1460 Apr 26

Rough Transcript¶

You want to meet let's talk about the period after World War II World War II and the American dream created a consumer culture based on that American Dream but it was also a very well defined one it said in order to be a good American you want to be loyal you want to be patriotic you want to be a good American you have to pursue this dream what about the people who don't want to what about people who don't feel comfortable in that for the people who want to go on get that white collar job enter the hamster wheel rat race and work and work and save and save and one day be able to indulge in the profits of their hard work over time they're not interested in getting married they're not interested in having kids maybe they don't want an eight to five job maybe that's not them and they kind of feel out of place what's more the pressure by America to push on people this American Dream America's doing it to keep the economy rolling and they're using everything in their Arsenal to keep people spending and that's okay as far as it goes but at a certain point the Conformity that they are forcing on America suddenly makes people question again is this really the land of the free because their feelings more and more trapped inside that box what's more when you couple that with the paranoia and the overt oppression that is caused because of the cold war and how they're pushing you should be afraid of the Soviet Union big bombs going off oh boogie man boogie man boogie man A lot of people are going this isn't my country this isn't how I want my country to be this isn't my life I want my life to be different than this and so you're going to start seeing push back against this and that is what we're going to talk today about that is the rise of the counterculture and it's significance in consumers one of the big groups in the post World War II period that really was part of this pushback in fact they were in a large extent leading the pushback against this American Dream Conformity that is being forced on you they become known as The Beat Generation and they mean beat because they are exhausted they're tired they're beat and in many ways they are very very similar to The Lost Generation that followed World War 1 and remember when we were talking about The Lost Generation they came home and progressivism had changed America in such a short time in the veterans felt like they were under attack and a lot of people suddenly started looking around at how controlling everything had become they said ooh this isn't the America I want and they will ask Patriots they'll go live in Europe instead people like Hemingway Fitzgerald Stein and others well you're going to see some of that similarity here except they're pushing back against different things back then the over social control that they had from progressivism was certainly part of it but also the heavy criticism the lack of jobs the white spread Union Uprising all of the chaos and people were just going this isn't right this is chaotic I don't like this and they'll leave because of that but the post World War II period was not a downturn it was an upturn things got better for people the economy is rolling in fact it is more than rolling it is steamrolling it is going Hog Wild it's booming but a lot of people look at this saying yeah but am I getting anything positive to me is this bringing meaning to my life okay so we have more stuff but what does it really mean we have to fit inside this narrow box to be a good American and so there's a pushback from that the Beat Generation writers are some of the first who really enunciate this feeling that put it into work put it into songs in a way these guys are kind of like what you would think about as people who have slam contests at Starbucks at night you know out in big cities like San Francisco New York wherever you know they dress in dark clothes they are kind of Outsiders they're they don't really fit in society what would you call those people today come on people hanging out at coffee shops at night indulging artistic whims operating outside the box all the time they drive a smart car they bring their lunch in a violin case stuff like that hipsters right I say hipster and what do you think of people wearing skinny jeans buying a latte pretty much well guess what these guys are the original hipsters in fact that is the name for themselves that they accept hipsters so the Beat Generation writers start making a huge impact they're challenging this American Dream idea they're challenging the Conformity they're challenging the lack of Freedom it has and the critics who are trying to maintain this American Dream Conformity this consensus period where everybody is supposed to think and act and behave exactly the same way as everybody else well they fire back at these people in increasing amounts and so attention is rising between them now the 1950s were really interesting times because this also happened to be the rise of the Space Race now let me ask you guys a question who got on the scoreboard first in the space race in Russia and what did they do first satellite but Nick good yes buttoning and from that point on everything associated with Communism anytime you wanted to associate something with Socialism or red you wanted to throw that suspicionate people question their American identity now they had a way to identify that they had on the Nick from Sputnik you'll start hearing all sorts of new labels for things and every time they want portray them as communist they throw that Nick on the end and so the Beat Generation became known as the beatniks and that's sort of the name of that stuff this is what beat next look like and actually this is a great photograph I love this and the reason I love this is because there's a couple very very famous people in this Photograph first off do you guys know who that is anyone who's that guy second in from the right Bob Dylan very good one of the biggest protests artists who performed you know singing during the 60s he was a big name in the anti-war movement and his songs were very influential well he was a beaten he was part of that beat generation the writers and singers and artists of this period of time so having him here shows his shows that he is actually in this before he becomes a famous musician