Where did they go ? Perhaps if retailers had been less keen to install The Mosquito (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito) to shoo them away, they may have had more customers.
Sounds like retailers have discovered the downside to the constant anti-teenager policies of malls and shops treating them as hostile aliens to be driven off and sometimes even criminalized for being so "anti-social" as to try and go out shopping by themselves whilst under 21.
No wonder they buy online or just decide to play online games instead of going out. At least there they are not going to be harassed by mall cops or arrested by real cops and criminalized.
Also, jobs? When I was growing up teenagers were the mainstay of the supermarket bag&checkout for example - now I see older people having these jobs. Which probably means there isn't much lower to go in terms of income.
I've never heard of this. Wikipedia had this about it, which is pretty hilarious; Some teenagers turned the sound into a mobile phone ringtone, which could not be heard by teachers if the phone rang during a class.[38] Mobile phone speakers are capable of producing frequencies above 20 kHz.[39] This ringtone became informally known as "Teen Buzz"[40] or "the Mosquito ringtone" and has since been sold commercially.
"At least there they are not going to be harassed by mall cops ..."
Ask the parents of those teens. I got harassed at the local mall as a quiet, well dressed biz-casual, heavily spending yuppie in my 20s by mall cops, I was speechless at the time, needless to say I'll never go there again, and I am not planning on letting my kids go there either.
They went to great effort to prevent young people from spending money at the mall. It took awhile, but young people are now not spending money at the mall. I'm not seeing much of a problem. When it closes we can build a nice condo there. If they could just hurry up and close, so we could get on with progress...
I'm a long way from shopping at one of the stores mentioned, but when I walk past them at the mall, what strikes me is how expensive they look. Not just the clothes, but the store itself. Expensive locations, expensive build-out, expensive fixtures. Lots of employees.
I don't expect them to look like a discount merchanter (naked fluorescent bulbs, racks from last century), but there's something to be said about cheap chic. Which Forever21 (a favorite of the nieces) and H&M seem to get.
The build-out costs are probably offset by how low mall rent is these days. You could take the same idea when it comes to food, look at how many flat screen televisions are inside a B-dubs or how much more it probably costs to built a Chipotle or Panera than it does a Subway. No wonder a meal at the previous two costs $10+, and Chipotle is considering raising prices because sales are so high. But the million dollars it costs to build the restaurant over 5 years is probably a drop in the bucket compared to food and employee costs.
“You can buy a plaid shirt at Abercrombie that’s like $70,” said Daniela Donayre, 17, standing in a Topshop in Manhattan. “Or I can go to Forever 21 and buy the same shirt for $20.”
Or they can go to a thrift shop and get one for $2. That's what my daughter and half her friends do. It's even worse after that Macklemore song.
"Hey, celebrities are buying overpriced things. Let's buy overpriced things and make fun of those who bought the same thing for less!"
...
"Hey, a musician sang a song about getting stuff cheap at the thrift store. Let's get all our stuff at the thrift store now! It's the same stuff, for cheaper!"
It just doesn't make any sense. And people often pay such high costs in the pursuit of acceptance that I wish that more people would just stop, think about what they're doing, and realize how ridiculous it is. They don't need to worry so much about it. They don't need to spend so much time thinking about it.
It just seems like you would have so much more time and energy to spend on other things when you stop thinking like an animal.
Is there not a large, wide spectrum between "being lonely" and "fitting in"? In fact, I would imagine that there are so many alternatives that the phrase "spectrum" is simply too one-dimensional.
The value is that I imagine (no data here, just conjecture) that many people could be much happier and freer to focus on other pursuits (that I feel are more worthy but I realize that this is entirely subjective) and not be so worried about "what do they think?". Because humans will be humans (as you've pointed out) I don't expect to change any minds here, but this is the way that I think. If nothing else, I'm simply giving away some food for thought.
The thing that motivates people to buy expensive clothes is exactly the same as the thing that's motivating you to write these comments.
People don't really want to fit in with others, they want to fit in with themselves. For some people that involves being the kind of person that buys expensive clothes. For you, that involves being the kind of person that doesn't buy expensive clothes. There is no difference, except that your thing is not externally visible, so you have to tell us about it. And you get to keep all that disposable income I guess.
You're also avoiding the identity equivalent of running your whole business on a 3rd party API, which is what people who base themselves on brands are doing. So you're probably ahead. But not really any different.
I think that you may have missed my point. This isn't about buying expensive clothes, or being one of those people who doesn't buy expensive clothes. I'm not making my decision in order to fit in. I try not to worry about it, because I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense to worry about it.
I'm putting effort into trying to get people to think about things in a different way. That's what I'm "worried" about. If by "it" you mean buying expensive clothes, I think that you've missed the point.
