"Haul Videos" -- Shopping porn or just plain boring?

Another article in today's New York Times -- "Tube Tops and Teddy Bears" by Cathy Horyn -- also struck me as relevant to our class. In this short article, Horyn discusses the trend of "haul videos," where young women, mostly in their teens and twenties, show off purchases from recent shopping trips. Because the videos feature young women usually in their bedrooms, some are using the sinister label of "shopping pornography" to suggest something creepily voyeuristic about them. The author of the article, however, argues that those who give them this label haven't really watched them: her experiences after viewing was that they are really quite tedious. Despite how boring they seem to be, these videos get hundreds of thousands of views.

With all our fears of protecting our kids from what is dangerous, violent, sexually provocative, exploitative, etc., sometimes I think we could spend a bit more time helping steer them towards stuff that's not so shallow and boring. In some ways I fear the much more prevalent mind-numbing and relentless consumerism of much of what's in the media as much as the fringe wackos and perverts on the internet. As some of our readings in the last few weeks have suggested, most young people can spot those kind of creeps and avoid them. Can we say the same for how well we've trained them to recognize and be savvy about those who only want to sell them more junk and make them more insecure about their appearance?