Big Business Drives Peer Pressure on Conformity
I have a fourteen-year-old daughter, Oceania, who will turn fifteen in December. She is a freshman at Baldwin High School. My little girl is now out of the twelve-and under group. She is at the stage where peer pressure begins and arguably continues for the rest of one’s life. In today’s age, there are many issues that these young adults may be driven to conform to if they are not careful; temptation, hazing, violence, humiliation, suppression, failure, fighting, laughter, the list is endless. Are you an introvert? Well, that may be a problem in your group. I personally had the honour of watching it unfold at the very beginnings, but we are in a different time now, unlike when I was a teenager looking for group acceptance.
These groups are a dangerous predator lurking. They have come up with ways of attacking our vulnerable children as they begin their lifelong journey of conformity. There perilous people are called corporations (Boyles, 2008). They attack vulnerable kids who do not yet understand what is wrong or right. The main weapons they are using are social media and email. When ideas and things are referred to as ‘bestselling’ or ‘most popular’ on the corporate websites (Watkins, 2009). They sell tremendously, influencing the teenagers.
The naive teenager suddenly wakes up to a plethora of emails and advertisements on these social media sites (Watkins, 2009). Amazon tells and drives the leaders of the groups’ connectors and influences them on the trendy gadgets and outfits for the group. Charlotte Russe, Forever 21, Pac Sun, Urban Outfitters, Wet Seal, Abercrombie and Fitch are some other examples, just to name a few (Boyles, 2008). These corporations mould and reinforce normative beliefs in the cultures of today’s young people.
These corporations show advertisements depicting everyone as fit and athletic, which is far from the reality (Boyles, 2008). The young people, therefore, end up expecting and envisioning such perfect lives for themselves, which is actually nothing more than a utopia. The corporations continue to market themselves in such a way that will attract the young customers (Boyles, 2008), disregarding the fact that the commercials are harmful to the young generation, who sometimes cannot even afford the product. The corporations operate under the notion that the end justifies the means and do whatever it takes to rake in as much profits as they can.
Teen suicide in the world is mainly caused by cases where the victim did not properly fit in the group and, therefore, felt different. Fitting in the group is sometimes expensive, and the families of some of the kids cannot afford it. It is also easier to persuade less intelligent and inexperienced people than the witty ones. This makes it easier for corporations to influence the youngsters, who are still green and are struggling to go through a difficult stage of their lives. The corporations antics and marketing ploys far outmatch the wit of the youngsters, and they often find themselves moving with the wave, getting lost (Boyles, 2008).
The explosion of the popularity of social media in the last few years has led to the drastic increase in peer pressure conformity (Watkins, 2009). When understanding the application of persuasion in promotion of products, attitude is an indispensable element. The corporations, having studied the flexible nature of the youth, know that they are easily swayed to accept new trends and, therefore, take advantage of that fact (Boyles, 2008). They have infiltrated the thinking of the young people in many ways, manipulating them to act in ways that favour the corporations. The effects of this conformity will be even more evident than they currently are in the days to come.
References
Boyles, D. (2008). The corporate assault on youth: Commercialism, exploitation, and the end of innocence. New York: Peter Lang.
Watkins, S. C. (2009). The young and the digital: What the migration to social-network sites, games, and anytime, anywhere media means for our future. Boston: Beacon Press.