Then again, given your posts, it seems that you make a habit of missing the point. I suppose I'll move on.
I guarantee you do it too. Possibly in a way you're blind to, but you're doing it. If you're an American, did you watch the Superbowl yesterday? Or did you smugly tell people you're not interested in sportsball?
I usually don't watch football (even the Superbowl), but I did actually watch it yesterday. I don't really see what that has to do with fitting in. I could just as easily have not watched it.
And by the way, even if I do do it, that's just as silly as anybody else doing it. Don't confuse the philosopher with the philosophy.
My point is that people do a lot of things as signals to groups. When someone (apparently not you) goes out of his way to tell people he doesn't watch the Superbowl, maybe because "European football is so much better" or "grown men playing with balls", he's making a statement about himself to others. Same with those people who are so eager to tell you they don't even own a TV--they're projecting an image, they might as well wear a t-shirt that says "too cultured for television".
When you posted here wondering why people try to hard to be accepted, that was your way of telling others "I am the kind of person who doesn't care about expensive clothes or following popular trends".
Thrift stores haven't really ever gone out of fashion, its actually growing in popularity due to stored like Urban Outfitters whose business model for the last 15 years or more has been to purchase thrift and second hand stuff and resell it at outrageous markups along side designer stuff.
A sign that some retailers have no clue how to generate revenue in changing times. Technology has provided more transparency and this has had a change in consumer behavior & spending. Brand loyal customers are what keeps some of these uninnovative chains running but for how long. They need to get realistic on price, innovate and find innovative ways (even with tech) to not only reach these consumers but keep them engaged & shopping.
Clothing seems far less about pimping your brand and more about wearing good looking, well-fit items nowadays. It's great. When I was in high school around 2000 I was a skinny kid. I couldn't find ANYTHING that fit well except for Diesel. Everything else was sized via the "fat American" standard where a small would be a medium nowadays. Now there are tons of places to get well fit affordable stuff. Uniqlo, AA, H&M, Forever21, etc.
There was recently a commercially produced pop song about thrift stores in the charts, so you can rest assured that they've been cool again for at least ten years.
I'd argue that it was independently produced, and 'cool' varies by the crowds you grow up in and around. Commercial music is still considered cool by a very large swath of youth. Even when it wasn't, the industry has little problem absorbing and subverting the indies.
I'm not saying they're no longer cool, but the fact that some record company executives put millions of dollars behind the track in this risk-averse entertainment/identity industry means thrift stores have probably passed or are about to pass their peak coolness for this cycle. The same likely applies to Macklemore themselves, they didn't write those lyrics with blood and tears, they wrote them to sell.
"They" watch what the really cool kids are doing, or at least the coolest kids they can find. When they've been consistently doing a particular thing for almost a decade, with the thing filtering down through the social hierarchy until almost-uncool people are doing it, that's the prime time to safely monetize the shit out of that thing for about 3 years until even your dad wouldn't be caught dead doing it.
Macklemore/ADA are kinda late to the party, "vintage" clothing stores have been milking that particular cash cow dry for a while now. Filtering down...
It's a process that sounds familiar to many people here, I'm sure.
"Some record company executives"? Thrift Shop was produced under the label Macklemore LLC, i.e. bankrolled by Macklemore himself. That was one of the reasons it was an interesting track. An indy label hitting the #1 spot on the charts.
It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their own? These artist-run labels are usually just shell companies.
But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making. Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.
My understanding is Macklemore (a man, not a band) is pretty wealthy, so I suspect it was mostly his dollars behind the track, including for distribution.
That leads to the other interesting part- if he's already wealthy, does he care if the track makes a lot of money or not?
But, yes, for most any other hit pop song you'd be right.
> It was distributed by ADA. You think they shipped thousands of promo CDs/mailouts to radio stations and record stores across the world all on their own?
The relationship between Macklemore and the ADA is fundamentally different from the traditional relationship between an artist and a record label, where the record label loans the artist money up front and takes care of all the promotional efforts in return for a majority share of the revenue from album sales. The ADA takes payment upfront - there is no "investment" going on. This is why Macklemore was able to take the lion's share of the profits from his album sales.
> But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making.
No, it's actually the worst possible example you could have picked.
> Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.
No, it's not the same. It's just about as different as it gets when it comes to the music industry.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis received seven Grammy nominations and won four (Best New Artist, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, Best Rap Album), two for "Thrift Shop", which also went septuple platinum in the US, multi-platinum in 5 other countries, and sold over 10M copies worldwide. I'd say that's pretty fucking commercial.
You chased them away and now you're shocked they aren't in your store?
Check the Apple Store. They have ~10 products that change once a year. The former VP was smart enough to know that todays' kids are tomorrows' customers. They might not buy anything on the first or fourth visit but they'll eventually buy something.
