“Generation Like” and “The Babysitters Club” and Hypercommercialism
It’s no secret that companies and corporations are unafraid to do anything to sell their products. Advertisements and product placement has become so embedded in our every day lives, we hardly blink when we drive past a billboard, or see a Coca-Cola can sitting on someones table in a movie. Nowadays, nearly every piece of media we consume has some sort of branding involved in it. Sponsored YouTube videos, Twitter endorsements, pop-up ads, even commercials between episodes of shows geared towards children. But where do we draw the line? What happens when everywhere we turn, we are being sold something new?
Jesse Barron’s “The Babysitters Club” goes into depth regarding how brands and advertisements treat adults in order to gain their support, and most importantly, their money. The way that these brands market themselves is, as Barron explains it, a way to make adults feel like they cannot do these things themselves; therefore, they need an app, a website, or some sort of virtual assistance in order to help them. He criticizes the branding of popular apps such as Yelp, Uber, and Pokemon Go and their infantilizing ways.
What happens when a brand starts targeting children, instead of adults? “Generation Like” covers the topic of how corporations use children and teenagers in order to sell. Putting aside some aspects of this documentary where it takes on that patronizing Millennial tone, it makes a few solid points on how brands are able to take advantage of teenagers and their use of the internet. They bet on the want for more and more likes, they profit off the attention, and use teenagers and children to not only purchase, but also sell their products.
Society has become accustomed to the way that corporations and brands act. We don’t bat an eye at these sort of things, or see what can be potentially harmful to us or others. This constant hypercommercialism is ever present in nearly every piece of media that we consume. Think about it, when was the last time you watched something without having to sit through commercials? When is the last time you scrolled through a social media app and didn’t see an advertisement? When was last time you saw careful product placement in a favorite movie? Advertisements, commercials, brand deals, all of these constantly surround us. So what makes this become dangerous and to what extent do we need to be critical as consumers?
In order to be educated and critical of these corporations twisting media to benefit them, the effects of their actions need to be analyzed. What do they benefit from, and how do we, as consumers, benefit? As mentioned in both “Generation Like” and “The Babysitters Club” these brands are making upwards of hundreds of billions of dollars through these advertisements and commercials. In a capitalistic society, money is king and people are not the priority. So, to answer the question on who benefits, the answer clearly points to the corporations. We lose money, and put more into their bank accounts. Then why do we do it?
“Generation Like” brings up the idea of being famous, a goal that many young people strive to achieve, especially online. “Likes, follows, friends, retweets — they’re the social currency of this generation, Generation Like. The more likes you have, the better you feel” (Rushkoff 2014). Brands know that this is a focus, and use that to their advantage. Social media influencers and even regular people who might run certain accounts can be preyed on a fall victim to being a pawn for these brands. Sometimes, they are also able to profit off of the sponsorships and ads too, but never to the extent that the brands do.
On the topic of advertising, how can such things affect the way children view things, the way they speak and act, and the actions their parents take? A pair of puppy-dog eyes can go far after a commercial between episodes of Paw Patrol convinces a child that they need the newest toy pushed in their faces. “Generation Like” mentions: “Now that the way kids consume media has changed, the companies that want to reach them know they need to change, too” (Rushcoff 2014).
Children are not the only ones who have the tendency to fall prey to hypercommercialism. Barron makes several points in “The Babysitters Club” about how brands infantilize and take advantage of adults in order to sell their products. “When we learn to expect playfulness from mundane tasks like ordering food or finding a pharmacy, or when we won’t go swimming without a Pokéchaperone, the result is a state of unsuspecting childlikeness, while adults wait in the woods to take their profits. My frustration with these apps only tells me I’m becoming the child they’re informing me I am” (Barron 2016). Even when the manipulation is recognized, it is nearly impossible to escape.
Even adults are susceptible to the predatory reach of corporations and brands. A simple commercial could be all it takes to convince an adult that they need to buy something. And those are the people who can spend the money whenever they want to get what is on their screens. This is just another example of how much we lose to this ad culture: money is spent and spent and spent and all corporations do it profit and profit and profit.
So then comes the real question: What are the effects of hypercommercialism in media and why must we stay critical of it? As Andersen and Gray put it in Battleground |The Media: “Along the way, television is transformed into a marketing tool and viewers become consumers of products, not audiences to be entertained” (2008). All of the wonderful things we can gain from being active consumers of good media is overshadowed by the ads and commercials. This is not to say nothing about them can be good, but when it becomes overwhelming and all-consuming, we are losing more than we are gaining.
Works Cited
Barron, Jesse. “The Babysitters Club.” Real Life. Accessed February 22, 2021. https://reallifemag.com/the-babysitters-club/.
FRONTLINE. “Generation Like — Transcript.” Accessed February 22, 2021. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/generation-like/transcript/.
“Hypercommercialism.Pdf.” Accessed February 22, 2021. https://faculty.fordham.edu/andersen/hypercommercialism.pdf.
