Branding A Generation

I met Joey while at work this pass Monday. Joey and his mom specifically came in the store to look for baseball cleats. Immediately Joey ran straight for the “Nike” cleats. His mom gave me a worried look. I went to the stockroom to bring out a less expensive pair of cleats. When Joey tried on the cleats, his face completely took a turn. He liked the cleats, they fit perfect, but they were not Nike. Joey begged and begged his mom to let him get the Nikes, not for the fit or the purpose but because he feared that he’d be teased in school.

"Adolescents get stuck in a very superficial version of reality.” "One of the effects of this is that we lose touch with what is really important and focus instead on how we look and what we wear."-- Mosiac Newspaper

Joey is only one of many adolescents that suffer with this version of reality. The fear that these kids have is out of control. Looking back at my school days, I don’t remember having the fetish of brand named items. Maybe in middle school, I was a bit worried about keeping up with the “fashion” but honestly that was nothing more than a white tee shirt, self-ripped jeans and white or black Ked’s.

Self-esteem, peer pressure, drugs, sex and alcohol are all issues that adolescents will no doubt face while in school. But where does this fear of not having the “right” clothes come in? Experts say that pressure functions as a type of "bragging right," prompting teens display how much one owns, and how much he or she has to spend.

Is this obsession, as Thompson describes it, really changing the focus, well being and even healthy lifestyles of children today in school? I believe so. The culture is changing rapidly and is changing for the worst.

Blaming anyone isn’t going to solve the problem. Whatever the solution might be, whether starting at home, or with enforcement of uniforms, something has to stop the branding of this generation.