How is it a surprise that with high unemployment and low wages retail markets are suffering? Corporations' focus on short-term profits have predictable consequences.
These days, B&M retail stores that hope to survive need to rely on creative layouts, exciting experiences, or extreme price/value ratios.
A lot of folks are mentioning the Apple stores, which I'd certainly describe as creative and exciting. The article references H&M, which is more of a price/value play. Uniqlo probably touches on all of these things, though from anecdotal observation, it tends to skew a little older than teenagers. But have you ever been inside a Uniqlo that wasn't as packed and chaotic as a Disneyland ride? Say what you will about the shopping experience, but it's a pretty successful one. You wait in line for about 2 hours…but that's because there's an enormous line in the first place.
The successful fashion retailers are doing fast iteration, like Zara as shown in this rather good article [1] - sounds like many are just getting complacent with their brand.
"That means that if Inditex stores in London, Tokyo and São Paulo all have customers responding enthusiastically to, let’s say, sequined cranberry-colored hot pants, Inditex can deliver more of these, or a variation on hot pants, sequins or that cranberry color, to stores within three weeks. The company tries to keep the stock fresh; one promise its stores make is that you will always be buying something nearly unique. Merchandise moves incredibly quickly, even by fast-fashion standards. All those thousands of Inditex stores receive deliveries of new clothes twice a week."
"Municipalities crafted anti-loitering laws and curfews to keep young people from congregating alone. New neighborhoods had fewer public spaces. Crime rates plummeted, but moral panic soared."
While this is an important and valid general concern, the article was specifically talking about only a few teen brands that up until very recently were doing quite well.
I don't see any general trend or problem with teen purchasing, only a handful of dinosaurs about to be left behind by newer more agile competitors.
That and it's a new game console year which probably puts dent on expendable teenage income.
>> “Probably the most important thing a teenage boy has is his smartphone,” said Richard Jaffe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “Second, is probably his sneakers. Third, maybe, we get to his jeans.”
>> What may trump all of those, Mr. Jaffe said, are gaming systems, especially over the last few months, because Xbox and PlayStation both released new game consoles in 2013. That may have taken a bite out of what teenagers had to spend on clothes.
The article briefly mentions it, but I think the comments here are underestimating how much teenagers like to shop online. The growth of Nasty Gal may be one example of this.
Where did the teenagers go? Away from your retail store where they're not wanted (unless they're working minimum wage in your employ).
For the past 10 or so years I've heard nothing but stories about troublesome teenagers in stores/malls, shoplifting flash mobs made of 'urban yoots', etc. They've gone so far as to make electronic buzzers that only the young can hear and they use them to drive the kids away (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito).
When you've spent the better part of a decade labeling teens with anti-social labels and actively driving them away with noise maybe you shouldn't ask why all the teens left (and took their money with them).
53 comments
[ 10.1 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadSounds like retailers have discovered the downside to the constant anti-teenager policies of malls and shops treating them as hostile aliens to be driven off and sometimes even criminalized for being so "anti-social" as to try and go out shopping by themselves whilst under 21.
No wonder they buy online or just decide to play online games instead of going out. At least there they are not going to be harassed by mall cops or arrested by real cops and criminalized.
Ask the parents of those teens. I got harassed at the local mall as a quiet, well dressed biz-casual, heavily spending yuppie in my 20s by mall cops, I was speechless at the time, needless to say I'll never go there again, and I am not planning on letting my kids go there either.
They went to great effort to prevent young people from spending money at the mall. It took awhile, but young people are now not spending money at the mall. I'm not seeing much of a problem. When it closes we can build a nice condo there. If they could just hurry up and close, so we could get on with progress...
I don't expect them to look like a discount merchanter (naked fluorescent bulbs, racks from last century), but there's something to be said about cheap chic. Which Forever21 (a favorite of the nieces) and H&M seem to get.
Or they can go to a thrift shop and get one for $2. That's what my daughter and half her friends do. It's even worse after that Macklemore song.
So where did the teenagers go?
Apple store.
(Odds that Phil was actually joking about the plaque: unknown)
"Hey, celebrities are buying overpriced things. Let's buy overpriced things and make fun of those who bought the same thing for less!"
...
"Hey, a musician sang a song about getting stuff cheap at the thrift store. Let's get all our stuff at the thrift store now! It's the same stuff, for cheaper!"
Because we are (largely) social animals and being accepted by a group is a powerful motivator (for most).
It just seems like you would have so much more time and energy to spend on other things when you stop thinking like an animal.
I'm not sure of the value in examining human behaviour while also dismissing the motivators of that behaviour as being silly.
