HN folks without kids of a certain age may not realize just how deeply children today are into Youtube personalities/channels, Twitch streamers, etc.
That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an alternative to purely consuming media.
I'd rather my daughter want to make YouTube videos and open an Etsy shop with her designs than mindlessly watch Hannah Montana (which I feel like is the equivalent from a decade ago).
As a peek into this world, check out Rosanna Pansino (Nerdy Nummies YT channel) and how successful she is:
what stands out to me, is what appears to be the "get rich quick nature" of all the articles. call me old fashion, but at that age I'd rather be teaching kids the value of hard work, delayed gratification, research, skepticism, etc, etc.
In fact I'd rather kids would read the WSJ than this garbage, at least then they'd understand how hard it is to start and maintain a business. Otherwise you're setting this kids up to follow every MLM trap they got offered later on in life. HODL HODL HODL am i right?
My daughter is super into JoJo Siwa, and YouTube videos of girls playing make believe with their toys. It’s kids creating content for kids. I don’t get the article’s angle at all. It’s way better than what I was into at that age—ninja turtles and power ranges, cartoons designed by adults primarily to sell toys.
I doubt this would replace swooning over boy band photos though, that will happen in parallel. Just like a similar thing for boys wouldn't replace porn, right?
>That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
Being into boy bands is a perfectly harmless (and normal) use of a teenager's time. Being obsessed with emulating their YouTube idols on the path to riches, is insidious, demoralising when you realise most of it is luck, which you will not have, it's perverted and unhealthy.
until you see the instagram/snap feeds of these 'kids' once they become 18+..
the unnerving thing about this isn't what's on the surface - it's the preemptive/subliminal training towards 'monetizing their image' which is basically training to become defacto prostitutes in adulthood..
"One of the most troubling features of life under twenty-first-century American capitalism, I find, is the way that it can limit your sense of human potential; in the process of choosing from among overpriced health-insurance packages, I sometimes forget that it is possible for a government to refuse to allow its citizens to go bankrupt while they’re attempting to stay alive. One issue of Teen Boss features a quiz called “Which CELEB-PRENEUR Are You Most Like?” The options are life-style blogger, creator of a name-brand fashion line, owner of a YouTube channel, and founder of a personal-makeup brand. Another quiz helps girls figure out their “life motto,” letting them choose from “Be Your Own Biggest Cheerleader,” “Nothing Is Impossible,” and “Always Do What You’re Afraid to Do.”"
I really like Jia Tolentino's writing.
The magazine sucks because it valorizes materialism. There's not much more to it than that. Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power, but it's still a void. The passage I quoted is right--our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship. We should dream bigger than kids screaming about video games on youtube.
It reminds me of the often repeated phrase used to respond to people criticizing a popular kids' book: "Well, at least they're reading." The version that would defend this kind of content says "at least they're making something!" The act of creation by itself isn't noble, neither is the act of reading alone. "Would you rather they just watch TV??" No. It's a false choice. Aim higher.
The western world is in crisis psychologically. This kind of thing didn’t cause it, but it ain’t helping. But materialism is valorized by CNBC and startup bro culture as well.
The sad thing about this kind of capitalism though is in money via brand building (id argue) no real value is created. It’s just a knife fight for eyeballs.
I think it's important to understand the way that younger teenagers view this sort of thing.
For older people, it's impressive that a teenager goes out there and makes a name for themselves on youtube and then older people will go on and talk about the merits of the media/product being made as you've done.
It's my understanding that for many teenagers the idea of this sort of fame isn't really that big of a deal, it's essentially commoditized, where anyone who's serious about it can achieve a certain level of success. This leads to younger kids to understand that they too can succeed by driving their ideas forward, and I imagine we will see all sorts of entrepreneurship come from Gen Z when they have the skill sets and experience to both raise money from VCs and develop truly innovative new products.
The irony of Teen Boss and it's agenda is that it is a magazine so will really only be read by someone waiting in a Dentist's office. There is great YT content out there that is educational and entertaining, for whatever reason the mainstream media just can't seem to find it.
>our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship.
Material success, power, fame - have been drivers of ambition throughout all of human civilization. The unprecedented success of capitalism over the last 2 centuries has been marked by countless individuals pushing forward towards those goals.
>Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power
You have cynical spin on this, but I suppose traditional moral gender roles would be more fulfilling? Or maybe women should be encouraged to go into low profit social work? What is it you want?
the idea that citizens belong to the government is the most unamerican formulation of the actual relationship i can imagine. i’m a little grossed out having read that
I honestly don't see what's wrong or surprising about this. I personally find the content nauseous, but if a hypothetical thirteen year old daughter were curious about it I'd be happy to read through an issue and talk about it. It sounds like a good conversation starter for the different axes of human ambition and human value. Teaching from the extremes isn't my favorite idea, but so be it.
I force myself to listen to crazy angry conservative and christian radio on and off for the same reason. If we can't embrace aspects of human personality that we find loathesome, I don't think we can love others, or ourselves.
Interestingly I feel like this article comes from a similar place as anger radio (which is, ironically, overwhelmingly money-motivated and exploitative).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't see the value in otherizing media like this. It exists, it's part of our culture, and in one way or another, it's a part of us. Embrace it, engage with it, teach from it, but don't revile it.
I had a different reaction. It felt very wrong. I don't like how our culture worships money. It's bad enough that more college students see 'being very well off financially' as a more important goal than helping others (compared to other generations) [1]. If children are getting these messages at an even younger age, that's disturbing. After all, children are more impressionable. I want the next generation of children to know there are more important things than money. I believe children will be happier their whole lives if they're raised with those values.
Saying "It exists, it's a part of our culture" is such a defeatist response. Culture is formed by all of us. You don't have to just let it happen. You can push back, and work to change culture for the better. That's why I like your last bit - we can engage with it and teach from it. I'd expand that to include: we can disapprove of it.
What really is unnerving about this? Ambition, craving financial success, and gasp-horror 'entrepreneurship' may be beneath the kind of people who end up writing staff columns for the New Yorker, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.
Dare I say it, “I have to remind myself that I can’t overdo it, so I’ll do my posts, and then turn off my phone for the night and just be isolated.” might be good advice for the author, who from her Twitter seems to be a fully paid-up member of 'lol trying to adult' Twitter.
1) It reinforces the idea that for young women, the only way to achieve business success is to be performatively "girly" -- being unceasingly cheerful and social, presenting a breathless aw-shucks ("so amazing!") demeanor, working on things like fashion lines and skin care products or on image-first careers like "Instagram influencer." Society accepts that ambitious young men will present to the world in lots of different ways, but when it comes to ambitious young women we try to hammer them all into the same shape.
2) It puts pressure on its readers, who are in an age bracket we generally associate with childhood, to trade the traditional privileges of childhood -- shielding from the pitiless demands of the market, space to experiment with different facets of their personality, time to dedicate to education and self-development -- for the precarious, rat-race lifestyle that adults live every day. Kids who are saying "there is no such thing as a regular 9 to 5. We work 24/7!" are kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is, that their lives don't have room for anything else. That would be a sad thing for a fully grown adult to believe, much less a thirteen-year-old.
Ambition and craving financial success are great, teaching kids that the path forwards to that is screaming on the internet and infecting other kids with their uneducated opinions is not great.
Regardless, it will happen whether us "not young" folk like it or not. Hopefully some kids will get rich with history and math channels instead of being attractive and making farting noises
Assuming it's not a hoax, is this really any worse than existing girl magazines? When I was a teen, I got peeks at my sister's magazines and they were primarily about makeup and boys(to graduate you to magazines with misguided sex "secrets"). At least Girl Boss teaches you to make money, supposedly.
Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?
> Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?
Good point! If this were geared towards boys and had articles like “How to turn your Minecraft playing into $$$ by streaming” and “Getting started in sales: baseball cards edition” would there even be a discussion? Would the New Yorker be so indignant?
Well if this isn't late stage capitalism, then I don't know what is. In a couple hundred years, I could see this magazine cover being hung up on display in a "museum of capitalism".
As other commenters have pointed out, it's certainly better than celebrity gossip, and probably not any worse than the other crap they would be exposed to. Entrepreneurship is a fantastic thing to promote, and being a social media star is certainly more fun and lucrative than being a 9-5 office drone with health insurance.
But there's something insidious about priming teenagers into this materialistic mindset, that the way to "make it" is to gain a large social media following competing in a shallow clickbait-ridden space, where only the top 1% or so can ever make it anyways (not everybody can be a social media star, just like not everybody can make a living as a musician. Our attention span is limited).
I don't have a problem with this magazine. This magazine is simply a sad reflection of our hypercapitalist reality.
