Assuming it's not a hoax, is this really any worse than existing girl magazines? When I was a teen, I got peeks at my sister's magazines and they were primarily about makeup and boys(to graduate you to magazines with misguided sex "secrets"). At least Girl Boss teaches you to make money, supposedly.
Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?
> Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?
Good point! If this were geared towards boys and had articles like “How to turn your Minecraft playing into $$$ by streaming” and “Getting started in sales: baseball cards edition” would there even be a discussion? Would the New Yorker be so indignant?
What really is unnerving about this? Ambition, craving financial success, and gasp-horror 'entrepreneurship' may be beneath the kind of people who end up writing staff columns for the New Yorker, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.
Dare I say it, “I have to remind myself that I can’t overdo it, so I’ll do my posts, and then turn off my phone for the night and just be isolated.” might be good advice for the author, who from her Twitter seems to be a fully paid-up member of 'lol trying to adult' Twitter.
That's definitely true, and I think this may be one of the least bad. But when it becomes that the actual "perceived leaders" of the world subscribe to it, the ideology is no longer silly on the macro scale and we all end up trying to scam each other for money in ways that arent _inherently_ wrong, just _practically_ destroying the world.
1) It reinforces the idea that for young women, the only way to achieve business success is to be performatively "girly" -- being unceasingly cheerful and social, presenting a breathless aw-shucks ("so amazing!") demeanor, working on things like fashion lines and skin care products or on image-first careers like "Instagram influencer." Society accepts that ambitious young men will present to the world in lots of different ways, but when it comes to ambitious young women we try to hammer them all into the same shape.
2) It puts pressure on its readers, who are in an age bracket we generally associate with childhood, to trade the traditional privileges of childhood -- shielding from the pitiless demands of the market, space to experiment with different facets of their personality, time to dedicate to education and self-development -- for the precarious, rat-race lifestyle that adults live every day. Kids who are saying "there is no such thing as a regular 9 to 5. We work 24/7!" are kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is, that their lives don't have room for anything else. That would be a sad thing for a fully grown adult to believe, much less a thirteen-year-old.
1) An alternative reading of the magazine is that it is celebrating young creators, who have achieved success through alternative routes (make up lines, t-shirts, YouTube channels) than the standard middle class millennial career path of "being born into the right family, liberal arts education, job at BuzzFeed/Vanity Fair/Teen Vogue/New Yorker while building out performative angst Twitter persona." Following that line, for most people without the right background/connections/ability to take an unpaid internship in New York for three months, results in them becoming on several levels completely unemployable.
2) The readers are self-consciously choosing this media themselves anyway - through the YouTube channels they subscribe to and watch, the Instagram influencers they follow, the products they buy. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds, these readers are now being encouraged to think how they can follow in their footsteps.
This article imo, reveals much more about the prejudices of the author than the readers or the publishers.
> An alternative reading of the magazine is that it is celebrating young creators
Who are creative within a narrow, conventionally "girly" band of creative endeavors. Teen Boss would not be interested in a 15-year-old girl who invented a revolutionary new type of automotive engine, because it is not a magazine about girls with grease on their hands.
Girls who want to should be free to engage in those kinds of "girly" pursuits, of course. To each their own! But by focusing only on those pursuits, Teen Boss sends the message to girls who are interested in other things (like STEM!) that they're weirdos who are walking away from success instead of towards it in their own way.
> Who are creative within a narrow, conventionally "girly" band of creative endeavors. Teen Boss would not be interested in a 15-year-old girl who invented a revolutionary new type of automotive engine, because it is not a magazine about girls with grease on their hands.
Perhaps not, but then you're being reductive by equating engineering with 'grease on their hands'.
There's plenty of STEM careers that don't involve any grease - such as materials science, fashion design, sound engineering, to stuff that this magazine would wholeheartedly endorse, like developing your own make up line. 'I made thousands building a FaceTune competitor' certainly would.
For that matter, how many people on Hacker News deal with grease in their day to day work? And is the kind of thing being discussed here that different from 'I made $32k a month recurring revenue' IndieHackers story, the likes of which regularly gets voted to the top of HN?
Not to butt in, but nothing is stopping other women from making their own STEM girl themed youtube channel? I think that's what the beauty of youtube and the internet gives people, the ability to create their own niches. Yea if you want to be a certain type of success you may need to fake it like what everyone else is doing, but there's nothing stopping people from carving their own place in the world.
Wasn’t there an article here a while back about a Chinese woman who had a STEM/Maker YouTube channel who got harassed, heckled, and called a fraud because she also happened to be good looking? There seems to be at least some forces out there discouraging STEM girl themed channels.
That person made videos of STEM + soft-core porn that she said he did specifically to get attention, so it's more to parent's point about portrayal of women in media imagery, not against.
I don’t think we are talking about the same thing. I don’t recall seeing any porn in her videos but I think I saw some very hot soldering irons. If you’re having a hard time disassociating “females on the Internet” from porn, I’m sorry but I don’t think I can help ya there.
The name alone is enough for you to accuse her channel of being soft-core porn? Come on. Reading her Wikipedia page, I see nothing objectionable and a lot that's admirable. It sounds like the channel subverts the traditional appearance and role of women.
> she is notable for her strong advocacy of women in STEM, transhumanism, open source, and body modifications,[1][2] variously challenging both gender and tech stereotypes with her flamboyant public persona[3][2][4] which turns objectification on its head.[5]
I don't think there's any Youtube channel out there that hasn't been the subject of harassment or heckling. I don't think there's any special agenda against STEM girl channels.
This is my general response to most criticisms of other's efforts: What is stopping you from doing something better? In other words, don't talk about it, be about it. Lead by example. The world has enough critics.
Obviously the content of these young girls' entrepreneurial pursuits don't appeal to you. They don't appeal to me either, the target audience is 8-14 year-olds. It's celebrating a new generation of girls who are interested in business or entrepreneurship and want ideas to get into that business.
It's a new magazine, how can you say that a 15 year-old girl that does something revolutionary couldn't be featured? I'm reading this as, it's a new magazine that's focusing on the low-hanging fruit and could eventually gain enough traction to feature other things. Who's to say the lessons learned from these "girly" ideas couldn't also be applied to STEM-related pursuits (after all, a specific section is called out where someone pitched a roomba-like idea).
> Teen Boss would not be interested in a 15-year-old girl who invented a revolutionary new type of automotive engine, because it is not a magazine about girls with grease on their hands.
How sure are you of this? I think there's a good chance – I'd bet even odds – that they'd publish a profile of a girl like you describe.
> 1) An alternative reading of the magazine is that it is celebrating young creators, who have achieved success through alternative routes (make up lines, t-shirts, YouTube channels) than the standard middle class snake person career path of "being born into the right family, liberal arts education, job at BuzzFeed/Vanity Fair/Teen Vogue/New Yorker while building out performative angst Twitter persona." Following that line, for most people without the right background/connections/ability to take an unpaid internship in New York for three months, results in them becoming on several levels completely unemployable.
The "professional influencer" career path though, especially done the way the platforms want it done (i.e. NON STOP) requires that the person attempting it eschew any and all activities that don't work towards their perceived "career" in favor of ones that do.
It would be like if struggling to be an actor for a decade left to completely incompetent to even wait tables.
I'm all for approaching a utopian future where no one needs to work, but we're not there yet. If 1 in 4 young women are going for this kind of work today, we're going to have market saturation at peak levels. We already have way too many twitch streamers for it to be reasonably successful unless you slavishly dedicate your life to doing it, and I'd say the YouTubers are maybe a couple of years before they hit the same problem, if they aren't already.
We have an entire section of our economy right now based on, for lack of a more eloquent term, bullshit. Bullshit people pushing bullshit products with bullshit content published on bullshit platforms. And yeah sure, this has always been a thing, it's not new, but it's never been this HUGE. We're already seeing cracks forming from the sheer number of young women (and men too, it's for both sexes) who are dedicating every minute of every day of their lives to this "influencer" nonsense, combined with the fact that digital advertising is tanking, and long overdue privacy rankings are going to take the wind out of all of these platforms sales, and then we'll have to deal with having millions of people who's only once-marketable skill is smiling into a camera like an idiot, and peddling shit that no one needs.
IDK, I think most of the people who invest heavily in building online personas in high school and college would make for pretty compelling entry level marketing folks.
> who have achieved success through alternative routes (make up lines, t-shirts, YouTube channels) than the standard middle class millennial career path of "being born into the right family, liberal arts education...
You bled through a little here. The vast majority of YouTube stars aren't being discovered on the street, and the vast majority of kids who buy in to the promise never become stars. You're contrasting two largely overlapping paths while framing them as the alternative versus the standard.
