Dear FRONTLINE,
I am 21 ... When I was a teenager, in the mid to latter 90's, the media had already lost me in its barage of sizism, sexism and revenue mining at the state it was in then.
At sixteen I had found myself set adrift without a source of personal nourishment through music or printed media that pandered to my age group. I had searched radio dials, television channels and news stands for something that shared my views and interested me artistically. Then I found what I was looking for locally. People in my community who had lost their connections with the media long before I had and found ways to gather edifying sources of music, art and text from within their communities, linked with others working for this around the globe.
After finding this in my own community I found others my age with whom I shared an awareness of the falsity that is the media. Now I am better aware that there are subcultures of youth that are not orchestrated by corporate output, that there is plenty of music that does not need to shock to exercise feelings of abandonment and misrepresentation as felt by teens. To this day, nearly all music I listen to is indepentently published and is reflective of the tastes I aquired in my teenage years.
I would like to see coverage of those smaller movements of youth organized to oppose the media. ...
J. Pogue
Seattle, WA
Dear FRONTLINE,
I would like to take a moment to say how thoughtful and well done this FRONTLINE was.
What most interested me was the description of the marketing machine and its ability to co-opt any budding counterculture.
For example, the 'beats' in the fifties were able to drop out and organize their own pseudo counterculture. While Burrows' and Ginsberg's works were published, they retained their own identity within the movement over a period of years. They also remained separate and identifiable. The mainstream press ridiculed them--even while making cash off sales of their works. But, a clear line remained between the beats and the rest of the culture.
Because of this line, the movement itself was allowed to evolve and its different ideas moved the whole culture forward as certain ideas were accepted into the mainstream and others rejected. In my opinion, dissident groups are essential to a vibrant culture because they help that culture identify itself through comparison. They are also a breeding ground for the new ideas essential to a vibrant, adaptive and healthy culture.
How can proto movements like rage rock or screaming feminists remember Alanis Morisette, Jewel and PJ Harvey from a few years back? actually say anything or influence our culture if they are immediately catapulted to the center of it? What happens to the rage and demand for an alternative when the focuses for that rage are accepted--with fame and fortune--by the very forces that prompted them to rage in the first place?
To my mind, the only way to defeat the marketing machine and create a genuine alternative is through asceticism. Any amount of sex and violence can be cleaned up or at least learned to be tolerated by Madison Avenue. But, can Madison Avenue accept a movement that essentially refuses gross consumption?
David Read
San Francisco, California
Dear FRONTLINE,
Wow, this article is one of the single best peices of journalisim i have seen in a long time. Possibly ever. Now admittedly i was swayed by the fact that the subject matter is somthing i feel personally in touch with.
I have long felt that the corporate machine has become far too adept at seeing, analysing, repackaging and exploting every attempt at rebellion our generation makes.
So it was great to see a report that really turned the whole process on its head and got into the gears of the machine. I felt this show asked all the right questions and did all the right research to find the answers. Great work.
Dan Neuman
Vancouver, BC
Dear FRONTLINE,
I enjoyed your show about media massification of our teenagers and the compelling chicken/egg type question of who makes who.
However, I am concerned when I see full blown advertisement on what USED to be public television. I thought the whole point was that by not having advertisers, public broadcasting is beholden to nobody, and therefore sure to be unbiased in its reporting. Looks like that didn't work out. What's next, a Viacom buyout?
Sean Cecil
San Francisco, CA
Dear FRONTLINE,
i just wanted to say thanx for airing your program regarding youth. i myself am 18 and it was nice to see thoughts on this subject coming from something othere than books or my own head.
i'm constantly seeing my peers engaging in the kind of behavior where they soak up television to learn whats "cool" in a cookie cutter world.
nice job
Jake ericks
anchorage, alaska
Dear FRONTLINE,
What about the Straight Edge kids? In a story about the decaying morality of teenagers, i think we should take notice of a growing group of kids that make a life long commitment to the contrary.
For those of you who don't know, Straight Edge is a commitment to yourself to not drink, smoke, use drugs, or have promiscuous sex. Not only that, but there is a "scene" that goes along with it. By "scene" i mean a musical genre of bands that support the ideas and beliefs of Straight Edge. The kids in the scene stand by eachother too. Why don't the marketing executives try to steal this from us?
I became Straight Edge by the positive influence of my friends. Not because some commercial told me it was the cool thing to do.
So here is at least one place the marketing machine failed. With me.
nicholas nelson
clearfield, utah
Dear FRONTLINE,
It's troubling that few have addressed the moral/ethical issues. Mr. Miller's analogy of MTV to Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda is appropriate. As did the Germans, the parents of the teen participants, and most of our society, just acquiesce. We've all been propagandized to accept this trash and to expect the young people to act this way.
However, we adults will be held morally culpable. When the public realized the physical effects of smoking, they got fed up with the tobacco industry's propaganda & stopped it. Many are blinded to our moral bankruptcy, and most parents seem unwilling to exert a stronger influence over the children they are legally responsible for.
Stella K.
Milwaukee, WI
Dear FRONTLINE,
Thanks to Frontline for an invaluable perspective on those that prey on American youth culture. What can we do to combat the hold these giant conglomerates have on young people?
