Growing Up Online

It is not a strange or foreign concept to teenagers these days that much of their social lives are contained behind the slick screen of a computer monitor, within the digitized labyrinth of the Internet. Just as the previous generation grew up along with the television and saw its advances, becoming ingrained with the medium in all ways possible, so the current one has developed alongside the World Wide Web, allowing them access to a myriad of topics and issues previously taboo or unreachable to their parents.

This is definitely not a bad thing. In fact, by far, according to a number of studies and findings, young people are far more capable, more mature and smarter than their parents were at the same age. Yes, exposure to all of the things available online, ranging from the intellectual to the pornographic, may take away the shock and inhibition carried by certain issues, but is that necessarily negative? The surplus of information available has done far more good than bad, and in a culture saturated with adults wanting to feel like they are still the guardians of innocence and the gatekeepers of this digital world, this is a fact fairly often glossed over. Emphasis is instead placed on the darker side ofthe internet, which most children are saavy enough to avoid anyway, and which there are a number of safeguards already in place to prevent extended access to.

Advertising, as in all things, has found its niche within the internet, though it is not yet utilizing the medium to anywhere near its full affect. The most effective use so far has been viral marketing, the distribution of videos or pictures carried along by word-of-mouth, spreading like a virus through whole populations and costing little to no money at all. Many online businesses have made the mistake of applying spam to social networking sites, making profiles for themselves and sending spammed messages to all of their "friends", though how this helps sales in any way is beyond me, as all it seems is incredibly annoying.

The practice of storing information of a person's browsing history or regular times online has always been a pretty shaky area, laden with a number of moral dilemmas and legal issues. In Europe this presents much more of a problem, where legal restrictions are in place to protect privacy that put America's to shame. In my opinion, they have the right idea. This information is personal and can be highly sensitive. The last thing I want is some marketing firm getting its hands on it, combining it into statistics and selling it off to the highest bidder who just wants to sell me some porn or maybe a new brand of soft drink. No thank you. Also, the whole thing where facebook and myspace apparently assesses your interests and provides banner ads in accordance to your preferences is just... pretentious, I guess. Yes, sometimes it can make for a more pleasant experience where the advertisements are at least familiar or suitable, but I've seen some downright strange advertisements on my pages that have absolutely nothing to do with anything I put on that profile.

So yeah, we're a long way from finding a way for advertising to be effective or appealing online (aside from viral, as I said before, or eCommerce), so for now advertisers are just pouring buckets of money into a very very annoying cycle of ignorance. As for the new generation who apparently is so wrapped up in the Internet and soaking up everything in it like sponges, we're doing a pretty good job of ignoring all of this and making these advertisers who are trying to dupe us all look like a bunch of idiots with way too much time on their hands.

The Persuaders

1. Where are we headed? What's the future? What are your thoughts on how far the techniques of persuasion might go?

Techniques of persuasion are, at their root, always the same. The theory of ethos, pathos and logos are as alive today as they were in their forumulation in ancient Greece. It is the channel that's changing over time, becoming more intrusive and harder to shake off. In the society we currently have, however, it's totally impossible for this persuasion to legally enter the private lives of unwilling audiences. What might happen instead is a focus on identifying more thoroughly a more receptive target audience at the onset, reducing the dollars spent trying to persuade people to do something they're more than likely not going to do no matter what they're told. This would be done through more sophisticated logging technology that would make available a person's TV viewing schedules, interests on the internet and other factors that tell about each individual in a recordable and observable way.

2. Is there something distinctive in the American character that makes us susceptible to this world of advertising and messages? "The Persuaders" program explores the idea that Americans are seeking and finding a sort of identity in buying/joining a brand. What is this about?

Americans are very different than people from all over the world in one main aspect. A lot of them are alone. The huge family system, traceable through generations, is lacking in this country, leaving families small and disjoint, sometimes falling apart after the need for reliance passes on. As a result of this state of isolation, American men and women find themselves lost in the crowd, feeling as though they don't really matter, are not distinguishable or unique, or have no one to rely on. They are in search of belonging, and the advertising industry preys on this very American need to carve out one's place in a lonely world by introducing concepts like brand loyalty and brand communities. By making the people feel involved, they are fulfilling a major need extremely prevalent in our society. It is this that makes brands and advertising so successful in our nation today.

3. What are the common elements in the persuasion/selling strategies of advertising and marketing? And how can we move about in this world with a degree of self-awareness as to what's happening, especially since all these messages are increasingly trying to move us to act and make choices on an emotional level?

We should always be aware that advertisers are trying to sell not a product, but a solution. This can be a solution to a simple need, a desire, or even to a problem. Sometimes that problem is created, realized only as we view the advertising, and suddenly very important to us afterwards. This concept can be viewed through the products of HD TV (older TVs are suddenly not clear enough), new cellphones (the need to view media through the phone wherever you are), etc. These problems were invented by the product advertisers and solved virtually only by the purchase and use of the product. If we remain aware of this concept, ad constantly ask ourselves if the course of action suggested by advertising is really necessary or desired, we will be able to curtail the mindless effect desired by it and truly make our own decisions.

The Merchants of Cool

In our society today, especially due to its capitalist nature, corporations are being forced to target and pull in consumers and audiences through any means possible. While some of these means are less than honorable when viewed through a standard moral lense, they can barely be blamed for them, just like man, forced to evolve, couldn't be blamed by nature in the advantage his tools he was forced to develop by hand to fend off the aggressive forces surrounding him. In short, the media corporations engaged in this sort of intrusive marketing are forced to do so by their situation. To not adapt, to not break through the protective, selective bubble consumers now have around themselves, would mean the utter demise of the corporation. No entity, business or otherwise, wants that.

In an era where teenagers are rapidly changing and rejecting trend after trend in pursuit of the one thing that will put them ahead of the crowd for that one, fleeting moment, media producers have stepped further and further over the line, becoming a stalker of sorts of the youth culture. The creepy old man in the back of the room, these producers watch with their teeth gnashing and their eyes rolling, jotting furiously down each and every aspect they can then sell back to these youth for triple the price.

And that's the real problem I have. These media producers essentially produce nothing. They take what we have discovered for ourselves and proclaim it as their discovery. They elevate underground trends, giving no credit where credit is deserved. These old men at the back of the room disguise themselves in these veils of cool like the old man of "Death in Venice", hoping to attract youth by wearing the trappings of youth themselves. Yes, in this day and age, it's necessary. But that doesn't stop it from being unnerving.