> 1) An alternative reading of the magazine is that it is celebrating young creator
Creator of what? IMHO, in generals "creators" and "creatives" are red-flag words, signaling, not creation in the sense of artistic work or craftsmanship, but capitalism - money to be made by graphic designers, whatever. Not to knock making money, just sayin' ...
> 2) The readers are self-consciously choosing this media themselves anyway - through the YouTube channels they subscribe to and watch, the Instagram influencers they follow, the products they buy. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds, these readers are now being encouraged to think how they can follow in their footsteps.
I dunno - "choice" gets complicated in a world of advertising, algorithmically driven video rankings, fake news, the general limited range of what is available over mainstream media distribution channels, etc.
People who make money off of something love to talk about how the people whose money they are taking are exercising choice.
> "choice" gets complicated in a world of advertising, algorithmically driven video rankings, fake news, the general limited range of what is available over mainstream media distribution channels, etc.
I still think most people using the internet regularly find themselves in weird cul-de-sacs. It's very easy to find surprising and novel things to read, watch, look at. I'd be surprised if lots of people don't also have that experience.
> > "choice" gets complicated in a world of advertising, algorithmically driven video rankings, fake news, the general limited range of what is available over mainstream media distribution channels, etc.
I don't see the point you're making. Thirty years ago, people had a choice of four main TV channels, three newspapers, and whatever the Billboard 100 said they should listen to.
Regarding point 2 - that is only traditional within the last 75 years for the modernized west; prior to that it was the upper class which had such ideations regarding children.
Most cultures historically have expected children to work and contribute - work and play intermingled, and then at a point, they were graduated to primarily contributions.
I wouldn't get too peturbed about children working.
n.b., exploitation is a different thing, I want to make clear. But historically, children contributing is a thing, and it was not an evil.
> 1) It reinforces the idea that for young women, the only way to achieve business success is to be performatively "girly" -- being unceasingly cheerful and social, presenting a breathless aw-shucks ("so amazing!") demeanor
Or, it takes girls, who are already socialized that way, and teaches them that pink and glitter isn’t inconsistent with making money. (Which is the most important thing for kids to learn, because we live in a country where you die without money.)
Beyond the covers and YouTube features, from what I've seen the magazine does have less traditionally gendered sections. E.g. this spread is a generic "learn to code" piece, featuring a female engineer and highlighting various career paths SW engineering skills can unlock:
> ...to trade the traditional privileges of childhood...
Traditionally children help out with chores, work on the farm, watch the other children, or even get jobs to help with the household expenses.
> ...kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is...
There is a certain segment of the population that scrapes by and survival is the biggest concern. A certain level of privilege is needed to take principled stands on issues, invest large amounts of time and energy in charitable work, or even just travel and experience the world.
That is to say, life as a struggle is actually pretty normal. And it's not new or unique to this time and culture.
Maybe it's perverse to choose to struggle as a middle class kid. And maybe it's especially perverse to chose this kind of struggle. But there are many less healthy things for tweens and teens to invest their energy in.
Thirteen year olds used to be adults. It's no coincidence that the traditional cultural markers of "transitioning from childhood to adulthood", like bar mitzvahs, take place around that age. Teenagers used to be apprentices or naval midshipmen.
Then society got to the point where teenagers were no longer capable of doing anything useful, so society started extending childhood, to the point where nobody under the age of 30 considers themselves adults anymore. From that perspective, any reversion to the more natural pattern of human development is going to seem sad and destructive of childhood.
But that perspective is formed by a very unnatural way of life. Teenage naval midshipmen weren't wracked with angst and depression the way contemporary American teenagers are. They didn't chafe and rebel against their parents the way contemporary American teenagers do, because they weren't treated like children; they were treated like young adults.
Ambition and craving financial success are great, teaching kids that the path forwards to that is screaming on the internet and infecting other kids with their uneducated opinions is not great.
Regardless, it will happen whether us "not young" folk like it or not. Hopefully some kids will get rich with history and math channels instead of being attractive and making farting noises
I honestly don't see what's wrong or surprising about this. I personally find the content nauseous, but if a hypothetical thirteen year old daughter were curious about it I'd be happy to read through an issue and talk about it. It sounds like a good conversation starter for the different axes of human ambition and human value. Teaching from the extremes isn't my favorite idea, but so be it.
I force myself to listen to crazy angry conservative and christian radio on and off for the same reason. If we can't embrace aspects of human personality that we find loathesome, I don't think we can love others, or ourselves.
Interestingly I feel like this article comes from a similar place as anger radio (which is, ironically, overwhelmingly money-motivated and exploitative).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't see the value in otherizing media like this. It exists, it's part of our culture, and in one way or another, it's a part of us. Embrace it, engage with it, teach from it, but don't revile it.
I had a different reaction. It felt very wrong. I don't like how our culture worships money. It's bad enough that more college students see 'being very well off financially' as a more important goal than helping others (compared to other generations) [1]. If children are getting these messages at an even younger age, that's disturbing. After all, children are more impressionable. I want the next generation of children to know there are more important things than money. I believe children will be happier their whole lives if they're raised with those values.
Saying "It exists, it's a part of our culture" is such a defeatist response. Culture is formed by all of us. You don't have to just let it happen. You can push back, and work to change culture for the better. That's why I like your last bit - we can engage with it and teach from it. I'd expand that to include: we can disapprove of it.
When college was a finishing school for the elites, students had different goals from today when college is he entrypoint to the dog-eat-dog commercial world. Not surprising, and not an endorsement of the baby boomer culture that sold out the next generation for their own profit.
Those money-grubbing millenials are paying the Social Security entitlements to Baby Boomers
On a macro scale, I agree. We should strive to improve our culture and reduce the harm our actions have on anything outside ourselves. The world would be a better place if we all worked together, undoubtedly.
On a micro scale, if I had children, I'd teach them to take every advantage they can get. I'd teach them to be ruthless, because that's what the world rewards. If someone has to suffer, I'm doing everything in my power to prevent it from being them.
You can't attack these problems from the bottom. A parent would be putting their child at a disadvantage in the interests of the state, which is absolutely absurd to expect. It has to be an institutional movement.
It would be great if we could remove the system that rewards that behavior, but in absence of that, the correct move for any individual agent is to exploit the imbalances.
the question is not whether or not to push back, the question is how. Do we begin from a place of compassion, or a place of condemnation? Are we a spectator booing from the outside, or are we a participant prepared to have a conversation?
Avarice is a deep facet of human psychology. Our kids don't need to be 'exposed' to it to discover it in themselves. If one condemns avarice, one doesn't provide a path for one's child (or oneself) to reconcile themselves with with reality. You and those you condemn remain avaricious, but under different flags and in your own ways.
It’s not a matter of culture it’s a matter of economy. We’re in a viciously competitive globalized economy and money is how you ensure your kids have a decent life. Asian kids are taught this implicitly; westerners are just having to abandon their idealized notions as globalized competition catches up to them.
> It’s not a matter of culture it’s a matter of economy.
Their point also stands in regards to economy. It's not a "situation" we magically find ourselves in and just have to get along with.
> Somebody is saying this is inevitable - and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.
-- Richard Stallman
> Humans, in so far as they are more than a completion of functions able to react, whose lowest and therefore most central are the purely animal like reactions, are simply superfluous for totalitarian systems. Their goal is not to erect a despotic regime over humans, but a system by which humans are made superfluous. Total power can only be achieved and guaranteed when nothing else matters except the absolutely controllable willingness to react, marionettes robbed of all spontaneity. Humans, precisely because they are so powerful, can only be completely controlled when they have become examples of the animal like species human.
-- Hannah Arendt
> The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
-- Hannah Arendt
All this pseudo-objectivity to hide oneself behind , all this "I didn't make the rules"... before talking about how to live a decent life, start with examining it... a well developed personality will be all sorts of content in situations, and their happiness will depend not only on their own stomach, but whether people around are hungry.
> Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one. Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an armchair for it. Say honestly, "I love arm-chairs better than free men, and pursue them because I choose; not because circumstances make me. I love hats, large, large hats, with many feathers and great bows; and I would rather have those hats than trouble myself about social dreams that will never be accomplished in my day. The world worships hats, and I wish to worship with them."
> But if you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow. And the foregoing of possessions for which others barter the last possibility of freedom will become easy.
> At the end of life you may close your eyes saying: "I have not been dominated by the Dominant Idea of my Age; I have chosen mine own allegiance, and served it. I have proved by a lifetime that there is that in man which saves him from the absolute tyranny of Circumstance, which in the end conquers and remoulds Circumstance, the immortal fire of Individual Will, which is the salvation of the Future."