I for one am going to buy the Merchants of Cool video and donate it to the local high school library, in hopes that teachers will pick up on it and show it to the students. I suggest others do the same. Hopefully some will rebel against this ubiquitous consumer culture that decimates individuality and creativity.
St. Louis, Missouri
Dear FRONTLINE,
I just watched "Merchants Of Cool". I was fascinated by it. The show was incredibly well produced, written and researched.
Unfortunately, I was left with the disappointing feeling that something was missing. I finally realized that what in fact was missing from nearly every segment was a very important word. That word is WHITE. Merchants Of Cool was not about "mid-riffs", but rather White Mid-riffs. It wasn't about "mooks". It was about White Mooks. It's chilling to me what Viacom and the other entities are covertly selling to a willing white teen-America.
I don't think it was an accident that what is clearly being sold, through similar imagdry, to Black-teens was ommitted from this Broadcast. Nevertheless, I plan to order a copy of this program for my personal library. In my opinion, this show raised the mark up very high. I'm just stunned at the degree of honesty and how well thought out it was. THANK YOU PBS.
Hollywood, California
Dear FRONTLINE,
As usual, a very insightful look at a current topic... I can better understand as a teacher for nearly 30 years at the high school level, how teenagers have changed into the apathetic, uncaring automatons they are today. How can I compete with the world of MTV?
Shakespeare and Twain and Jonathan Swift have no meaning to these kids. Perhaps they had no meaning to me except that I felt an urgency to prize education. I don't see education being valuable to this generation because they can get it all in a minute like Britney Spears. It's an illusion. There are few people who get to that level. I find the world of the teenager today to be one filled with hate, violence, disrespect, and intolerance.
They can say all they want about not generaalizing about them, but there is just too much evidence of the negative influence of advertising, and the media...just look at those monkies imitate MTV.
... As Mark Twain would say, "It's enough to make a body ashamed of the human race."
Irvine, CA
Dear FRONTLINE,
I liked your show because of the fact that it is showing teans today the source of what they think they want and like.
I am a teenager ...My culture is the rave culture. We see the media kicking us at every turn because they and the businesses cannot make a profit off of us. We are not buying into today's pop culture, and so we are outcasts. I know that maybe in a few years it will be "cool" to be part of the rave culture but my friends and I hope that we can keep our culture clean and free of trash like the pop culture is. Until my culture becomes cool we will be harrassed by others and criticized for our ways of thinking. Well, I would rather be bad mouthed then buy into "pop".
Evan Caron
Rapid City, SD
Dear FRONTLINE,
This was a GREAT program!
I am a 42-year-old former Chicagoan, and over the years I have often wondered how and why being cool has gained such a grip on the American psyche. I think your program provides a tremendous amount of information about the delivery system for this pre-occupation, and I hope you'll stay with it to find out why anybody even cares about being cool. Could it be the appearance of accomplishment is just so much easier than actual accomplishment? You can't help noticing that appearance just rockets over actuality in this great rush to coolness.
Keep digging, Mr. Goodman and congratulations on this wonderful effort.
Rachelle Hardy Hardy
Washington, DC
Dear FRONTLINE,
A super program! I very much agree with the assessment projected. Corporate interests will always search for avenues to exploit any vulnerable pathways into the minds of its "targets", i.e. consumers. It really is a very sophisticated method of mind control. The craft has come a long way from Ed Bernay's days of the manufacturing of consent. It's much more complex now.
Thanks also for having the guts to include Bob McChesney's thoughts on the program.
I just hope that kids will really see that they are being played as well as they are. When they cease the mindless consumption, then we'll know.
Peace, Kevin Bayhouse
Kevin Bayhouse
Boise, Idaho
Dear FRONTLINE,
I found this program fascinating.
I am the original MTV generation. When MTV came on the air, it was so cool, hip, happenin', phat, choice...whatever. I think it also gave my generation the original "label" ...MTV generation...generation X.
I flip to MTV now and I can't choke down five minutes. When a ban was placed on the explicit Calvin Klein teen porn ads, who knew they were going to be regurgitated into a 5 minute video with Fiona Apple or Christina Agulera a few years later. Although the average teen might feel that there wardrobe/makeup needs to be sophisticated, their intellect certainly is not, and of course not they are only 13! They are all sheep following the herd.
Out of all the kids interviewed it was 13 year old girl who wants to be a model that bothered me. She really feels that appearance is not just something...it's everything...I find that so sad.
Lastly, in your program the "execs" state that the young boys are the target audience for the "mid drift" young
girl. That would be normal, but I must argue that point. I observe that the men of my generation and
older get their rocks off of the "mid drift" young girl...now that really disturbs me.
Pamela Farrington
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dear FRONTLINE,
The program was a real eye-opener for me.
As a teenager myself, I've noticed that there have been much more provocative materials on TV and everywhere else. And it is true that teenagers are influenced by it and lose their own sense of what life is all about very early on, especially younger teens, but I don't think this program accounts for all the other great teenagers. There is definitely at least some who are not part of the crowd and know what's moral and immoral.
In my small New York high school, I definitely know that practically the entire student body are good people and know what's right and wrong. One of the most recent incidents was the graffiti writing on the school building. It was the first sign of vandalism since the school first opened and many of the students were completely shocked. This just shows that there are teenagers who aren't as bad as society views them as.
V Chang
NY, NY
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