How Social Media Affects The Youngsters in Generation Like Movie

In Generation Like (2014), filmmakers took a look at the rising popularity of various forms of social media, and how they affect today’s younger generation. Douglas Rushkoff interviewed many people with the goal of showing how they were influenced by social media, popular online personalities, and brands. Frontline used the tool of talking heads to take an expository look at the theme that corporations and brands can use sneaky marketing to have a large, widespread impact on the youth of the world –without the knowledge of the youth themselves.

The film featured extensive interviews, including one with a popular YouTube personality and “vlogger”, Tyler Oakley. Rushkoff asked Oakley questions about how he got so many subscribers, and Oakley replied, “It just happened out of the blue, and it happened without intent. A lot of what I did was talk about what I love, and people gravitated towards it, and it opened up a lot of opportunities.” Rushkoff made sure that the viewer interpreted “opened up a lot of opportunities” as opportunities from Oakley unknowingly marketing different brands. We saw shots of him at the MTV music awards, at a One Direction concert, and featured in a Pepsi commercial. Frontline used the talking heads interview to show that Oakley thought he was just having fun, but was in fact marketing those companies.

Ceili Lynch, a young The Hunger Games (2012) fan, was purposefully shown to the audience as a teenager who was sucked in to unintentionally marketing the movie. Rushkoff asks her questions about how much she likes The Hunger Games, to leave no doubt in the viewer’s mind about her obsession, and to show that she believes that she is just having fun and enjoying her favorite movie franchise. He doesn’t ask her anything like, “Do you believe that you are a part of marketing The Hunger Games?” Instead, he tells the audience, “Ceili sitting in her bedroom “liking” The Hunger Games isn’t just being marketed to, she’s actually part of the marketing campaign herself.”

The way Rushkoff sets Lynch and Oakley up in the interview is designed to “expose” the fact that the members of “Generation Like” have no idea that companies are exploiting their passions for money. He does not ask them questions that would garner responses destructive to his theme, but asks questions that will get the evidence he needs. He shows videos and pictures of Oakley and Lynch’s actions in a way that leads the audience to believe that they don’t realize they’re on the Pepsi or The Hunger Games marketing teams. The “talking heads” interview style that he uses is extremely effective in “exposing” the practices of the marketers of today.

Liam Horne is portrayed as an aware but naïve participant in the process. Horne is shown talking about how he was sponsored in a few videos by Adidas and Ford, but the focus is on how the companies are helping Horne, not the other way around. Horne is happy to have help with his videos, but he doesn’t acknowledge (and Rushkoff doesn’t ask about) the fact that he is heavily promoting certain brands that he may or may not agree with. Rushkoff still is heavily pushing his agenda through the use of the talking heads technique- even when it seems like the person may not perfectly fit the theme.

In this documentary, Oakley, Lynch, and Horne were shown willingly participating in social media and other technology. They appear to enjoy creating and sharing content based on the things that they like. They don’t talk about other purposes or effects, good or bad, of using social media, and that was purposeful on the part of the filmmakers. The creators of Generation Like, using the talking heads technique, were effectively able to show that youth of today are unknowingly doing a large part of the marketing for popular brand names.