Strongly disagree. It’s a reflection of our hypercompetitive society. It’s not shallow; it’s realistic. Look around: everyone is embracing consumerist capitalism (China, India, etc.) The societies that appear to have some reservations about it (Western Europe) are irrelevant—they won’t exist in their modern form a century from now.
That's an interesting perspective. I wonder how far that kind of publication would go in a Sweden or Denmark or any other successful democratic country with high standards of living and a lot of socialized services.
Is the marketed purpose of life for humans out there to just have a decent, modest and enjoyable life with plenty of vacation and time for friends and recreational activities? Vs the US's "rise to the top, you must become a star, make billions, write a memoir!" mindset?
I remember being around that age and being obsessed with entrepreneurship. It was in the short stories I read, it was discussed in class, I even joined a Young Entrepreneurs after-school club, where students -- aided by local businesspeople -- would create a company, decide on products, then produce and sell them.
And while I'm a guy, I remember that club being balanced roughly 50-50, boys and girls, and in point of fact, most of the leadership positions (we elected Presidents and VPs, in mock-corporate fashion) were girls.
I think all that's changed is the focus of how and where money is earned, and maybe not all that much? The article mentions that some of the ideas recommended are "snow shoveling" and "setting up a laser tag course", which aren't the wild, forced-estrogen-display, YouTube-infested hellscape that some other commenters seem to be upset about.
I remember telling my elementary school class when we were discussing what we wanted to be when we grew up that I wanted to be like Roberta Williams. Which was strange from their vantage point because I was a boy, and because nobody had a clue who she was. But my statement was driven entirely by my desire to make and sell video games.
"Reading the magazine feels like watching a wall of YouTube videos inside a Claire’s jewelry store while a tween-age life-style coach screams at you to double your net worth."
Lol.
"Money is to Teen Boss what sex is to Cosmopolitan—the essential, irreplaceable, attention-getting hook. (On the cover of each edition, the dollar signs in “Teen Bo$$!” occupy the same prime real estate, in the upper-left corner, that the word “sex” does on most Cosmo covers.)"
Well encouraging young women to make money and work for financial independence is better than encouraging them to become sex objects, as many other mags targeting them do.
My 7 year-old boy already wants to start his own business, and routinely runs his ideas by me. He's also a Minecraft fan, and his favourite YouTube channel is PopularMMOs. When he started watching it a lot and referring to "Pat & Jen", I decided to find out what that is all about. I was surprised to discover after a little googling that they're a married couple who pull down $11m/yr from YT.
And yes, as a parent I am unnerved by this article. While I don't want to discourage his budding entrepreneurship and do want to encourage his initiative, I want him to apply it in a way that is realistic for a kid his age, and I also want to protect him from the inanity (and worse) of stuff like TeenBoss and various get-rich-quick schemes and snake oil sales. I want him to learn the value of hard work, practise, being punctual, and skills that will help him excel in whatever it is he decides to do as an adult. At this point, that means studying, doing well academically, and possibly starting a cottage business his parents can help him with (fortunately, he's a First Honors student).
I think this magazine is quite bizarre, but on the other hand I think entrepreneurship starts young. My first 'business' was selling coke at my school. The coke machine cost $0.50 and I saw at Sam's Club you could get some massive box dozens of offbrand cola for ~$10. Keep them in a cooler, sell them at breaks for $0.25 - that was a ton of money for a middle school kid. Always wondered why more people don't take advantage of little market openings like this. Maybe a silly magazine can inspire people to think outside the box a bit more.
I think many in this forum are at it to make money. So I sincerely doubt they'd have a problem with it. To me it's an emblem or icon if you will of what's going on in today's world. Value purely is existentially equated to money. To me that's bad. However is it as bad as everything else? No. Is it better than most everything else. Yes very much yes. Sucks to say because it makes me see the ugly realization of the actual capitalistic world we live in.
It's increasingly looking like the biggest shift in our lifetimes is not sudden mass automation of the labor industry but the shift from a service industry to a content creation industry.
If you're not a content creator/owner, you're a content consumer. Content is the new rent seeking.
Families used to teach children the value of a dollar by getting them to setup a lemonade stand or mowing a neighbor's lawn. Now they can command far higher pay by managing that neighbor's social media account. Go get em.
[+] [-] michaelbuckbee|8 years ago|reply
That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an alternative to purely consuming media.
I'd rather my daughter want to make YouTube videos and open an Etsy shop with her designs than mindlessly watch Hannah Montana (which I feel like is the equivalent from a decade ago).
