This is going to be a light week this week. Tune into next Monday’s podcast to find out more details on why, if you care. I ran across this video a couple of days ago and I don’t know exactly why I watched it, but I did. It was a real eye opener.
Back when I was young, say the 1980s, we could know nearly everything in culture there was to know. If you had cable, listened to the radio and had access to magazines then you were in the know. Being out in the country, nobody had cable until the mid 1980s. But as access was available, some people had cable. That meant MTV and Disney.
I have certainly been aware that Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez came out of Disney programming. The thing that really surprised me was that today’s artists are still coming from Disney. Those would be the very contemporary Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo.
I am fifty now and my kids are in their late teens. It has been ten years since tween oriented shows were playing in my home. As kids do, they would binge watch show after show of some of these titles. I rarely ever paid much attention other than sitting down for 10 minutes to kind of validate that the content was age appropriate. What I am saying is that I pay little attention to what is hot in the grade school demographic.
That being said, I pay little attention to all popular culture other than the headlines I see in the news and what music my kids are streaming on the TV. What got me wondering about all of this is that does Disney just select extraordinary personalities or do those come from spending your youth working on Disney shows? When I think about it, I have to believe it is the latter rather than the former.
I want to say that most people grow out of Disney stars influencing their lives on what is ‘cool’. I want to say that. But, then again I know some adults that are constantly watching Kardashian makeup tips or things of that ilk. What that says to me is that this behavior is programmed from an early age with mechanisms like Disney series.
When we hear the term Oligarchy, I think most of us think drug company execs going into the FDA or at least buying influence. But when I think about it, isn’t this another form of it? Companies taking over brain space to influence future consumer behavior. It is not a conscious behavior but a subconscious one. ‘Experts say do this…’.
Clearly, not every cast member became superstars. Some did but then others didn’t want to go further, some flamed out with personal problems and others just remained in a supporting role. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better start for an ambitious young person. A highly impressionable and rabid fan base with access to Hollywood’s movers and shakers. Think of the advantage Britney Spears had at the age of 18 compared to the run of the mill high school graduate.
It’s not that those people didn’t have talent. But talent alone doesn’t cut it it requires opportunity. It is the same reason people accel to the position beyond their capabilities. They had the opportunity to advance but not the talent/experience/education to thrive. Similarly, how many people could do the same or better job but are not known (and we never will).
End Your Programming Routine: I think that this kind of programming can be broken. It simply requires becoming conscious of the behavior and draw. I don’t hate Disney nor am I against teen programming. I am not surprised or amazed by their alumni, who else would take command of popular culture but people that have defined it their whole lives. Like all things moderation is the key.
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