originally published 7/1/2004

In his book Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: American Teenagers, Schools, and the Culture of Consumption (Routledge, 2004), professor Murray Milner Jr. studies the relationships between teenagers, schools, and consumerism. When Milner began to study teenagers and their school environments in order to better understand the former’s consumerist tendencies, he found that the current structure of schools and education renders increased adolescent spending nearly inevitable; the current structure makes many decisions about the lives of teens for teens—how many years they will attend school, what curriculum they will study, what teachers the schools will employ, and who will attend which schools. Because teenagers expect more autonomy and freedom in their lives than that which they retain, they exercise tight control over the one area of their lives that is not controlled for them: who is cool, and who is not. They can and do control their peer status systems, and, consequently, often become obsessively preoccupied with who is making the A-list. Criteria for inclusion induce considerable spending habits, Milner explains, as more often than not status depends on ownership of the moment’s fashionable goods.

19 minutes

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