Are Teens Really 'Underwhelmed' & 'Bored' With it All?

I was discussing the L.A. Times series with a colleague yesterday and realized I have a beef with the way it's being framed and the obvious bias of the story. It's written as a primer for Hollywood insiders on how they can better market to this generation of teens. It's almost as if you can hear the entertainment execs frustration and angst at this fast-changing world and the teens who feel so "entitled" to not consume the media Hollywood is creating for them. How dare they! For example:

"Maybe it is part of the human condition that the young are bored, but some think that this generation — children of baby boomers, sometimes called millennials — has been spoiled by the sheer volume of entertainment and technology choices available.

'I think there is more media gratification that younger people feel entitled to,' said Jordan Levin, who should know. Levin, a former chief executive of the WB network, was instrumental in developing the hit young adult shows 'Felicity' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'

Levin is now a partner in Generate, an entertainment company whose programs, thanks to an exclusive deal with MTV Networks, will be seen on television, cellphones and the Internet. Kids, Levin said, 'have grown up in an environment where they expect to get what they want, where they want it, when they want it.'"

And yes, they have a quote from a 13-year-old who says she's bored. But I don't see this generation of teens as being underwhelmed. I see them as having become increasingly media and marketing savvy by necessity because of the constant bombardment of messaging. Read this New York Times, reg. required, blog post about the level of sponsorship at this year's Lollapalooza (you have to scroll down to Day 3: And Now a Word From Our Sponsors). They are picky, critical and trust their friends more than some aging movie reviewer at a newspaper. They like to actively participate in their media experience and be able to create it, control it and influence it vs. sit passively and just consume it. And most of the gadgets and technology they are using are not really about more ways to consume entertainment content (and certainly not irrelevant ads), but are about connecting and sharing with their friends, just as teenagers from every generation have always done.

Today's installment is about sharing copyrighted materials, and the uphill battle the industry is facing in its fight against the copying of CDs and DVDs by a generation of teens who don't understand why it's wrong.

Has anyone else been following this series? What do you think?

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