A Money-Crazed American Youth

In a world where MTV boasts real-life dramas about extravagant teenage parties, and People Magazine's pages are splattered with the next adolescent celebrity splurges, it is of no surprise that today's youth have become a money-crazed generation including the most extravagant spenders in the market. A realization of the transformation of teenage spending came to me in, of all places, my high school parking lot. When I got my driver's license I became increasingly aware of the vehicles my peers were driving. The black asphalt of our parking lot was speckled with BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus emblems. But it was more than just shiny new cars with price tags that exceeded the average American's income: it was the complete brand affiliation, and the idea had not only taken over my high school, but America.

It is hard for teenagers of this day to ignore the glamour and luxury that they see surrounding them. In addition, it is hard to ignore the glaring logos on the neatly pressed shirts and pants of students walking throughout some of our schools. And if teenagers don't see high-end brand spending in their schools, turning on television daily exposes them to similar glamour and wealth, giving you either a tour of a teen-celebrity mansion, or colorfully displays a young girl spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of her parent's money on jewelry and couture for a party. It has, in recent years, become blatantly obvious that there has been a shift in teenage interests, and adolescence has become a period dominated by the idolization of brands and big buyers.