As a peek into this world, check out Rosanna Pansino (Nerdy Nummies YT channel) and how successful she is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2cebTn0nc
There are worse role models for kids.
[+] [-] spaceflunky|8 years ago|reply
In fact I'd rather kids would read the WSJ than this garbage, at least then they'd understand how hard it is to start and maintain a business. Otherwise you're setting this kids up to follow every MLM trap they got offered later on in life. HODL HODL HODL am i right?
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spinach|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrepd|8 years ago|reply
Being into boy bands is a perfectly harmless (and normal) use of a teenager's time. Being obsessed with emulating their YouTube idols on the path to riches, is insidious, demoralising when you realise most of it is luck, which you will not have, it's perverted and unhealthy.
[+] [-] musage|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cat199|8 years ago|reply
until you see the instagram/snap feeds of these 'kids' once they become 18+..
the unnerving thing about this isn't what's on the surface - it's the preemptive/subliminal training towards 'monetizing their image' which is basically training to become defacto prostitutes in adulthood..
[+] [-] overthemoon|8 years ago|reply
I really like Jia Tolentino's writing.
The magazine sucks because it valorizes materialism. There's not much more to it than that. Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power, but it's still a void. The passage I quoted is right--our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship. We should dream bigger than kids screaming about video games on youtube.
It reminds me of the often repeated phrase used to respond to people criticizing a popular kids' book: "Well, at least they're reading." The version that would defend this kind of content says "at least they're making something!" The act of creation by itself isn't noble, neither is the act of reading alone. "Would you rather they just watch TV??" No. It's a false choice. Aim higher.
[+] [-] dpweb|8 years ago|reply
The sad thing about this kind of capitalism though is in money via brand building (id argue) no real value is created. It’s just a knife fight for eyeballs.
[+] [-] stevenwoo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taliesinb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zjaffee|8 years ago|reply
For older people, it's impressive that a teenager goes out there and makes a name for themselves on youtube and then older people will go on and talk about the merits of the media/product being made as you've done.
It's my understanding that for many teenagers the idea of this sort of fame isn't really that big of a deal, it's essentially commoditized, where anyone who's serious about it can achieve a certain level of success. This leads to younger kids to understand that they too can succeed by driving their ideas forward, and I imagine we will see all sorts of entrepreneurship come from Gen Z when they have the skill sets and experience to both raise money from VCs and develop truly innovative new products.
[+] [-] itronitron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andbberger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macspoofing|8 years ago|reply
Material success, power, fame - have been drivers of ambition throughout all of human civilization. The unprecedented success of capitalism over the last 2 centuries has been marked by countless individuals pushing forward towards those goals.
>Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power
You have cynical spin on this, but I suppose traditional moral gender roles would be more fulfilling? Or maybe women should be encouraged to go into low profit social work? What is it you want?
[+] [-] asdffdsa321|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flipthatthough|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jknoepfler|8 years ago|reply
I force myself to listen to crazy angry conservative and christian radio on and off for the same reason. If we can't embrace aspects of human personality that we find loathesome, I don't think we can love others, or ourselves.
Interestingly I feel like this article comes from a similar place as anger radio (which is, ironically, overwhelmingly money-motivated and exploitative).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't see the value in otherizing media like this. It exists, it's part of our culture, and in one way or another, it's a part of us. Embrace it, engage with it, teach from it, but don't revile it.
[+] [-] 9889095r3jh|8 years ago|reply
[1]https://www.thestreet.com/story/12791561/1/millennials-just-...
Saying "It exists, it's a part of our culture" is such a defeatist response. Culture is formed by all of us. You don't have to just let it happen. You can push back, and work to change culture for the better. That's why I like your last bit - we can engage with it and teach from it. I'd expand that to include: we can disapprove of it.
[+] [-] kristianc|8 years ago|reply
Dare I say it, “I have to remind myself that I can’t overdo it, so I’ll do my posts, and then turn off my phone for the night and just be isolated.” might be good advice for the author, who from her Twitter seems to be a fully paid-up member of 'lol trying to adult' Twitter.
[+] [-] smacktoward|8 years ago|reply
1) It reinforces the idea that for young women, the only way to achieve business success is to be performatively "girly" -- being unceasingly cheerful and social, presenting a breathless aw-shucks ("so amazing!") demeanor, working on things like fashion lines and skin care products or on image-first careers like "Instagram influencer." Society accepts that ambitious young men will present to the world in lots of different ways, but when it comes to ambitious young women we try to hammer them all into the same shape.
