Trinh Ly 

Professor Bellamy 

English Composition 

24 October 2019 

Teens Spending 

In modern day society, physical appearance dominates all other aspect of people’s life, this is especially true to teenagers. As society develops, the way people dress and how they look becomes one of the most important aspects of presenting their characteristic of how they want others to view them. Teens love to express themselves through fashion and to look cool so that they would fit into society. However, there are always two sides to everything, beneficial and harmful. Therefore, based on what I see in most teenagers around me and the society I live in, the question “what influence teenagers to spend a tremendous amount of money on expensive brands?” has always came across my mind. Teens spending will be the topic for this inquiry-based research essay.  

It is necessary and worth it to spend so much money on expensive fashion brands or products? I’m very curious to find out what draws teenagers to do that when seeing so many peers around me not realizing what they might be falling into. Often, teenagers don’t realize that they are being manipulated by others. “‘All too often retailers seem to see teens more as potential thieves than as consumers,’ notes Rinzler. ‘These young people have money to spend, and they know what they want. All retailers need to do is give it to them.’” (Nelson). Business companies tend to target on teenagers since they are most naive and can easily be persuade. Due to this, business companies can easily manipulate teens into the spending traps that they put out. Business companies know that teens are willing to spend for what they like, not thinking too much about the costs of the products they buy. Money might not be teenager’s main concern as long as they are able to get the products they like in order to satisfy their wants. Therefore, many brand businesses use teens as their tool of marketing to make money. 

” Kids and teens, because of their value as consumers and their ability to influence spending, are not only at ‘the epicenter of American consumer culture’ but are also the major targets of those powerful marketing and financial forces that service big corporations and the corporate state (Schor, Born 20) … Erased as future citizens of a democracy, kids are now constructed as consuming and saleable objects.” (Giroux 716) When teens see something that attracts their attention, it’s very likely for them to buy the product especially when they can pull it off. Pulling it off refers to if the product would look good on them or match the way they look which would further motivate them into buying the item. The idea of how good or perfect they’d look wearing the item and the feeling of how attractive the item looks is very tempting to teens. It’d result in clouding their judgment and they would end up buying the item disregarding the price of it. Business companies see this as a weakness of teens and use it to their advantage without them knowing. 

In addition, teenagers have a deep pocket when it comes to the brands they like. “Moreover, the present generation of teenagers are more value conscious and more knowledgeable about product differences than previous generations. They also place a strong emphasis on buying brand name products that have reputations for high quality. Sporting goods retailers who want to tap this market segment must take these characteristics in mind in planning marketing strategies…” (Nelson). Business companies know what teenagers want and like, so this way they can aim on their weakness to get them spending on their products and use it against them when designing their products and its placement. They hire their own marketing strategists to present their new products in creative ways that would drag teenager’s attention towards them. This would allow the advertisement to look more appealing since the strategists have a wider range of knowledge on what to put on the ads to draw them in.  As soon as it attracts one, more and more would be attracted when they see their peers wearing the products. 

The placement of the items is very crucial as well, if the item is placed all the way in the back, most would not notice it which defeats the purpose of getting teens to buy their products. The best place to put the item that’s appealing is in the front, so that way teens would notice it as they walk to the popular item which would be placed in the middle or the back of the store. Popular items wouldn’t necessarily need to be placed in the front since teens already know it exists and that they want it. The best way to get teens attention is to have items in front of them since teens these days have very short attention span. When the popular item is placed in the middle, this makes teenagers walk more while also looking at other products the store provides. They’ll most likely end up buying more than they intend to in the end since they have the money to afford it, if they didn’t then it wouldn’t have attracted them in the first place. 

Trends are used to attract teenagers to spend since most teens want to be up to date with their fashions so they wouldn’t feel left behind and out of style. Most trends tend to begin by celebrities around the world, famous people and idols, which then catches teens attention when they see their celebrity crush expressing themselves through a distinct style of clothing. It could also be from celebrities starting their own clothing brands which would attract teenagers to excessively seek for new design from them. They would want to support their favorite celebrity or admirer and the best way to do it is to spend money on their products/merchandise. Some examples of famous people who started their clothing line would be Kanye West (collaborated with Adidas to create Yeezy), Michael Jordan (collaborated with Nike to create Air Jordan), or Stephen Curry (collaborated with Under Armour to create Under Armour Curry). 

Most teenagers won’t seem to care so much on the cost of the products as long as they like it and think the quality is good enough based on brands name. “Some teens on Manhattan’s Upper East Side express a ready passion for brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Burberry and Chanel.”(Kletter and D’Innocenzio). “About ten stores and brands seem to dominate, including MAC, Forever 21, Sephora, Lush, Ulta, Victoria’s Secret, Hollister, Ameri can Eagle, Charlotte Russe, and Wet Seal.” (Jeffries). Those who’re considered the top brands are better than every other brand because they’re known for their clothing’s quality. This means that their products would be more expensive since they, supposedly, use high end quality materials to create their products. Teenagers would still buy overly priced items because of the brand’s name or overly hyped products. An example would be the brand supreme, as soon as a new hyped product is announced and released, people would camp overnight just to be one of the few people to be able to possess the item. This is due to the fact that the items are usually limited in quantities which means first come first served. A regular plain supreme shirt is at least 40 or 50 dollars with just their logo on their shirt, yet teenagers would still be dying to get their hands on the products.  