-- Voltairine de Cleyre
You can call these idealized notions, but that also goes for something like "money is how you ensure your kids have a decent life", or "the strong must crush the weak" or whatever you have.
> It's bad enough that more college students see 'being very well off financially' as a more important goal than helping others (compared to other generations)
I'd bet that this is largely because college students now graduate with tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and getting an entry level job out of college is harder than it's ever been. When you're struggling simply to stay float, you tend to be more concerned with your own well being than that of others.
> It's bad enough that more college students see 'being very well off financially' as a more important goal than helping others (compared to other generations)
That's not surprising, considering that current college students did a lot of their growing up in the aftermath of the housing crash. It's kind of unfair to chide them for being preoccupied with financial stability (or for claiming to be when asked, not the same thing). Meanwhile, what's the messaging like about college today? That you should drop out to start a company, and that if you're studying anything not STEM related you're kind of a dope.
But really, in the link "helping others" is a close second at 65%, only a point behind the boomers and two points ahead of gen x. So, there goes declinism. Millenials are only about 4 points higher than gen-x in "well off financially" (70.8 to 74.4), hardly a generational sea change. The real difference is with the boomers, who come in at 73% "develop a meaningful philosophy of life" and 44% "well off financially". Perhaps rather than rejecting helping others, every generation since the boomers has rejected the solipsism it takes for a college student to list "develop my philosophy" as their primary goal.
>It's kind of unfair to chide them for being preoccupied with financial stability
The question is not about financial stability, but with "being very well off financially."
> Perhaps rather than rejecting helping others, every generation since the boomers has rejected the solipsism it takes for a college student to list "develop my philosophy" as their primary goal.
I'll give you that point. Younger generations may not be as materialistic as we think. But that doesn't invalidate my argument: It would still be shitty if they became more materialistic. That could happen if we tell 12 year olds they need to worry about their personal brand.
My outlook is there are definitely more important things than money like time - time for whatever you want - loved ones and friends, relaxation, enjoying life, charity work, etc. Money buys you time and unless you're reckless with it - it can remove or reduce a lot of stress. It makes a marriage and having a family much easier among other things.
I think we worship obscene money (ex: celebs, athletes, tech founders) and get rich stories but probably don't worship money as a whole - if we really did we wouldn't be in such debt buying crap and having no savings. 63% of Americans don't have enough to cover a $500 emergency. [1]
College students could be having that financial outlook you mentioned as a result of the crazy debt they took on. And the fact that 75% said raising a family was a life goal, which is higher than boomers and Gen X, at a time when raising a family is way more expensive than it used to be. If this is the case, then they actually value education and raising a family over money and money is just a means to attain those things. So I don't think that's alarming.
What's alarming to me is poor financial education and decisions and the desire to get rich quickly or feel like you're owed $X salary because you have $Y debt which I see with many new graduates.
Worshiping money is more a symptom of materialism than anything else. That's why people go into debt to buy things they don't need instead of saving their money. I also believe it's the cause of worshiping the uber-rich and get rich quick schemes.
Most people who are daydreaming about a get rich quick scheme probably aren't thinking about putting the money they earn in safe investments and living the rest of their life on the $80,000 a year they can get from the returns. They're thinking about the mansion, sports car, exotic vacations, etc.
HN folks without kids of a certain age may not realize just how deeply children today are into Youtube personalities/channels, Twitch streamers, etc.
That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an alternative to purely consuming media.
I'd rather my daughter want to make YouTube videos and open an Etsy shop with her designs than mindlessly watch Hannah Montana (which I feel like is the equivalent from a decade ago).
As a peek into this world, check out Rosanna Pansino (Nerdy Nummies YT channel) and how successful she is:
until you see the instagram/snap feeds of these 'kids' once they become 18+..
the unnerving thing about this isn't what's on the surface - it's the preemptive/subliminal training towards 'monetizing their image' which is basically training to become defacto prostitutes in adulthood..
I’m so happy my middle daughter idolizes an artist who streams herself drawing and gaming as opposed to Selena Gomez who her elder sister compared herself too.
Children have more choices for idols today and that’s good. Many children are thinking entrepreneurially and I’m happy they have role models. I don’t care if the magazine looks like Tiger Beat. I’m a small business owner and I want my kids to grow up understanding the hustle mindset as opposed to the employee mindset.
what stands out to me, is what appears to be the "get rich quick nature" of all the articles. call me old fashion, but at that age I'd rather be teaching kids the value of hard work, delayed gratification, research, skepticism, etc, etc.
In fact I'd rather kids would read the WSJ than this garbage, at least then they'd understand how hard it is to start and maintain a business. Otherwise you're setting this kids up to follow every MLM trap they got offered later on in life. HODL HODL HODL am i right?
You're saying that like spaceflunky's comment included an endorsement for that post, or that his posting a comment here means that he approves of every single post on the site.
I'm saying that there seems to be a disparity in the value judgements the HN hive-mind applies to itself, and the entrepreneurial activities of young women.
Go on the thread for yourself, there are lots of people picking apart the idea, but no one saying the creator is foolhardy for favoring an entrepreneurial career / calling him a scammer.
I think the "get rich quick" schemes here are just as bad, but I don't think it's a logical inconsistency to argue that it's one thing to target these kinds of articles to adults and quite another to target them to young children.
100% agree. And that's my point. There is a level of discernment and skepticism you should have as an adult.
While those skills are not common enough in adults, it's rare that ANY 10 year old anywhere would have the life experience to develop those skills.
Also making this business activity socially acceptable for kids opens the door to parents putting pressure on their kids to make money ("WHY ISN'T MY 12 A VIRAL BEAUTY GURU!?!?!" says some soccer mom). I'm also willing to bet most of these kids have parental involvement, so it opens the door to parents 'pimping out' their kids so they can market some shitty product with an edge of it being sold by a kid.
At that age, kids should be focused on developing fundamental skills instead of focusing on their brand or get rich. What's wrong with saying something is ok for adults but not for kids?
Many of the young people with channels on youtube are focusing on stuff they are already having fun with and in the process of creating videos and promotion are acquiring and learning valuable skills. I expect that most teens reading articles in Teen Boss are going to see through the bullshit pretty quickly. The flip-side is the pimping parent who is trying to brand their kids into a youtube star, those people need to be stopped. Luckily most of the young people active on youtube have parents that are not pressuring them...
I sort of agree with you that some kids are doing it for the love. But I think they are in the minority. No matter how much you love something posting 3 videos a week has got to zap the fun out of it especially for a kid.
Also I don’t believe at all that a 12 year is really passionate about building a line of “eco friendly” skin care products and the botanical mixtures (like one of the girls on the cover of teen bo$$).
Maybe we read different articles (or different comments) but my sense is that commenters here as a whole were earlier and are more consistent in their criticism and dismissal of "crypto" scams. I'd already been reading warnings here for a year or two by the time I started seeing this stuff mindlessly hocked in mainstream sources.
(Your broader point may be right, I just don't think the current crop of scams is a great example.)
Communities are things. Just because they are made up of individuals does not mean they lack group properties and tendencies. Saying that would be like claiming a glass of water can't have surface tension because it's made up of individual atoms.
'Individuals' on HN (or 20-something CS guy from the U.S.) and their 'unique opinions' are so fucking similar and revolve around a couple of basic platitudes and ideologems
Pretty much anything that isn't a specific technical subject is totally boring and predictable on HN
Also your last sentence is painfully cringey to read
And also, what if they are lucky enough to get close to success? How should they handle it? When should they trust their own instincts, versus when should they defer to experience? I've written at length regarding what happened when a 22 year old was given $1.3 million dollars and the chance the run with a great startup idea. A very cutting edge idea that was full of potential. It should have become something great. But the mistakes made were of a type that might be expected from a lack of experience.
That is the flip side of it. Endlessly shouting "Express yourself and amazing things will happen!" is a bit of a trap. It doesn't prepare kids to handle the lucky breaks that some of them will undoubtedly get.
Earlier today I was reading an old AMA by PewDiePie on reddit. A recurring theme was asking him how he got so successful. He talked about how he was there at the right time, had a good niche, great fans, got lucky, etc. Someone replied to him, reminding him that he also uploaded videos three times a day for years.
I agree that instant gratification is a problem, but it doesn't strike me as bad that kids might think YouTube or social media or whatever is an easy way to make money, and then try their hand at it. I think they'll quickly find that success still takes effort and perseverance.
The good thing with being a kid is that you can fail. Better try a get rich quick scheme in these conditions and learn from your mistakes than when you need the money to survive.
