In 2001, Frontline made an episode about marketing aimed towards teenagers called "The Merchants of Cool." Like most of Frontline's pieces, it was informative, insightful, and kind of depressing. One of the sections that really stuck with me was the part about how marketers have created a character/stereotype to appeal to both boys and girls and hook them into their shows. For boys, it was a character that they referred to as the "Mook" (think Tom Green, Howard Stern, Eminem, etc.) and for girls, it was a character that they called the "Midriff" (think Britney Spears, Jessica Biel, Miley Cyrus, etc.). The Mook relied on shock humor and physical comedy to appeal to boys while the Midriff taught girls to constantly think about their image and utilize their body as their most important asset both in life and sex. However, the world has changed a lot in the last 18 years, so my question after all of this was how do the Mook and Midriff exist in today's world? In 2019, the Mook and Midriff characters have evolved into two new characters: The "(Offensive) Meme Page" and the "IG Model."
First, the modern Mook: the (Offensive) Meme Page. The Meme Page takes the shock humor of the Mook and amplifies it. It basically seeks to see just how desensitized one can be when viewing things through the lens of online humor. These are the pages that make jokes about the Holocaust and 9/11 (because that's funny? Believe me, I'm a dude here but this doesn't even really make sense to me) and scream screw the mainstream ways and ideas. They serve the same purpose of the Mook, teach boys to be turned off by authority and look to be as free and openly obscene as they can be for the sake of humor. It's not a product that they're selling here, but the lifestyle behind the image here certainly entails some purchases and that's where the marketing machine gets its victims.
Now we must look at the modern Midriff: the IG Model. Known by other names (most of which cannot be written here), the IG Model is a thin (but yet still "thicc") woman between the ages of 18 and 30. She runs a social media account (thus the IG part of IG Model) where she posts at least daily about everything from her wonderful vacations to her family (or boyfriend or dog, it's flexible here) to her new line of fitness wear or makeup to the latest dress she wore at an awards show or charity event. She's still a sex symbol and like the Midriff, while she may make men feel something (to keep it PG), she's really there to sell an image to girls. "Be like me where you can go to the beach every week and meet the stars of your dreams as long as you remember that your butt and face are your biggest allies." The little girl buys her makeup, her yoga tights, her bikini, and so the marketing machine rolls on.
Ultimately, the Mook and Midriff are still here, they've just changed forms to fit the times like every other aspect of media marketing. The Meme Page and IG Model are just a simpler version of the Tom Green's and Britney Spear's of the early 2000s, condensed into Instagram viewable content for our ease. All that's changed is our standards and the amount we are willing to give to break through the monotony of our never-changing Instagram feeds to find the thing that appeals to us.
First, the modern Mook: the (Offensive) Meme Page. The Meme Page takes the shock humor of the Mook and amplifies it. It basically seeks to see just how desensitized one can be when viewing things through the lens of online humor. These are the pages that make jokes about the Holocaust and 9/11 (because that's funny? Believe me, I'm a dude here but this doesn't even really make sense to me) and scream screw the mainstream ways and ideas. They serve the same purpose of the Mook, teach boys to be turned off by authority and look to be as free and openly obscene as they can be for the sake of humor. It's not a product that they're selling here, but the lifestyle behind the image here certainly entails some purchases and that's where the marketing machine gets its victims.
Now we must look at the modern Midriff: the IG Model. Known by other names (most of which cannot be written here), the IG Model is a thin (but yet still "thicc") woman between the ages of 18 and 30. She runs a social media account (thus the IG part of IG Model) where she posts at least daily about everything from her wonderful vacations to her family (or boyfriend or dog, it's flexible here) to her new line of fitness wear or makeup to the latest dress she wore at an awards show or charity event. She's still a sex symbol and like the Midriff, while she may make men feel something (to keep it PG), she's really there to sell an image to girls. "Be like me where you can go to the beach every week and meet the stars of your dreams as long as you remember that your butt and face are your biggest allies." The little girl buys her makeup, her yoga tights, her bikini, and so the marketing machine rolls on.
Ultimately, the Mook and Midriff are still here, they've just changed forms to fit the times like every other aspect of media marketing. The Meme Page and IG Model are just a simpler version of the Tom Green's and Britney Spear's of the early 2000s, condensed into Instagram viewable content for our ease. All that's changed is our standards and the amount we are willing to give to break through the monotony of our never-changing Instagram feeds to find the thing that appeals to us.
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