Spending money is like a drug to teens, an addiction that can’t be stopped even when they know they should be saving it for important uses. It is a very expensive drug when trends are a continuous vicious cycle of new and improved items with the same concept, to get as much products sold as possible. Teens would then fall for company’s traps since they want to spend money and also be up to date with what’s popular at the moment. Fitting in is the most crucial part of our generation today, not feeling like they belong with their peers can tremendously affect their life. It can cause teens to be mentally not okay, become an introvert, have anxiety, be stressed, be distanced, etc. Which is why not fitting in would be the last thing teens want to happen to them, this gives them more of a motivation to continuously shop for things they may not even need. 

Social media can be another factor that strive teenagers to excessively spend money without a second thought. Teens spend most, if not all, of their free time on social media looking at popular trends that they could involve themselves in to pass time because they have nothing better to do. With this, teens would be motivated to start their own posts/page on social media to attract attention so they would have something to keep them occupied. They would want to look fashionable and presentable to the public to gain followers and likes which makes them feel accomplished. “Leo Mandella, 14, from Warwickshire, aka @Gully-GuyLeo, is the hero of the hypebeast. With 348k followers, he is turning his love of coppable clothing into a career that has transformed him into one of the biggest names in streetwear. ‘It began with me just expressing myself through outfits and ideas, and I guess it just went from there,’” He would be one of the example of a teenager inspired by social media to express himself through fashion that attracts a lot of viewers. As social media continues to grow, become more popular and noticed by more people, influential figures feel the need to be a role model for their viewers. Soon they would become one of the trend setters and would want to try all kinds of new fashion style, attracting teenagers to keep trend alive. 

Some teens may feel concerned about their favorite youtuber or celebrity not making enough money and may give up on what they’re doing to find a real job to be able to make a living out of it. Youtubers especially is a hard job to start out but can be very beneficial when they become successful and that’s when merchandise would come in hand. As their channel continues to grow, a logo would soon be created with many fans, mostly teenagers since they’re mostly the ones watching YouTube and using the internet as a source of entertainment. Fans would want to show their support and love for their favorite youtuber would then convince them to create their own merchandise line, there making even more money than they already do. If teens have money to spend, which they do if they work, they would help their favorite youtubers profit as much as they can to show their support as a true fan. 

Teens are very obsessive over being a celebrity’s number one fan. This would mean that they’d go to every event or concert, purchase each and every product, limited time offer items and make their celebrity notice them. They’d end up having so much products to the point where they won’t even be able to keep track and remember every item that they’ve gotten. This would then defeat the purpose of them buying the item in the first place besides helping to support them in what they’re doing. This obsession can lead teens into a dark path of spending without thinking and when grown up, can lead to them being in debt or even bankrupted. 

As teenagers start to hit the appropriate age of which their parents are more lenient to let them hangout with friends after school without questioning them. They will start to learn to spend money and have desire to buy things they want with friends influences. They would need money and the only way to get it was from their parents. It motivates them to start earning allowance from helping around the house and do chores. This might not be the best way since they will still be restricted to buy certain things and be monitored of their spending by their parents since it’s not their own money that they’re spending 

 When teens feel like a burden to their parents for constantly asking for money to spend when they go out with their friends, they feel the need to be responsible and get themselves a job. When they finally get a job, it makes them feel obligated to spend their earnings even though they know that they should save it for college and other uses. Getting a job allow them to spend without having to ask their parents since now it’s their own money that they’re making so no one can tell them what they can or can’t do with it anymore. They have the freedom to spend without anyone monitoring their expenses and this causes them to want to spend on themselves by buying all the things they’ve ever wanted. It makes them feel motivated and accomplished when they’re able to spend the money they earn, having things to buy makes them want to work so that they can afford it. Which is why they convince themselves that they need to be rewarded for working by spending their money on top brand items, buying the best of the best. It would satisfy them and motivate them to continue working knowing that they’d be able to get those items they so desperately want. This leads to them constantly look online for popular and trending clothing to purchase to make themselves satisfied. Now all the clothing they’ve ever wanted can be bought with their own money without thinking about the price of the items. 

Teenagers would need to learn to have financial responsibility and saving money before getting themselves in depth with the ways they waste money on expensive brands.  

Page BreakWork Cited 

Jeffries, Laura. “The Revolution Will Be Soooo Cute: YouTube ‘Hauls’ and the Voice of Young Female Consumers.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 33, no. 2, 2011, pp. 59–75. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23416384. 

 

Giroux, Henry A. “Youth in the Empire of Consumption: Beyond the Pedagogy of Commodification.” JAC, vol. 29, no. 4, 2009, pp. 691–756. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20866922. 

 

Kletter, Melanie, and Anne D’Innocenzio. “YOUNG LUXE; WITH MORE MONEY TO SPEND, TEENS TODAY ARE IN HOT PURSUIT OF DESIGNER BRANDS.” WWD, 30 May 2000, p. 54S. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A62503847/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=1e0b3114. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019. 

 

Nelson, Mary. “Teen spirit.” Sporting Goods Business, July 1995, p. 92+. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A17294195/ITOF?u=cuny_ccny&sid=ITOF&xid=acd6e7a1. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.  

 

“Thursday: new drop at Supreme. Buy cap, PS40. Friday: wear cap, post on Instagram. Saturday: list cap on Depop. Sunday: sell cap for PS350. Monday: go to school. MEET the army of teen resellers making up to PS1,500 a month and changing the luxury landscape. Scarlett Curtis reports.” Sunday Times [London, England], 24 Sept. 2017, p. 54. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A506168728/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=142c75e8. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.