Youth is wasted on the young.
It’s a familiar refrain that’s oft repeated by older people, often rueing their own misspent youth. It’s part warning, part jealous lashing-out and eight parts smug I-just-said-something-clever-and-I-hope-you’re-impressed.
The power of being young is a quite formidable force that is always in the crosshairs of Big Business, world governments and all kinds of ideological movements, seeking to harness its power for obvious reasons and other not-so-obvious ones.
Being young has an undeniable appeal, a force that will not be denied. When you’re young, you’re not afraid, simply because you don’t quite know what to be afraid of. Heartbreak, the drudgery of everyday life, professional and personal disappointment, the humbling of age, the realization of one’s mortality and insignificance . all these are fears that have yet to find their way into a young person’s heart.
And the lack of fear that comes with youth is its most potent weapon.
Another reason for this fearlessness, aside from sheer ignorance, is that young people don’t actually have much to lose; if you don’t have much, you’re not afraid to lose it. And when you have time and energy to spare, you’re not going to be concerned about expending it ? all these things come together to give youth a drive and a single-mindedness of purpose that is unparalleled.
It has to be said: gullibility is another factor why young people are courted by organized powers: they make for easy numbers. Combining a sense of optimism (which is a fatal flaw, in my view, when dealing with any kind of political or professional vision) with an inexperience into the vagaries of human deception, young people make ideal marks for the savvy and morality-challenged political and business leader. It’s easy to get them to work hard, for less money by promising them brighter futures.
Based on the environmental and financial prognosis of our planet, recently, I’d say the future has the brightness of a coalmine.
Advertising is a business that relies heavily on “the ideal of youth which is to say, the more shallower aspects of being young: the imagery, the design, the buzzwords, the editing and the music. By working with young talent (and not just in front of the camera), advertising ensures that everything it produces has a newness about it, which is critical because it allows agencies to transmit this youthfulness onto their clients and in turn, on to the brands they’re promoting.
If advertising strikes you as some kind of youth-obsessed dirty uncle who wants you to sit on his lap, you’re not far off. But you have to understand that advertising isn’t interested in promoting the level of salaciousness or shallowness that is often ascribed to it. If boring moved products, I’d be a media superstar. Instead, new things and young people attract viewership.
This is in contrast to say, the movie industry, where the obsession with youth and beauty is an end unto itself. Maybe a more accurate way to sum it up is to say that advertising is obsessed with the idea of newness . originality, even. Youth just happens to be the vessel that delivers anything remotely close to it.
If advertising exploits youth on the production side, it’s no less egregious on the viewership side. The content it delivers has gotten faster, more telegraphic, more dynamic than even 10 years ago, to cater to this younger(minded) audience. Everything is faster and image is king, what you look like is who you are and if you don’t make a good first impression, you won’t get a second chance.
To my older readers (let’s draw a line in the sand and say anyone over 35) this may sound horrific; to my younger readers . well, you guys have probably stopped reading somewhere around line 3. But to any survivors of my insufferable pomposity, let me make one last defence for the influence of advertising.
The argument that advertising is the culprit behind the lowering of our collective IQs isn’t entirely true. Advertising is more of a willing accomplice than a scheming mastermind, a sycophant to the fickle ways of the new world rather than a level-headed observer ready to take sides in our various culture wars.
That was never its role.
The truth is we live in an age of youth, where young people and their potential and contributions are more highly regarded than at any other time in history. Advertising is just guilty of responding to that, amid other trends, and exploiting it for commercial gain.
It delivers what people expect, in a manner that defies expectations. In that sense, it’s both predictable and original. It reinforces what people believe and challenges them only slightly, when it makes financial sense to do so.
The downside? It encourages people to accept that their needs and desires are, in fact, what the establishment tells them they are. And it discourages them from thinking for themselves and even getting off their couches to protest things they don’t like.
This systemic loss of free will segues neatly onto next week’s topic: the upcoming US elections and the fate of the free world. Ok, and Egypt.
Mohammed Nassar was kidnapped at birth and forced to work in advertising, in Cairo, New York and London. Today, his main concern is that archaeologists will one day stumble upon his desk, debate the value of his profession and judge him. Feel free to email him at [email protected].
