Disney Xtreme Digital: A Porn Site’s Just A Keystroke Away

The mousehouse has some holes in its cheese, and this one really stinks. Disney's new preteen social networking portal is geared to fill a void for chatty tweens, as TechCrunch reports here. I'm not alone in finding it unfathomable that Disney didn’t do their due diligence on naming it Disney Xtreme Digital, and branding it Disney DXD. Aside from … [Read more...]

Youth Culture Clash: When Parody Strikes & Adults Freeze

Keeping my finger on ‘whassup’ in youth culture can lead to ‘life’s most embarrassing moments’ in a keystroke. Case in point? I stay apprised with what’s circulating the net using a handy tool called Top Viral Videos to see what’s clicking through with 6 million viewers and such. Einstein, the amazing talking bird and sweet otters … [Read more...]

Girls as Boy Toys Takes A Toxic Turn: Body Image Shaping Youth

Shaping Youth wrote about the provocative viral promo targeting teen gamers to ‘place the tattoo anywhere on the woman's body’...We hit the op-ed pages when a teen radio station turned ‘hot 99.5’ into a plastic surgery pitch for breast implants. (you can imagine what they did with the numbers for the 'breast year ever' promo, as this teen journalist shares its demeaning … [Read more...]

Nickelodeon’s 2007 Kids’ Choice Award Winners

Splat. Slime. Ooze. Muck. 40 million kids can't be wrong, eh? Billed as the “biggest, loudest, messiest spectacle in the show's history,” I tuned in to the KCA awards with my 11-year old. My goal was to keep track of mega-media influences, digital tactics, tween TV and glean some perspective from her editorial comments firsthand. Enlightening. Justin … [Read more...]

Kids’ Food Fight Turns Into Industry DodgeBall Game

In a lame regurgitation of ad industry protectionism today, AdRants once again veers onto the path of mindless myopia toting the party line that “Obesity is not marketers’ fault” in the usual parental blame game that we’ve “got it all backwards.” (No adjacent photo credit, as AdRants didn't cite one) AdRants snips that kids aren’t … [Read more...]