Merchants of Cool

After watching the web video, "Merchants of Cool", my mind started to wonder a million times a minute on how intelligent, manipulative, cunning, and productive the media can be. It’s evident that as time changes, so do people, and as people change, so do trends. Teenagers and young adults are primarily the targets observed by the media (advertisers, marketers, graphic designers, etc.) Between that teenage and young adult time frame, it almost seems as they’re the only ones’ with an opinion and 9 times out of 10 many of these young people want to voice how/when/what/why they feel about certain subjects. For this very reason, the target area is closely examined by the media in order for them to be able to determine "what’s hot" and "what’s not" in society.

It’s not hard to believe that more than half of America is consumed by what they see on TV or on the internet. Of course, there are those who have their own unique style and think of themselves as "non-comformists", but if they find the time to hop on social networking sites or the latest gossip blogs, they have a part in it as well. I believe as a creator of such sites and companies, you have to strategically have the ability to reach a certain target area that will cause other target areas to take part as well. If a trend among young adults and teenagers takes place, you’ll have a few million older adults who still think of themselves as "cool" trying to pull of the same thing. All it takes is enough strategy and focus for something to spark. For example, Facebook..the targeted audience was initially just for Harvard college students and over a period of 6 years, the site has been able to reach a mass of individuals from different backgrounds, all across the globe.