Yeah, many of the gamer/maker youtubers provide a lot of insight into the work involved in creating a successful youtube channel. For every successful youtuber there are many aspiring ones, mostly kids, who are putting a lot of work into it on both the creation and marketing ends. They already know or learn quickly that it is not a get rich quick scheme, and young people, in comparison to adults, seem to have a better handle on social influence and how important it is for monetization as well as how tenuous and meaningless it is from an actual social viewpoint.
Most YouTubers never get to a point where they can make enough to make it their main job.
Which means most of them get to experience failure early on in their life. I think this is a good thing for them in the long term.
As someone who just followed through all the usual treadmill of doing well in school, going to top college, etc. just to find out later that there was this entirely different and more exciting world of entrepreneurship where I can decide my own destiny, I think it's good to experience failure as early as possible in your life.
A lot of people who are not cut out for unstable life will realize it's not for them and just go on to live a stable life without regret, and many others who can recover from the failure, will have learned some lesson which can be helpful in their future adventure.
Also "Garbage" is a subjective term, I personally see many mainstream journalism driven by ad revenue much more garbage than many Youtubers who create unique content that you won't get anywhere else. A lot of the successful ones actually start out doing Youtube because they're passionate about the topic they make videos on. It's the failures who jump in just for the money.
Kids will learn. Tween-aged kids have no conception for how difficult life can be and it doesn't matter how much you tell them so. The point with kids is to build up their confidence and sense of possibility, and help explain to them the specific consequences for the mistakes they inevitably make as they test out this possibility.
Telling young girls they can "get rich quick" is not the best way to go about all this, but it mostly serves to show, in part, what is possible. Girls are not reading these flashy magazines for deep reading. It's not something they consciously mull over as they read-- the effect is subconscious. The more magazines consumed, the more the messages of what's possible become more concrete in the background, and she will start to pay attention to the Youtubers she loves from a different perspective-- one of gathering tips and watching for how they became successful. That is, if she wants to start a business anyways. Mostly moms pick up these magazines for their kids.
edit: I also want to say that becoming successful in an enterprise like Youtube while one is young is phenomenal for confidence. Even just starting to create is very good for confidence. The venture won't last forever, but the adult will always have the confidence they built in their younger years.
My daughter is super into JoJo Siwa, and YouTube videos of girls playing make believe with their toys. It’s kids creating content for kids. I don’t get the article’s angle at all. It’s way better than what I was into at that age—ninja turtles and power ranges, cartoons designed by adults primarily to sell toys.
Yea, this is so much better than the crap I was into as a kid. I’d be thrilled if my daughter took an early interest in business and making money, even if it’s superficial and simplified for kid audiences.
Why is that? Why don't you let your daughter have innocent, playful, silly, immature childhood that she is entitled to?
If your daughter wants to learn about successful business and making money, she will very soon look into characters like Trump, or Koch brothers, or even tycoon oils Rockefellers. There was nothing for a child to look into the souls of these characters; business is tough, its jungle, and you make extra buck when you didn't have to but took it away from someone anyways. I don't think I would want my children to be exposed to this kind of shit without their brains being properly wired already.
That's cherry picking the arguably worst examples in capitalism and claiming that they represent the whole. We have Gates, Buffett, Musk, Carnegie and many others who are/were making a huge difference either with their businesses or the wealth that those businesses earned them. You can't have the good without the bad. You cannot learn about the great rulers of history without also learning about the genocidal maniacs.
I know it's sexy for modern day champagne socialists to rant about this on /r/LateStageCapitalism and co. and signal through communism LARPing. I'm however confident the HN crowd is a little more educated than that.
Nothing stops you from learning about Gates, Buffett, Musk or Carnegie, my point is there should be time for that, not at the age when your brain is not yet 100% wired and things you learn about Buffet for example [1] could make you assume that "this is just the way to be successful in business", because, well - your brain doesn't know better yet.
Gates was a business asshole too, from my understanding. I think you can find warts about any of the greats if you dig deep enough. Just like you can find things to dislike about authors, artists, musicians etc.
I don't know if that should discredit what they accomplish and give back altogether, that's an interesting conversation.
I doubt this would replace swooning over boy band photos though, that will happen in parallel. Just like a similar thing for boys wouldn't replace porn, right?
>That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
Being into boy bands is a perfectly harmless (and normal) use of a teenager's time. Being obsessed with emulating their YouTube idols on the path to riches, is insidious, demoralising when you realise most of it is luck, which you will not have, it's perverted and unhealthy.
> Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
Why not say it "replaces" flying kites in the park?
> YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an alternative to purely consuming media.
Another false dichotomy.
> There are worse role models for kids.
Duh. You can say that about anything. If that's what you're reaching for as the first thing to say why something is "good", you should ask yourself what's going on.
Being obsessed with popularity is one thing, using numbers as "measure" of popularity is one degree more messed up.
Are there also better role models, or are these the best anyone could hope for?
If you feel as though HN users are actually Teen Boss shills biding their time with insightful commentary about microarchitecture and Norwegian food ferry culture until just this ripe moment, please email us instead of posting, like the guidelines ask.
"Reading the magazine feels like watching a wall of YouTube videos inside a Claire’s jewelry store while a tween-age life-style coach screams at you to double your net worth."
Lol.
"Money is to Teen Boss what sex is to Cosmopolitan—the essential, irreplaceable, attention-getting hook. (On the cover of each edition, the dollar signs in “Teen Bo$$!” occupy the same prime real estate, in the upper-left corner, that the word “sex” does on most Cosmo covers.)"
Well encouraging young women to make money and work for financial independence is better than encouraging them to become sex objects, as many other mags targeting them do.
I remember being around that age and being obsessed with entrepreneurship. It was in the short stories I read, it was discussed in class, I even joined a Young Entrepreneurs after-school club, where students -- aided by local businesspeople -- would create a company, decide on products, then produce and sell them.
And while I'm a guy, I remember that club being balanced roughly 50-50, boys and girls, and in point of fact, most of the leadership positions (we elected Presidents and VPs, in mock-corporate fashion) were girls.
I think all that's changed is the focus of how and where money is earned, and maybe not all that much? The article mentions that some of the ideas recommended are "snow shoveling" and "setting up a laser tag course", which aren't the wild, forced-estrogen-display, YouTube-infested hellscape that some other commenters seem to be upset about.
I remember telling my elementary school class when we were discussing what we wanted to be when we grew up that I wanted to be like Roberta Williams. Which was strange from their vantage point because I was a boy, and because nobody had a clue who she was. But my statement was driven entirely by my desire to make and sell video games.
I think this magazine is quite bizarre, but on the other hand I think entrepreneurship starts young. My first 'business' was selling coke at my school. The coke machine cost $0.50 and I saw at Sam's Club you could get some massive box dozens of offbrand cola for ~$10. Keep them in a cooler, sell them at breaks for $0.25 - that was a ton of money for a middle school kid. Always wondered why more people don't take advantage of little market openings like this. Maybe a silly magazine can inspire people to think outside the box a bit more.
I think many in this forum are at it to make money. So I sincerely doubt they'd have a problem with it. To me it's an emblem or icon if you will of what's going on in today's world. Value purely is existentially equated to money. To me that's bad. However is it as bad as everything else? No. Is it better than most everything else. Yes very much yes. Sucks to say because it makes me see the ugly realization of the actual capitalistic world we live in.
"One of the most troubling features of life under twenty-first-century American capitalism, I find, is the way that it can limit your sense of human potential; in the process of choosing from among overpriced health-insurance packages, I sometimes forget that it is possible for a government to refuse to allow its citizens to go bankrupt while they’re attempting to stay alive. One issue of Teen Boss features a quiz called “Which CELEB-PRENEUR Are You Most Like?” The options are life-style blogger, creator of a name-brand fashion line, owner of a YouTube channel, and founder of a personal-makeup brand. Another quiz helps girls figure out their “life motto,” letting them choose from “Be Your Own Biggest Cheerleader,” “Nothing Is Impossible,” and “Always Do What You’re Afraid to Do.”"
I really like Jia Tolentino's writing.
The magazine sucks because it valorizes materialism. There's not much more to it than that. Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power, but it's still a void. The passage I quoted is right--our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship. We should dream bigger than kids screaming about video games on youtube.
It reminds me of the often repeated phrase used to respond to people criticizing a popular kids' book: "Well, at least they're reading." The version that would defend this kind of content says "at least they're making something!" The act of creation by itself isn't noble, neither is the act of reading alone. "Would you rather they just watch TV??" No. It's a false choice. Aim higher.
the idea that citizens belong to the government is the most unamerican formulation of the actual relationship i can imagine. i’m a little grossed out having read that
The western world is in crisis psychologically. This kind of thing didn’t cause it, but it ain’t helping. But materialism is valorized by CNBC and startup bro culture as well.