The value is that I imagine (no data here, just conjecture) that many people could be much happier and freer to focus on other pursuits (that I feel are more worthy but I realize that this is entirely subjective) and not be so worried about "what do they think?". Because humans will be humans (as you've pointed out) I don't expect to change any minds here, but this is the way that I think. If nothing else, I'm simply giving away some food for thought.
People don't really want to fit in with others, they want to fit in with themselves. For some people that involves being the kind of person that buys expensive clothes. For you, that involves being the kind of person that doesn't buy expensive clothes. There is no difference, except that your thing is not externally visible, so you have to tell us about it. And you get to keep all that disposable income I guess.
You're also avoiding the identity equivalent of running your whole business on a 3rd party API, which is what people who base themselves on brands are doing. So you're probably ahead. But not really any different.
Then again, given your posts, it seems that you make a habit of missing the point. I suppose I'll move on.
And by the way, even if I do do it, that's just as silly as anybody else doing it. Don't confuse the philosopher with the philosophy.
When you posted here wondering why people try to hard to be accepted, that was your way of telling others "I am the kind of person who doesn't care about expensive clothes or following popular trends".
Guess they are not "cool" again yet.
"They" watch what the really cool kids are doing, or at least the coolest kids they can find. When they've been consistently doing a particular thing for almost a decade, with the thing filtering down through the social hierarchy until almost-uncool people are doing it, that's the prime time to safely monetize the shit out of that thing for about 3 years until even your dad wouldn't be caught dead doing it.
Macklemore/ADA are kinda late to the party, "vintage" clothing stores have been milking that particular cash cow dry for a while now. Filtering down...
It's a process that sounds familiar to many people here, I'm sure.
But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making. Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.
That leads to the other interesting part- if he's already wealthy, does he care if the track makes a lot of money or not?
But, yes, for most any other hit pop song you'd be right.
The relationship between Macklemore and the ADA is fundamentally different from the traditional relationship between an artist and a record label, where the record label loans the artist money up front and takes care of all the promotional efforts in return for a majority share of the revenue from album sales. The ADA takes payment upfront - there is no "investment" going on. This is why Macklemore was able to take the lion's share of the profits from his album sales.
In fact, Macklemore addresses this very point in one of his songs on The Heist: http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-jimmy-iovine-...
> But yes, this track is maybe not the best example for the point I'm making.
No, it's actually the worst possible example you could have picked.
> Just replace "record companies spending millions of dollars" with "ADA spending some other very large amount of money and macklemore spending hundreds of man hours" and the point is the same.
No, it's not the same. It's just about as different as it gets when it comes to the music industry.
That's not a fact, it's flat out wrong.
Check the Apple Store. They have ~10 products that change once a year. The former VP was smart enough to know that todays' kids are tomorrows' customers. They might not buy anything on the first or fourth visit but they'll eventually buy something.
A lot of folks are mentioning the Apple stores, which I'd certainly describe as creative and exciting. The article references H&M, which is more of a price/value play. Uniqlo probably touches on all of these things, though from anecdotal observation, it tends to skew a little older than teenagers. But have you ever been inside a Uniqlo that wasn't as packed and chaotic as a Disneyland ride? Say what you will about the shopping experience, but it's a pretty successful one. You wait in line for about 2 hours…but that's because there's an enormous line in the first place.
"That means that if Inditex stores in London, Tokyo and São Paulo all have customers responding enthusiastically to, let’s say, sequined cranberry-colored hot pants, Inditex can deliver more of these, or a variation on hot pants, sequins or that cranberry color, to stores within three weeks. The company tries to keep the stock fresh; one promise its stores make is that you will always be buying something nearly unique. Merchandise moves incredibly quickly, even by fast-fashion standards. All those thousands of Inditex stores receive deliveries of new clothes twice a week."
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-grew-int...
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/ap_thompson-2/
I don't see any general trend or problem with teen purchasing, only a handful of dinosaurs about to be left behind by newer more agile competitors.
That and it's a new game console year which probably puts dent on expendable teenage income.
>> “Probably the most important thing a teenage boy has is his smartphone,” said Richard Jaffe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “Second, is probably his sneakers. Third, maybe, we get to his jeans.”
>> What may trump all of those, Mr. Jaffe said, are gaming systems, especially over the last few months, because Xbox and PlayStation both released new game consoles in 2013. That may have taken a bite out of what teenagers had to spend on clothes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/technology/nasty-gal-an-on...
Where did the teenagers go? Away from your retail store where they're not wanted (unless they're working minimum wage in your employ).
For the past 10 or so years I've heard nothing but stories about troublesome teenagers in stores/malls, shoplifting flash mobs made of 'urban yoots', etc. They've gone so far as to make electronic buzzers that only the young can hear and they use them to drive the kids away (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito).
When you've spent the better part of a decade labeling teens with anti-social labels and actively driving them away with noise maybe you shouldn't ask why all the teens left (and took their money with them).