Hey Kids, Your “Energy Drinks” Now Come With Alcohol

We all pick our battles. To me, this is one of them. Rather than dwell on Mojito-flavored chewing gum, or Bacardi Mojito banners and Coors fly-by billboards bombarding our peace at Zuma beach last weekend, or even the absurdity of alcohol glamorama targeting teens with "Cosmopolitan Berry and Margarita Lime Epil-Stop hair remover" in Teen Vogue's back to school issue this … [Read more...]

Eco-Friendly Electronics: Go Green With Your Wired World

It’s ironic that in our youth media culture of “totally wired” teens, eco-enthusiasts haven’t mowed a green path uniting kids’ environmental zealousness with greener gear. The TechSoup blog posts this great new online tool and forum thread which is ultra timely for me, since my laptop LCD screen just fried, and I’m temporarily hooked up to … [Read more...]

High School Musical2: Proving Wholesome CAN Sell (& Sell, & Sell…)

By now you’ve all heard the news about Disney’s record-breaking eyeballs racking up 17.2 million viewers for the premiere of the official HSM2, (hit sequel to last year’s High School Musical phenom which hit #1 on album charts, broke the Guinness World Record for the most successful songs from a single soundtrack, received six Emmy nominations, and spread to … [Read more...]

CCFC’s Susan Linn: $17 billion Spent on Marketing to Kids

We interrupt this High School Musical 2 post (delayed for a day) to bring you an update from Shaping Youth’s latest happenings. Why? Because I said so. That’s right. The parental phrase that seemed to fossilize to near extinction from child-rearing lexicon of yesteryear is being brought back in this blog post…just because I’m ornery. For starters, … [Read more...]

It’s the 11th Hour to See the 11th Hour! L.A./N.Y. Premiere Today

Two big premieres lit up the town tonight in Los Angeles, but with tween in tow, I’ll bet you can guess which one got 'first viewing' here. I’ll post about High School Musical2’s integration of the audience via digital engagement later, but immediately want to put out an 'opening weekend' plea for all of our N.Y./L.A. readers to go see Leonardo DiCaprio's … [Read more...]