The sad thing about this kind of capitalism though is in money via brand building (id argue) no real value is created. It’s just a knife fight for eyeballs.
But for whatever reason, people do not get distribution. They tend to overlook it. It is the single topic whose importance people understand least. Even if you have an incredibly fantastic product, you still have to get it out to people. The engineering bias blinds people to this simple fact. The conventional thinking is that great products sell themselves; if you have great product, it will inevitably reach consumers. But nothing is further from the truth.
I think it's important to understand the way that younger teenagers view this sort of thing.
For older people, it's impressive that a teenager goes out there and makes a name for themselves on youtube and then older people will go on and talk about the merits of the media/product being made as you've done.
It's my understanding that for many teenagers the idea of this sort of fame isn't really that big of a deal, it's essentially commoditized, where anyone who's serious about it can achieve a certain level of success. This leads to younger kids to understand that they too can succeed by driving their ideas forward, and I imagine we will see all sorts of entrepreneurship come from Gen Z when they have the skill sets and experience to both raise money from VCs and develop truly innovative new products.
>our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship.
Material success, power, fame - have been drivers of ambition throughout all of human civilization. The unprecedented success of capitalism over the last 2 centuries has been marked by countless individuals pushing forward towards those goals.
>Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power
You have cynical spin on this, but I suppose traditional moral gender roles would be more fulfilling? Or maybe women should be encouraged to go into low profit social work? What is it you want?
A society where get-rich schemes whether they be becoming rich from social media self-branding, investing in crypto, or buying lottery tickets are not so attractive because they seem like the only way to reach financial success, independence, or security.
>whether they be becoming rich from social media self-branding
I'm not worried about that. There is no free lunch and anybody who thinks they can start rolling in Youtube money without putting in a massive amount of work (and even then, there are no guarantees) will figure it quickly enough.
This has absolutely nothing to do with your tendentious gender-virtuous criticism. That's way out of line. It would be just as bad, if there were an analogous boy's magazine.
The point is that replacing the idea of one's worth and potential - girl power/boy power, whatever - with shallow get quick money and get famous schemes is a negative.
Would you prefer children who dream of utilizing their potential to become great at something, like a career path, scientist, scholar, artists, farmer etc., or whose dreams are about becoming Youtube stars or selling crap to a bunch of people?
As for the general remarks on history, power is the only factor in ambition beyond survival. Material success is just one form of power. Fame is power + self gratification for the emotionally weak. Ephemeral fame and get money quick schemes are superficial and weak means to power.
On the other hand, appeals to a universal subject, which doesn't exist, references to human nature, which we can't even define as a term, much less define what the elements of it are, don't really work in a proper argument.
>It would be just as bad, if there were an analogous boy's magazine.
There's a constant hum about the lack of women entrepreneurs and how women should be encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship, the earlier the better. What do you think that looks like?
If you do nothing, that's wrong, if you do something, it will never be right and will be critized.
This is an entrepreneurship magazine designed to appeal to teen girls. Entrepreneurship is a boring topic for most teens, so this is their attempt at making it relatable and fun. Give them a break.
>Would you prefer children who dream of utilizing their potential to become great at something, like a career path, scientist, scholar, artists, farmer etc.,
I noticed entrepreneur is not one of the options you listed, which is what this magazine advocates. But I support all those career paths as well. Advocacy for one, doesn't mean denial of others.
I'd characterize my spin as "dour and sullen", thank you. And no, lol, I do not want women to be encouraged to do any one particular thing over another. Women should be allowed to direct their own debasement, just like men. My point was that twisting this kind of grasping, overheated commodification into women's empowerment is actually cynical.
I certainly do not dispute the argument re: ambition and the desire for wealth as the source of capitalism's success.
I can certainly see the ideological direction you're coming from. I'll just say this: there is honor in pushing yourself through hard work and long hours to build a business - and in almost every case, the act of building the business is not an end unto itself. The promise of material gain, and other 'superficial' outcomes is a major driver. There is no shame in that.
The irony of Teen Boss and it's agenda is that it is a magazine so will really only be read by someone waiting in a Dentist's office. There is great YT content out there that is educational and entertaining, for whatever reason the mainstream media just can't seem to find it.
It's increasingly looking like the biggest shift in our lifetimes is not sudden mass automation of the labor industry but the shift from a service industry to a content creation industry.
If you're not a content creator/owner, you're a content consumer. Content is the new rent seeking.
Well if this isn't late stage capitalism, then I don't know what is. In a couple hundred years, I could see this magazine cover being hung up on display in a "museum of capitalism".
As other commenters have pointed out, it's certainly better than celebrity gossip, and probably not any worse than the other crap they would be exposed to. Entrepreneurship is a fantastic thing to promote, and being a social media star is certainly more fun and lucrative than being a 9-5 office drone with health insurance.
But there's something insidious about priming teenagers into this materialistic mindset, that the way to "make it" is to gain a large social media following competing in a shallow clickbait-ridden space, where only the top 1% or so can ever make it anyways (not everybody can be a social media star, just like not everybody can make a living as a musician. Our attention span is limited).
I don't have a problem with this magazine. This magazine is simply a sad reflection of our hypercapitalist reality.
Strongly disagree. It’s a reflection of our hypercompetitive society. It’s not shallow; it’s realistic. Look around: everyone is embracing consumerist capitalism (China, India, etc.) The societies that appear to have some reservations about it (Western Europe) are irrelevant—they won’t exist in their modern form a century from now.
Consumerism doesn't make you any more effective as a nation, in fact it makes you quite a bit less efficient. Driving in circles with cars you can't afford wastes money and resources (and all of the manpower that went in to you being able to do that) just as fast as it wastes your soul. A culture designed to maximize productivity and minimize inefficiencies would probably look a lot like Soviet-era state sponsored art: valorizing labor and industry.
Consumerist capitalism is "realistic"? That's laughable. It's popular, but the cargo cult of capitalism has humanity blindly sprinting towards ecological collapse.
Socially-strong European nations are the most likely to survive the next 100 years of turmoil. Modern China is a house of cards held together by capitalism, Xi and his successors will grab for power but they can't hold it together by sheer force of will.
Europe is in the midst of population collapse. Societies built on having higher levels of social cohesion aren’t going to survive in their contemporary forms over the next century as the European population dwindles.
You need a stable population to keep the economy stable, because a lot of your expenses are not per capita (infrastructure spending, debt repayment, etc.). To keep Europe's population stable, you need massive annual immigration (more than you have now). I don't think it's possible to maintain a high-trust, cohesive society with that level of immigration.
The suggestion that these countries are doomed due to population decline is complete nonsense, as Japan has shown. Automation is enabling less people to have to work to maintain the same standard of living.
As you said worst case scenario immigrants could fill in the gap (certainly no shortage of people trying to immigrate to western Europe). Social cohesion could go down, but that doesn't mean the only option is American style "every man for themselves" hypercapitalism.
That's an interesting perspective. I wonder how far that kind of publication would go in a Sweden or Denmark or any other successful democratic country with high standards of living and a lot of socialized services.
Is the marketed purpose of life for humans out there to just have a decent, modest and enjoyable life with plenty of vacation and time for friends and recreational activities? Vs the US's "rise to the top, you must become a star, make billions, write a memoir!" mindset?
My 7 year-old boy already wants to start his own business, and routinely runs his ideas by me. He's also a Minecraft fan, and his favourite YouTube channel is PopularMMOs. When he started watching it a lot and referring to "Pat & Jen", I decided to find out what that is all about. I was surprised to discover after a little googling that they're a married couple who pull down $11m/yr from YT.
And yes, as a parent I am unnerved by this article. While I don't want to discourage his budding entrepreneurship and do want to encourage his initiative, I want him to apply it in a way that is realistic for a kid his age, and I also want to protect him from the inanity (and worse) of stuff like TeenBoss and various get-rich-quick schemes and snake oil sales. I want him to learn the value of hard work, practise, being punctual, and skills that will help him excel in whatever it is he decides to do as an adult. At this point, that means studying, doing well academically, and possibly starting a cottage business his parents can help him with (fortunately, he's a First Honors student).
Families used to teach children the value of a dollar by getting them to setup a lemonade stand or mowing a neighbor's lawn. Now they can command far higher pay by managing that neighbor's social media account. Go get em.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 201 ms ] threadI once saw a magazine dedicated to a single hairstyle. (It was already at its 3rd edition and I later learned of new editions)
Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?
Who's graduating? https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/teen-vogue-s-guide-a...
