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I submit the hypothesis that corporations utilizing the "cultivation of cool" is a potential reality and possible future endeavour to be executed in the goal of appropriately marketing commodity goods to both young people, as well as other market segments. With the current use of "cool hunting" as a major source of information about the habits and interests of young people, it is fair to say that the corporation is invested in finding other methods of inquiry and information exchange to aid in selling commodity goods. Like the concept of progression in Anthropology from "hunting/gathering societies" to "agrarian societies", the parallel I'm drawing is that advertisers utilizing "cool hunting" will be moving on, in the future, to using "cool cultivation" to more effectively and efficiently find "cool". This farming of cool could be performed through, as mentioned previously, a corporation distributed plethora of availability of toy and play-related narratives that "teach" children to develop "cool" with the intent of harvesting it later on to advance the selling of commodity goods. Since the influence of industrialization, youth has been the site of rebellion, struggle and change. It perpetually places itself in opposition to dominant culture as an expression of power, individuality and strength. Youth culture changes quickly because it is a reaction to dominant culture, consistently making subversive comment on the condition and direction of young people. The corporate gaze sees youth as a group to be studied, understood, and conquered, all in the name of selling commodity goods. Teenagers, however, are hip to it. They know they are being sold to in sly and devious ways. Their spaces are being increasingly infiltrated. Their friends are being recruited as representatives of material products and corporations to help sell by word-of-mouth. As a result, teenagers trust the media less and less and youth subculture has to change at a faster rate to remain elusive and obscure. Like Colin Campbell, and his investigation of obsolescence, the producers of The Merchants of Cool illustrate the point that when underground cool culture is appropriated and co-opted from teenagers, it immediately loses its edge, effectiveness, and coolness. Advertising and commodity goods capitalizing on the "cool" and culture of cool, like in Campbell's Desire For the New, quickly becomes passe and archaic by simple virtue of its own "coolness". By using signs, signifiers and objects native to underground youth-culture to sell to mainstream mass culture, corporations are alienating many members of its target audience. In terms of youth, once a trend is picked up by the masses, it loses its street credibility and becomes worthless in terms of cultural currency. Goodman and Dretzin point out that cool must remain underground to maintain value or worth with youth subculture. Widespread advertising extinguishes this value completely by extensive saturation. This saturation and eventual avoidance of signs can be illustrated through the appropriation of Rave culture, clothing and apparel. "Ravers", in the 1990's were known to wear extremely wide-legged pants as well as other identifying accessories, including glow-in-the-dark sticks, distinct backpacks or bags, and baby soothers to prevent the grinding-teeth effect of the drug ecstasy. Wide-legged pants in particular became a popular signifier of rave culture. Once corporations observed the potential of rave related accessories and that rave culture was marketable, apparel and accessories like wide-legged pants went into production and distribution and now such fashions are available at stores such as Wal-Mart and Le Chateau, as well as many other discount department stores. The rave scene, now thoroughly saturated with corporate involvement and promotion, is not the underground edgy scene it once was. Tickets for raves can now be purchased at your local Ticketmaster location. Large conglomerates seeking fresh blood and new consumers are now sponsoring raves. Underground and hardcore ravers have forgone mainstream scene parties and trends, and have adopted other signifiers for to designate membership to rave culture. Ravers do not wear the token wide-legged pants as often. They are not "cool" anymore, not in the same way. |