge amount of advertising, other teens and children get affected, thinking it is cool. I wonder what would happen if when ads are ban, would the young people still do drugs? Would the younger people still succumb to the sexual desire and/or doing drugs that would make them overall cool?

I think even without ads, the young people would still want the need to be cool. They would seek it out even without ads because the marketing people know that the young people would do that. People showing people what they need to be like them are already an advertisements. Its just that the marketing advertisements are the digital type and the markets have those advertisements there because they did things like "cool hunting" to find out from the teens themselves what's going on. The markets need profit is fair because they need to live but we are also losing our money. It's a balance since we choose to buy from them and we blame the ads rather than ourselves for the result; and the world is at it is now. In the movie, "Merchants of Cool", they said the act of consuming, or buying things or (I'm sorry, not too sure how to explain it), not sold to us, but came from us because we made the teen market make what we desire out for us to really use it, not hallucinate it.

The need to be value, the need for attention from both family and friends are what changes the teens lives and their personalities. I see when people has been treated horribly, 1) would change themselves on the outside outside to prove to people they are not weak and either get snobby or make themselves be the opposite of which is 2) weak and in return, get bullied or sympathy from others. The people who go for number 1 tends to consume more than number 2 because they are changing themselves, and the best way to do that, is to buy what is "in". So that's why advertisements are there, to post what is cool to the teens but also replenish them the value feelings that the teens are seeking for. The teens market built the merchandises to make us feel powerful like what in the movie, "Merchant's of Cool" said how the MTV hooks teens gives teens power since they are the one that gives the money to the show to get them to work. The teens are the ones with the money and if they wish to spend it, its in their power to spend it.

In the movie, "Merchant's of Cool", it said that $150 billion was profited through teens because they are the largest consumers. Now that the teens have grow up "in a world of marketing", every time the teens walk out, there are ads everywhere, and we end up going into a store to buy something. However, to become cool, we end up going into a store many many times because cool flies away once its found. In the movie, it said, "when you find cool, the cool is gone" because "by discovering cool, it forces cool to move to another" thing. Which connects to how the teens minds work because we get tired of whats the current cool. There has to be something different and more interesting that can be the new cool. This is what I think: ads are there to show us what we want, what's in our mind though we cannot tell it out. We want something fascinating and exciting and the teens market are there for us. They built it for us to fulfill the value and attention we want to show it out to the world, to tell people that we are "cool" (and giving profit to the teens market).