Good point! If this were geared towards boys and had articles like “How to turn your Minecraft playing into $$$ by streaming” and “Getting started in sales: baseball cards edition” would there even be a discussion? Would the New Yorker be so indignant?
Dare I say it, “I have to remind myself that I can’t overdo it, so I’ll do my posts, and then turn off my phone for the night and just be isolated.” might be good advice for the author, who from her Twitter seems to be a fully paid-up member of 'lol trying to adult' Twitter.
Not surprised to see this comment on top
1) It reinforces the idea that for young women, the only way to achieve business success is to be performatively "girly" -- being unceasingly cheerful and social, presenting a breathless aw-shucks ("so amazing!") demeanor, working on things like fashion lines and skin care products or on image-first careers like "Instagram influencer." Society accepts that ambitious young men will present to the world in lots of different ways, but when it comes to ambitious young women we try to hammer them all into the same shape.
2) It puts pressure on its readers, who are in an age bracket we generally associate with childhood, to trade the traditional privileges of childhood -- shielding from the pitiless demands of the market, space to experiment with different facets of their personality, time to dedicate to education and self-development -- for the precarious, rat-race lifestyle that adults live every day. Kids who are saying "there is no such thing as a regular 9 to 5. We work 24/7!" are kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is, that their lives don't have room for anything else. That would be a sad thing for a fully grown adult to believe, much less a thirteen-year-old.
2) The readers are self-consciously choosing this media themselves anyway - through the YouTube channels they subscribe to and watch, the Instagram influencers they follow, the products they buy. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds, these readers are now being encouraged to think how they can follow in their footsteps.
This article imo, reveals much more about the prejudices of the author than the readers or the publishers.
Who are creative within a narrow, conventionally "girly" band of creative endeavors. Teen Boss would not be interested in a 15-year-old girl who invented a revolutionary new type of automotive engine, because it is not a magazine about girls with grease on their hands.
Girls who want to should be free to engage in those kinds of "girly" pursuits, of course. To each their own! But by focusing only on those pursuits, Teen Boss sends the message to girls who are interested in other things (like STEM!) that they're weirdos who are walking away from success instead of towards it in their own way.
Perhaps not, but then you're being reductive by equating engineering with 'grease on their hands'.
There's plenty of STEM careers that don't involve any grease - such as materials science, fashion design, sound engineering, to stuff that this magazine would wholeheartedly endorse, like developing your own make up line. 'I made thousands building a FaceTune competitor' certainly would.
For that matter, how many people on Hacker News deal with grease in their day to day work? And is the kind of thing being discussed here that different from 'I made $32k a month recurring revenue' IndieHackers story, the likes of which regularly gets voted to the top of HN?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wu
> she is notable for her strong advocacy of women in STEM, transhumanism, open source, and body modifications,[1][2] variously challenging both gender and tech stereotypes with her flamboyant public persona[3][2][4] which turns objectification on its head.[5]
It's a new magazine, how can you say that a 15 year-old girl that does something revolutionary couldn't be featured? I'm reading this as, it's a new magazine that's focusing on the low-hanging fruit and could eventually gain enough traction to feature other things. Who's to say the lessons learned from these "girly" ideas couldn't also be applied to STEM-related pursuits (after all, a specific section is called out where someone pitched a roomba-like idea).
How sure are you of this? I think there's a good chance – I'd bet even odds – that they'd publish a profile of a girl like you describe.
> make up lines, t-shirts, YouTube channels
different from:
> job at BuzzFeed/Vanity Fair/Teen Vogue/New Yorker while building out performative angst Twitter persona
?
seems more like 'stepping stone' to me, no?
The "professional influencer" career path though, especially done the way the platforms want it done (i.e. NON STOP) requires that the person attempting it eschew any and all activities that don't work towards their perceived "career" in favor of ones that do.
It would be like if struggling to be an actor for a decade left to completely incompetent to even wait tables.
I'm all for approaching a utopian future where no one needs to work, but we're not there yet. If 1 in 4 young women are going for this kind of work today, we're going to have market saturation at peak levels. We already have way too many twitch streamers for it to be reasonably successful unless you slavishly dedicate your life to doing it, and I'd say the YouTubers are maybe a couple of years before they hit the same problem, if they aren't already.
We have an entire section of our economy right now based on, for lack of a more eloquent term, bullshit. Bullshit people pushing bullshit products with bullshit content published on bullshit platforms. And yeah sure, this has always been a thing, it's not new, but it's never been this HUGE. We're already seeing cracks forming from the sheer number of young women (and men too, it's for both sexes) who are dedicating every minute of every day of their lives to this "influencer" nonsense, combined with the fact that digital advertising is tanking, and long overdue privacy rankings are going to take the wind out of all of these platforms sales, and then we'll have to deal with having millions of people who's only once-marketable skill is smiling into a camera like an idiot, and peddling shit that no one needs.
You bled through a little here. The vast majority of YouTube stars aren't being discovered on the street, and the vast majority of kids who buy in to the promise never become stars. You're contrasting two largely overlapping paths while framing them as the alternative versus the standard.
Creator of what? IMHO, in generals "creators" and "creatives" are red-flag words, signaling, not creation in the sense of artistic work or craftsmanship, but capitalism - money to be made by graphic designers, whatever. Not to knock making money, just sayin' ...
> 2) The readers are self-consciously choosing this media themselves anyway - through the YouTube channels they subscribe to and watch, the Instagram influencers they follow, the products they buy. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds, these readers are now being encouraged to think how they can follow in their footsteps.
I dunno - "choice" gets complicated in a world of advertising, algorithmically driven video rankings, fake news, the general limited range of what is available over mainstream media distribution channels, etc.
People who make money off of something love to talk about how the people whose money they are taking are exercising choice.
I still think most people using the internet regularly find themselves in weird cul-de-sacs. It's very easy to find surprising and novel things to read, watch, look at. I'd be surprised if lots of people don't also have that experience.
I don't see the point you're making. Thirty years ago, people had a choice of four main TV channels, three newspapers, and whatever the Billboard 100 said they should listen to.
Most cultures historically have expected children to work and contribute - work and play intermingled, and then at a point, they were graduated to primarily contributions.
I wouldn't get too peturbed about children working.
n.b., exploitation is a different thing, I want to make clear. But historically, children contributing is a thing, and it was not an evil.
Or, it takes girls, who are already socialized that way, and teaches them that pink and glitter isn’t inconsistent with making money. (Which is the most important thing for kids to learn, because we live in a country where you die without money.)
https://twitter.com/girlswhocode/status/909883045406281728
I've seen other spreads that highlight people like Tim Cook, who, while famous in our orbits, isn't a typical topic of conversation among my nieces.
Traditionally children help out with chores, work on the farm, watch the other children, or even get jobs to help with the household expenses.
> ...kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is...
There is a certain segment of the population that scrapes by and survival is the biggest concern. A certain level of privilege is needed to take principled stands on issues, invest large amounts of time and energy in charitable work, or even just travel and experience the world.
That is to say, life as a struggle is actually pretty normal. And it's not new or unique to this time and culture.
Maybe it's perverse to choose to struggle as a middle class kid. And maybe it's especially perverse to chose this kind of struggle. But there are many less healthy things for tweens and teens to invest their energy in.
Then society got to the point where teenagers were no longer capable of doing anything useful, so society started extending childhood, to the point where nobody under the age of 30 considers themselves adults anymore. From that perspective, any reversion to the more natural pattern of human development is going to seem sad and destructive of childhood.
But that perspective is formed by a very unnatural way of life. Teenage naval midshipmen weren't wracked with angst and depression the way contemporary American teenagers are. They didn't chafe and rebel against their parents the way contemporary American teenagers do, because they weren't treated like children; they were treated like young adults.
It reminds the middle-class strivers that "MAKE MONEY FA$T!" isn't that far from themselves, despite all their scrambling efforts.
Regardless, it will happen whether us "not young" folk like it or not. Hopefully some kids will get rich with history and math channels instead of being attractive and making farting noises
I force myself to listen to crazy angry conservative and christian radio on and off for the same reason. If we can't embrace aspects of human personality that we find loathesome, I don't think we can love others, or ourselves.
Interestingly I feel like this article comes from a similar place as anger radio (which is, ironically, overwhelmingly money-motivated and exploitative).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't see the value in otherizing media like this. It exists, it's part of our culture, and in one way or another, it's a part of us. Embrace it, engage with it, teach from it, but don't revile it.
[1]https://www.thestreet.com/story/12791561/1/millennials-just-...
