Generation Y has grown up in an age of the brand, bombarded by name products. In Branded, Alissa Quart illuminates the unsettling new reality of marketing to teenagers, as well as the quieter but no less worrisome forms of teen branding: the teen consultants who work for corporations in exchange for product; the girls obsessed with cosmetic surgery who will do anything to look like women on TV; and those teens simply obsessed with admission into a name-brand college. We also meet the pockets of kids attempting to turn the tables on the cocksure corporations that so cynically strive to manipulate them.
Chilling, thought-provoking, even darkly amusing, Branded brings one of the most disturbing and least talked about results of contemporary business and culture to the fore-and ensures that we will never look at today's youth the same way again.
"Quart is brilliant on the world in which teens 'obsessed with brand names feel they have a lack that only superbranding will cover over.' She gets great quotes in her first-person encounters with her mostly female subjects, giving the book real voice. And Quart's analyses-of teen movies, SAT tutoring (to improve scores and pose college choices as brands), teen SUV ownership, and the role of parents, are sharp and funny. Her exploration of how teens internalize and express market logic-through a process of 'self-branding' that can include teen boob jobs and kid-produced anorexia Weblogs -- is original and striking." -- Publishers Weekly
Author | Alissa Quart |
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ISBN | 0738208620 |
Publication Date | Feb 19, 2004 |
Publisher | Basic Books |
Language | English |
Category | Media / Commercialization, Physical / Emotional Development |
Parenting Books Age | Teen |