‘Killer Culture’: A call to the churches
“Often there’s a kind of official and systematic ‘rebelliousness’ that’s reflected in media products pitched at kids. It’s part of the official rock video world view, it’s part of the official advertising world view, that your parents are creeps, teachers are nerds and idiots, authority figures are laughable, nobody can really understand kids except the corporate sponsor. That huge authority has, interestingly enough, emerged as the sort of tacit superhero of consumer culture. That’s the coolest entity of all.” – New York University Communications Professor Mark Crispin-Miller, on PBS’ Frontline documentary, “Merchants of Cool” “My students were talking to me about the parties that they were having on weekends. And there was one place in particular where they had lots of privacy – the parents were often gone. They said that they were watching the Playboy Channel in the girl’s bedroom. There would be like 10 or 12 of them up there. And so I said, well, is everybody watching it? Oh yeah, they’re all watching it – and so one of the little guys … Continue Reading