Saying "It exists, it's a part of our culture" is such a defeatist response. Culture is formed by all of us. You don't have to just let it happen. You can push back, and work to change culture for the better. That's why I like your last bit - we can engage with it and teach from it. I'd expand that to include: we can disapprove of it.
Those money-grubbing millenials are paying the Social Security entitlements to Baby Boomers
On a micro scale, if I had children, I'd teach them to take every advantage they can get. I'd teach them to be ruthless, because that's what the world rewards. If someone has to suffer, I'm doing everything in my power to prevent it from being them.
You can't attack these problems from the bottom. A parent would be putting their child at a disadvantage in the interests of the state, which is absolutely absurd to expect. It has to be an institutional movement.
It would be great if we could remove the system that rewards that behavior, but in absence of that, the correct move for any individual agent is to exploit the imbalances.
You can't be a doormat, but I don't think naked ruthlessness is necessary to be successful or to leave a good mark on this world.
I would say to strive for humane, resilient excellence.
Avarice is a deep facet of human psychology. Our kids don't need to be 'exposed' to it to discover it in themselves. If one condemns avarice, one doesn't provide a path for one's child (or oneself) to reconcile themselves with with reality. You and those you condemn remain avaricious, but under different flags and in your own ways.
Their point also stands in regards to economy. It's not a "situation" we magically find ourselves in and just have to get along with.
> Somebody is saying this is inevitable - and whenever you hear somebody saying that, it's very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.
-- Richard Stallman
> Humans, in so far as they are more than a completion of functions able to react, whose lowest and therefore most central are the purely animal like reactions, are simply superfluous for totalitarian systems. Their goal is not to erect a despotic regime over humans, but a system by which humans are made superfluous. Total power can only be achieved and guaranteed when nothing else matters except the absolutely controllable willingness to react, marionettes robbed of all spontaneity. Humans, precisely because they are so powerful, can only be completely controlled when they have become examples of the animal like species human.
-- Hannah Arendt
> The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
-- Hannah Arendt
All this pseudo-objectivity to hide oneself behind , all this "I didn't make the rules"... before talking about how to live a decent life, start with examining it... a well developed personality will be all sorts of content in situations, and their happiness will depend not only on their own stomach, but whether people around are hungry.
> Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one. Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an armchair for it. Say honestly, "I love arm-chairs better than free men, and pursue them because I choose; not because circumstances make me. I love hats, large, large hats, with many feathers and great bows; and I would rather have those hats than trouble myself about social dreams that will never be accomplished in my day. The world worships hats, and I wish to worship with them."
> But if you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow. And the foregoing of possessions for which others barter the last possibility of freedom will become easy.
> At the end of life you may close your eyes saying: "I have not been dominated by the Dominant Idea of my Age; I have chosen mine own allegiance, and served it. I have proved by a lifetime that there is that in man which saves him from the absolute tyranny of Circumstance, which in the end conquers and remoulds Circumstance, the immortal fire of Individual Will, which is the salvation of the Future."
-- Voltairine de Cleyre
You can call these idealized notions, but that also goes for something like "money is how you ensure your kids have a decent life", or "the strong must crush the weak" or whatever you have.
I'd bet that this is largely because college students now graduate with tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and getting an entry level job out of college is harder than it's ever been. When you're struggling simply to stay float, you tend to be more concerned with your own well being than that of others.
I take it you were not looking for a job in '09-'10.
That's not surprising, considering that current college students did a lot of their growing up in the aftermath of the housing crash. It's kind of unfair to chide them for being preoccupied with financial stability (or for claiming to be when asked, not the same thing). Meanwhile, what's the messaging like about college today? That you should drop out to start a company, and that if you're studying anything not STEM related you're kind of a dope.
But really, in the link "helping others" is a close second at 65%, only a point behind the boomers and two points ahead of gen x. So, there goes declinism. Millenials are only about 4 points higher than gen-x in "well off financially" (70.8 to 74.4), hardly a generational sea change. The real difference is with the boomers, who come in at 73% "develop a meaningful philosophy of life" and 44% "well off financially". Perhaps rather than rejecting helping others, every generation since the boomers has rejected the solipsism it takes for a college student to list "develop my philosophy" as their primary goal.
The question is not about financial stability, but with "being very well off financially."
> Perhaps rather than rejecting helping others, every generation since the boomers has rejected the solipsism it takes for a college student to list "develop my philosophy" as their primary goal.
I'll give you that point. Younger generations may not be as materialistic as we think. But that doesn't invalidate my argument: It would still be shitty if they became more materialistic. That could happen if we tell 12 year olds they need to worry about their personal brand.
I think we worship obscene money (ex: celebs, athletes, tech founders) and get rich stories but probably don't worship money as a whole - if we really did we wouldn't be in such debt buying crap and having no savings. 63% of Americans don't have enough to cover a $500 emergency. [1]
College students could be having that financial outlook you mentioned as a result of the crazy debt they took on. And the fact that 75% said raising a family was a life goal, which is higher than boomers and Gen X, at a time when raising a family is way more expensive than it used to be. If this is the case, then they actually value education and raising a family over money and money is just a means to attain those things. So I don't think that's alarming.
What's alarming to me is poor financial education and decisions and the desire to get rich quickly or feel like you're owed $X salary because you have $Y debt which I see with many new graduates.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...
Most people who are daydreaming about a get rich quick scheme probably aren't thinking about putting the money they earn in safe investments and living the rest of their life on the $80,000 a year they can get from the returns. They're thinking about the mansion, sports car, exotic vacations, etc.
That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band photos in Tiger Beat.
YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an alternative to purely consuming media.
I'd rather my daughter want to make YouTube videos and open an Etsy shop with her designs than mindlessly watch Hannah Montana (which I feel like is the equivalent from a decade ago).
As a peek into this world, check out Rosanna Pansino (Nerdy Nummies YT channel) and how successful she is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2cebTn0nc
There are worse role models for kids.
until you see the instagram/snap feeds of these 'kids' once they become 18+..
the unnerving thing about this isn't what's on the surface - it's the preemptive/subliminal training towards 'monetizing their image' which is basically training to become defacto prostitutes in adulthood..
Children have more choices for idols today and that’s good. Many children are thinking entrepreneurially and I’m happy they have role models. I don’t care if the magazine looks like Tiger Beat. I’m a small business owner and I want my kids to grow up understanding the hustle mindset as opposed to the employee mindset.
In fact I'd rather kids would read the WSJ than this garbage, at least then they'd understand how hard it is to start and maintain a business. Otherwise you're setting this kids up to follow every MLM trap they got offered later on in life. HODL HODL HODL am i right?
Go on the thread for yourself, there are lots of people picking apart the idea, but no one saying the creator is foolhardy for favoring an entrepreneurial career / calling him a scammer.
While those skills are not common enough in adults, it's rare that ANY 10 year old anywhere would have the life experience to develop those skills.
Also making this business activity socially acceptable for kids opens the door to parents putting pressure on their kids to make money ("WHY ISN'T MY 12 A VIRAL BEAUTY GURU!?!?!" says some soccer mom). I'm also willing to bet most of these kids have parental involvement, so it opens the door to parents 'pimping out' their kids so they can market some shitty product with an edge of it being sold by a kid.
At that age, kids should be focused on developing fundamental skills instead of focusing on their brand or get rich. What's wrong with saying something is ok for adults but not for kids?
Also I don’t believe at all that a 12 year is really passionate about building a line of “eco friendly” skin care products and the botanical mixtures (like one of the girls on the cover of teen bo$$).
> The title is aimed at girls aged eight to fifteen, and it has a bright, pink-heavy, clamorously cheerful aesthetic to match.
(Your broader point may be right, I just don't think the current crop of scams is a great example.)
your collectivism is a misapplied abstraction leaking reality at every seam
'Individuals' on HN (or 20-something CS guy from the U.S.) and their 'unique opinions' are so fucking similar and revolve around a couple of basic platitudes and ideologems
Pretty much anything that isn't a specific technical subject is totally boring and predictable on HN
Also your last sentence is painfully cringey to read
Hell “how to build your brand by being you” is the gist of a ton of the articles you see in Forbes, etc, just with more glitter.
That is the flip side of it. Endlessly shouting "Express yourself and amazing things will happen!" is a bit of a trap. It doesn't prepare kids to handle the lucky breaks that some of them will undoubtedly get.
https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...
I agree that instant gratification is a problem, but it doesn't strike me as bad that kids might think YouTube or social media or whatever is an easy way to make money, and then try their hand at it. I think they'll quickly find that success still takes effort and perseverance.
I feel like the best way to learn that is try it out yourself, which is what such magazines are encouraging no?
Which means most of them get to experience failure early on in their life. I think this is a good thing for them in the long term.