2) It puts pressure on its readers, who are in an age bracket we generally associate with childhood, to trade the traditional privileges of childhood -- shielding from the pitiless demands of the market, space to experiment with different facets of their personality, time to dedicate to education and self-development -- for the precarious, rat-race lifestyle that adults live every day. Kids who are saying "there is no such thing as a regular 9 to 5. We work 24/7!" are kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is, that their lives don't have room for anything else. That would be a sad thing for a fully grown adult to believe, much less a thirteen-year-old.
[+] [-] samlevine|8 years ago|reply
It reminds the middle-class strivers that "MAKE MONEY FA$T!" isn't that far from themselves, despite all their scrambling efforts.
[+] [-] aje403|8 years ago|reply
Regardless, it will happen whether us "not young" folk like it or not. Hopefully some kids will get rich with history and math channels instead of being attractive and making farting noises
[+] [-] SaltyMaia|8 years ago|reply
Not surprised to see this comment on top
[+] [-] ravenstine|8 years ago|reply
Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?
[+] [-] ryandrake|8 years ago|reply
Good point! If this were geared towards boys and had articles like “How to turn your Minecraft playing into $$$ by streaming” and “Getting started in sales: baseball cards edition” would there even be a discussion? Would the New Yorker be so indignant?
[+] [-] creaghpatr|8 years ago|reply
Who's graduating? https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/teen-vogue-s-guide-a...
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] adamsea|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JDiculous|8 years ago|reply
As other commenters have pointed out, it's certainly better than celebrity gossip, and probably not any worse than the other crap they would be exposed to. Entrepreneurship is a fantastic thing to promote, and being a social media star is certainly more fun and lucrative than being a 9-5 office drone with health insurance.
But there's something insidious about priming teenagers into this materialistic mindset, that the way to "make it" is to gain a large social media following competing in a shallow clickbait-ridden space, where only the top 1% or so can ever make it anyways (not everybody can be a social media star, just like not everybody can make a living as a musician. Our attention span is limited).
I don't have a problem with this magazine. This magazine is simply a sad reflection of our hypercapitalist reality.
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BadassFractal|8 years ago|reply
Is the marketed purpose of life for humans out there to just have a decent, modest and enjoyable life with plenty of vacation and time for friends and recreational activities? Vs the US's "rise to the top, you must become a star, make billions, write a memoir!" mindset?
[+] [-] DanHulton|8 years ago|reply
And while I'm a guy, I remember that club being balanced roughly 50-50, boys and girls, and in point of fact, most of the leadership positions (we elected Presidents and VPs, in mock-corporate fashion) were girls.
I think all that's changed is the focus of how and where money is earned, and maybe not all that much? The article mentions that some of the ideas recommended are "snow shoveling" and "setting up a laser tag course", which aren't the wild, forced-estrogen-display, YouTube-infested hellscape that some other commenters seem to be upset about.
[+] [-] cabaalis|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SkyMarshal|8 years ago|reply
Lol.
"Money is to Teen Boss what sex is to Cosmopolitan—the essential, irreplaceable, attention-getting hook. (On the cover of each edition, the dollar signs in “Teen Bo$$!” occupy the same prime real estate, in the upper-left corner, that the word “sex” does on most Cosmo covers.)"
Well encouraging young women to make money and work for financial independence is better than encouraging them to become sex objects, as many other mags targeting them do.
[+] [-] wyclif|8 years ago|reply
And yes, as a parent I am unnerved by this article. While I don't want to discourage his budding entrepreneurship and do want to encourage his initiative, I want him to apply it in a way that is realistic for a kid his age, and I also want to protect him from the inanity (and worse) of stuff like TeenBoss and various get-rich-quick schemes and snake oil sales. I want him to learn the value of hard work, practise, being punctual, and skills that will help him excel in whatever it is he decides to do as an adult. At this point, that means studying, doing well academically, and possibly starting a cottage business his parents can help him with (fortunately, he's a First Honors student).
[+] [-] TangoTrotFox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matte_black|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kraig911|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EtDybNuvCu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pietroglyph|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rllin|8 years ago|reply
If you're not a content creator/owner, you're a content consumer. Content is the new rent seeking.
[+] [-] MechEStudent|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wavefunction|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand
[+] [-] excitom|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speedplane|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] s_m|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] busterarm|8 years ago|reply