WHERE ARE THE PRETEENS GOING? | The age of consumption targeting younger people (video essay)

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey you guys, welcome back to my channel. Today, I'm going to be trying a new topic uh video essay. And today, it is going to be about preteens and what's going on with them right now.

[00:00:13]>> [music] >> Do you remember going to the mall with your friends on Saturday afternoons? Or getting your ears pierced at Claire's after you passed that really hard algebra one test you had in middle school?

[00:00:27]These are experiences that used to occur frequently that are slowly fading away.

[00:00:31]The word teenager was a point in life created by big companies in the 1940s as a marketing tactic. In order to more properly market toward a younger audience, there needed to be a distinction between children and adults and companies were able to put that together and find the middle, which became a teenager.

[00:00:49]Boundless Theatre, a theater company, published an article explaining this saying, "Within a culture that thought of business in terms of national identity and individual freedom, the fact that youth had become a market also meant that they had become a discrete, separate age group with its own peer-generated rituals, rights, and demands." As time has progressed, teenage or being a teenager has been marketed as an exciting and pivotal point in a person's life. Stereotypes from movies show the high school experience of friend-filled gatherings and parties.

[00:01:18]The age right before teens, however, 10 to 12 years old, has become its own subject in a way. A preteen. With all this excitement surrounding being a teen, the categories of other ages are slowly fading away. Teens having parties and running around town is no longer exclusive to that age category. Stores like Sephora and Garage have slowly started marketing towards younger age groups. The teen experience is slowly, or fastly, depending on how you view it, including younger ages. Why is my child so eager to grow up? There is an actual explanation for this. BBC's article, Kids Getting Older and Younger, explains that this is rooted in marketing. The idea is because of KGOY or kids getting older younger, kids have greater brand awareness. So, products should be advertised to children rather than their parents. The explanation is that brands are exploiting children. Children, because of their undeveloped minds, are more susceptible to propaganda in advertising. In the same article, it says that there is increased exposure to to violent or sexual content at a younger age, which causes a desensitization and normalization because children's brains aren't fully developed to process this in a way that an adult brain can. The next point about why children are growing up so fast is because one of the most obvious things in most relevant things going on right now, social media.

[00:02:36]As with Dr. Willow Jenkins says, children are more likely to be exposed to harmful things on the internet as most children end up with a phone at the age of 10 years old. That's a decade away from someone when someone's brain is even close to being fully developed.

[00:02:48]Social media is also a marketing brand used by almost every brand in the world.

[00:02:53]When the average age of social media users is 12.6 years old, according to the Daily Nebraskan, you have a whole new demographic that wants to fit in.

[00:03:01]And if a company is able to market well enough, they will have a whole new generation of customers.

[00:03:07]A big part of this age is the need to feel accepted amongst peers. When a store or brand becomes a new fad, it's much more likely that more people will purchase whatever is being sold. The increase of younger people on the internet means that the trends are spreading more so in younger generations. These trends may have initially been for older audiences. An example of this is the Sephora kid.

[00:03:27]According to the Daily Nebraskan, the recent trend of Sephora kids started from influencers inspiring children to go out and buy similar products. These influencers were obviously influencing these children on social media.

[00:03:39]Concern arose when this seemingly harmless activity resulted in on spending unnecessary money on products that most teenagers don't need until they're older.

[00:03:49]It's also more than an activity, it's a status symbol leading to even more comparisons between children. Brands know that the vulnerable age they are targeting is full of insecurity and use that to their advantage. All it takes is one viral TikTok supported by whoever and it's a success. Marketing is so important. An example of things marketed towards children is Alani's. Alani is currently a very popular energy drink, one that I drink quite often myself.

[00:04:18]Look at this can. The bright colors, fruity flavors, and aesthetic names. You can't tell me that's not marketed towards children.

[00:04:27]I mean, look at this. If you see an adult drinking this, you'd be like, "What the heck is their problem?"

[00:04:32]Or what are they What do they have going on in their life, right?

[00:04:36]That is applicable to almost every energy drink out there. Even Monster cans are starting to branch out and have more bright flavors.

[00:04:45]Alani's and energy drinks are also not safe for children consumption. One can has 200 mg of caffeine, and the recommended amount for a child over the age of 13 is less than 100.

[00:04:57]It even says it like right here.

[00:05:00]Like These companies don't care about your children. They care about their profit.

[00:05:08]A much scarier thing to think about is when these marketing tactics are used for products that are much worse. Juul, a very popular vape company in 2019, was sued for $462 million because of their advertisement to younger people. Much like Alani, they used bright colors and sweet flavors.

[00:05:25]The New York State Attorney General says that in addition to marketing to younger New Yorkers, Juul engaged in direct outreach to high school students, including at least one New York City school, where Juul representative falsely told high school freshmen that its products were safer than cigarettes.

[00:05:41]Freshmen, by the way, are 14, 13 years old, maybe 15.

[00:05:46]Yeah.

[00:05:47]In November 2019, Attorney General James sued Jewel for deceptive and misleading marketing that glamorized vaping with colorful ads featuring young models using fruity, sweet, and minty flavors that appeal to youth.

[00:06:00]Does that remind you of anything?

[00:06:04]While vaping is a much more serious topic than energy drinks, the connection between the two is actually unmistakable. Preteens are becoming the target audience for brands to target, leaving them susceptible to bad influences. The experience of going through that ugly phase when you're 10 years old doesn't exist anymore. Social media has taught kids to blend in.

[00:06:21]Whether that means putting on 10 lbs of makeup every day, drinking Alani's, or doing drugs.

[00:06:26]Your These companies are not caring about your children.

[00:06:30]The result in what is happening is that kids are growing up way much earlier than they would they need to.

[00:06:35]Because of this, preteens don't exist anymore.

[00:06:39]They're all just teenagers.