As someone who just followed through all the usual treadmill of doing well in school, going to top college, etc. just to find out later that there was this entirely different and more exciting world of entrepreneurship where I can decide my own destiny, I think it's good to experience failure as early as possible in your life.
A lot of people who are not cut out for unstable life will realize it's not for them and just go on to live a stable life without regret, and many others who can recover from the failure, will have learned some lesson which can be helpful in their future adventure.
Also "Garbage" is a subjective term, I personally see many mainstream journalism driven by ad revenue much more garbage than many Youtubers who create unique content that you won't get anywhere else. A lot of the successful ones actually start out doing Youtube because they're passionate about the topic they make videos on. It's the failures who jump in just for the money.
Telling young girls they can "get rich quick" is not the best way to go about all this, but it mostly serves to show, in part, what is possible. Girls are not reading these flashy magazines for deep reading. It's not something they consciously mull over as they read-- the effect is subconscious. The more magazines consumed, the more the messages of what's possible become more concrete in the background, and she will start to pay attention to the Youtubers she loves from a different perspective-- one of gathering tips and watching for how they became successful. That is, if she wants to start a business anyways. Mostly moms pick up these magazines for their kids.
edit: I also want to say that becoming successful in an enterprise like Youtube while one is young is phenomenal for confidence. Even just starting to create is very good for confidence. The venture won't last forever, but the adult will always have the confidence they built in their younger years.
If your daughter wants to learn about successful business and making money, she will very soon look into characters like Trump, or Koch brothers, or even tycoon oils Rockefellers. There was nothing for a child to look into the souls of these characters; business is tough, its jungle, and you make extra buck when you didn't have to but took it away from someone anyways. I don't think I would want my children to be exposed to this kind of shit without their brains being properly wired already.
I know it's sexy for modern day champagne socialists to rant about this on /r/LateStageCapitalism and co. and signal through communism LARPing. I'm however confident the HN crowd is a little more educated than that.
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/03/17024/warren-buff...
I don't know if that should discredit what they accomplish and give back altogether, that's an interesting conversation.
Because that’s for chumps.
Being into boy bands is a perfectly harmless (and normal) use of a teenager's time. Being obsessed with emulating their YouTube idols on the path to riches, is insidious, demoralising when you realise most of it is luck, which you will not have, it's perverted and unhealthy.
Why not say it "replaces" flying kites in the park?
> YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an alternative to purely consuming media.
Another false dichotomy.
> There are worse role models for kids.
Duh. You can say that about anything. If that's what you're reaching for as the first thing to say why something is "good", you should ask yourself what's going on.
Being obsessed with popularity is one thing, using numbers as "measure" of popularity is one degree more messed up.
Are there also better role models, or are these the best anyone could hope for?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Lol.
"Money is to Teen Boss what sex is to Cosmopolitan—the essential, irreplaceable, attention-getting hook. (On the cover of each edition, the dollar signs in “Teen Bo$$!” occupy the same prime real estate, in the upper-left corner, that the word “sex” does on most Cosmo covers.)"
Well encouraging young women to make money and work for financial independence is better than encouraging them to become sex objects, as many other mags targeting them do.
And while I'm a guy, I remember that club being balanced roughly 50-50, boys and girls, and in point of fact, most of the leadership positions (we elected Presidents and VPs, in mock-corporate fashion) were girls.
I think all that's changed is the focus of how and where money is earned, and maybe not all that much? The article mentions that some of the ideas recommended are "snow shoveling" and "setting up a laser tag course", which aren't the wild, forced-estrogen-display, YouTube-infested hellscape that some other commenters seem to be upset about.
I really like Jia Tolentino's writing.
The magazine sucks because it valorizes materialism. There's not much more to it than that. Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power, but it's still a void. The passage I quoted is right--our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship. We should dream bigger than kids screaming about video games on youtube.
It reminds me of the often repeated phrase used to respond to people criticizing a popular kids' book: "Well, at least they're reading." The version that would defend this kind of content says "at least they're making something!" The act of creation by itself isn't noble, neither is the act of reading alone. "Would you rather they just watch TV??" No. It's a false choice. Aim higher.
The sad thing about this kind of capitalism though is in money via brand building (id argue) no real value is created. It’s just a knife fight for eyeballs.
http://blakemasters.com/post/22405055017/peter-thiels-cs183-...
For older people, it's impressive that a teenager goes out there and makes a name for themselves on youtube and then older people will go on and talk about the merits of the media/product being made as you've done.
It's my understanding that for many teenagers the idea of this sort of fame isn't really that big of a deal, it's essentially commoditized, where anyone who's serious about it can achieve a certain level of success. This leads to younger kids to understand that they too can succeed by driving their ideas forward, and I imagine we will see all sorts of entrepreneurship come from Gen Z when they have the skill sets and experience to both raise money from VCs and develop truly innovative new products.
Material success, power, fame - have been drivers of ambition throughout all of human civilization. The unprecedented success of capitalism over the last 2 centuries has been marked by countless individuals pushing forward towards those goals.
>Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power
You have cynical spin on this, but I suppose traditional moral gender roles would be more fulfilling? Or maybe women should be encouraged to go into low profit social work? What is it you want?
>whether they be becoming rich from social media self-branding
I'm not worried about that. There is no free lunch and anybody who thinks they can start rolling in Youtube money without putting in a massive amount of work (and even then, there are no guarantees) will figure it quickly enough.
The point is that replacing the idea of one's worth and potential - girl power/boy power, whatever - with shallow get quick money and get famous schemes is a negative.
Would you prefer children who dream of utilizing their potential to become great at something, like a career path, scientist, scholar, artists, farmer etc., or whose dreams are about becoming Youtube stars or selling crap to a bunch of people?
As for the general remarks on history, power is the only factor in ambition beyond survival. Material success is just one form of power. Fame is power + self gratification for the emotionally weak. Ephemeral fame and get money quick schemes are superficial and weak means to power.
On the other hand, appeals to a universal subject, which doesn't exist, references to human nature, which we can't even define as a term, much less define what the elements of it are, don't really work in a proper argument.
There's a constant hum about the lack of women entrepreneurs and how women should be encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship, the earlier the better. What do you think that looks like?
If you do nothing, that's wrong, if you do something, it will never be right and will be critized.
This is an entrepreneurship magazine designed to appeal to teen girls. Entrepreneurship is a boring topic for most teens, so this is their attempt at making it relatable and fun. Give them a break.
>Would you prefer children who dream of utilizing their potential to become great at something, like a career path, scientist, scholar, artists, farmer etc.,
I noticed entrepreneur is not one of the options you listed, which is what this magazine advocates. But I support all those career paths as well. Advocacy for one, doesn't mean denial of others.
I certainly do not dispute the argument re: ambition and the desire for wealth as the source of capitalism's success.
If you're not a content creator/owner, you're a content consumer. Content is the new rent seeking.
As other commenters have pointed out, it's certainly better than celebrity gossip, and probably not any worse than the other crap they would be exposed to. Entrepreneurship is a fantastic thing to promote, and being a social media star is certainly more fun and lucrative than being a 9-5 office drone with health insurance.
But there's something insidious about priming teenagers into this materialistic mindset, that the way to "make it" is to gain a large social media following competing in a shallow clickbait-ridden space, where only the top 1% or so can ever make it anyways (not everybody can be a social media star, just like not everybody can make a living as a musician. Our attention span is limited).
I don't have a problem with this magazine. This magazine is simply a sad reflection of our hypercapitalist reality.
Socially-strong European nations are the most likely to survive the next 100 years of turmoil. Modern China is a house of cards held together by capitalism, Xi and his successors will grab for power but they can't hold it together by sheer force of will.
As you said worst case scenario immigrants could fill in the gap (certainly no shortage of people trying to immigrate to western Europe). Social cohesion could go down, but that doesn't mean the only option is American style "every man for themselves" hypercapitalism.
Is the marketed purpose of life for humans out there to just have a decent, modest and enjoyable life with plenty of vacation and time for friends and recreational activities? Vs the US's "rise to the top, you must become a star, make billions, write a memoir!" mindset?
And yes, as a parent I am unnerved by this article. While I don't want to discourage his budding entrepreneurship and do want to encourage his initiative, I want him to apply it in a way that is realistic for a kid his age, and I also want to protect him from the inanity (and worse) of stuff like TeenBoss and various get-rich-quick schemes and snake oil sales. I want him to learn the value of hard work, practise, being punctual, and skills that will help him excel in whatever it is he decides to do as an adult. At this point, that means studying, doing well academically, and possibly starting a cottage business his parents can help him with (fortunately, he's a First Honors student).