Turning Boys Into Monsters: Energy Drink Leaves A Foul Taste (Again)

Dec. 8, 2009 It’s Tuesday, time for our weekly “Packaging Boyhood” focus, so what better time than the holiday season to sound the 'red' siren on the 'green' brand that tween and teen boys are sucking up to...Monster energy drink. With everything from motocross and macho madness to the thumping, screaming, ‘over the top’ rebel yell, Monster ‘packs a vicious punch’ by … [Read more...]

Who’s Your Fave Fictional Male Rodel Model & Why?

Update June 14, 2014 With Father's Day approaching I thought I'd add Common Sense Media's "Favorite Film Fathers" just for fun...and reprise my post about "Media's Portrayal of Father Figures On TV" ......But truth be told, I'm most excited that HUGE gains are coming with excellent books and films uncorking important conversations about healthy masculinity, including The … [Read more...]

SexEd Abstracts Due For SexTech Summit: Not Your Mother’s Media

Nov. 8, 2009 One of our SexTech.org ‘top ten’ posts continues to be the Top Ten Teen SexEd videos created by students, for students in an effort to improve the lousy coverage of an inevitably touchy subject in schools. If you're unfamiliar with Isis-Inc.org (Internet Sexuality Information Services) they're an amazing health advocacy crew that epitomizes the concept of Shaping … [Read more...]

Disney XD: A Case Study on Packaging Boyhood

Nov. 3, 2009 In diving into media messages targeting boys for my weekly Tuesday Packaging Boyhood posts, my mind snap went to ‘gaming’ pronto. Is this a stereotype? Or did I just do a Malcolm Gladwell style "Blink” in rapid cognition? I flipped to the Packaging Boyhood chapter on “What Boys Do” since we know marketers are tapping a boy’s desire to be ‘powerful’ and admired … [Read more...]

“Bring Your Baby to Life With Your Wii Remote?”

Nov. 2, 2009 Not sure which part of this creeps me out more, the fact that 21st century baby dolls have a Wiimote crammed up the wazoo to ‘bring the baby to life’ as a Wii system accessory, the passive pink gender cues for girls and total absence of boys as video parenting poppas, or the product picture being a dead-ringer look alike of my own offspring at that age. Ewww all … [Read more...]