and then this guy on the right I'm pretty sure most of you don't recognize him does anybody recognize him anyway end of the two biggest writers associated with the Beat Generation he's one of them the other being Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsburg are the most recognizable names he is famous for a poem that he wrote called Howell has anybody read that in their classes or anything no okay well it was very distinctive and it became internationally famous it's what he's most known for how old was him screaming at how everything was wrong why what was wrong in order to be a good loyal American you had to pursue the American dream husband wife two kids suburbs eight to five job rat race two cars a mortgage right well enter him he doesn't like suburbs he prefers life in the city he's not going to get married because he's gay he's not going to have kids and he hates the idea of being stuck in an office for 8 to 10 hours a day he doesn't want that rat race he wants a different kind of life and the reason he writes howl is because so many people are attacking the people who don't fit inside that box this becomes a voice that an entire generation start identifying with even if they're not gay they can understand where he's coming from and what the frustrations they have are because he starts enunciated now the interesting thing about these guys they are incredibly influential in how Society will start to take shape why do I say that well first of all they are starting to reject mainstream American values they're pushing back against it one of these things is rejection of the Christian or I should say the judeo-christian norm that rises in this period of time the judeo Christian Community that is at the core of the American dream is being challenged by these guys they're interested increasingly in eastern mistressism Asian religions Buddhism Hinduism taoism Etc and they start checking them out some of them will start practicing those Allen Ginsberg is famous because he learned how to play the sitar which is very popular in India and he starts playing Indian music while he's I love how the computer just seems to have a mind of its own sometimes okay so this push back with religion is just part of it he actually Embraces Hinduism another thing is these guys are the guys who start the sexual Revolution free love it's famous in the 60s right who do you associate with the free love moment anyone hippies you know what hippies means hipster the hippies came out of these guys these guys are the ones who laid down the foundations of what the hippies will become they will Embrace their rebellion and resistance sexual Revolution begins with them these guys are the forerunners of the hippies another thing that they will do they will start using drugs to expand their Consciousness and see things in the world in a different way if you read the writings of the beat writers if you read Jack kerouac's famous book on the road which which really persuaded an entire generation of kids to get in the car travel across the country to California and do something unique different he did that with one book and then Alan Ginsburg and his writing will be interesting thing about the writing of the beat Riders it all shares a certain labor feel a certain characteristic and a lot of people think it's probably because most of that writing was done when they were high okay now what are they high on well of course they're doing some pot every now and then well more than now and then all the time but they're drug of choice when they're going to be writing was not marijuana they were expanding their Consciousness they don't want to make their mind slow down they want to change his perspective it is a hallucinogen yes they're drug of choice was much magic mushrooms now I'm taking for granted that most of you probably have never had magic mushrooms yeah I'm not going to put you on the spot in case you have okay not going to ask you to raise your hand on this one all right probably 2:30 probably go up and the others are probably going no not going to touch that stuff or yeah I've done it but I'm not going to admit it okay magic mushrooms are different basically what the world looks like when you take magic mushrooms it's not like taking LSD where everything starts moving in and out of shapes and warping and all kinds of stuff it's different it basically makes you a kid in a candy store everything Suddenly It's just amazing the colors are more vibrant everything is fun and amazing it's like an eight year old going to Disneyland for the very first time that's kind of what magic mushrooms do to people and with that that childlike approach and the Innocence that goes with it is a characteristic of their writing but also with it comes an idealism a belief that the world doesn't have to stay this way we can make it better there's a romantic notion to it colored with a heavy dose of reality that's what makes it so unusual it is both realistic and idealistic at the same time that gives it an interesting field and that's a characteristic of all the hipsters writing the beatniks that's why there's stuff sounds a lot to say okay they focus on the limits of free expression how Conformity is so restrictive to people it is basically alienating a lot of people in society making them feel like Outsiders and it is also tapping into a rising feeling in the Youth of America who are getting raised within this American Dream structure sin I don't like what I'm feeling they don't know why they don't like it but they do know that their entire life is planned out ahead of them and they are reluctant to take that first step can you guys relate to that getting out of high school facing college and you're going home man everybody pushing me on that path is that the path I want to be on maybe maybe I want to take a different path maybe I want to go over there and that questioning is part of being young you want to figure out what you want to do in life right you want to figure out the direction it's going to go well they all see the direction going One Direction there's a super highway for the American dream and no side roads there's no way to get off the interstate and this is causing the young people to question too these guys are the Forefront of rebellion but the Youth of America are rebelling too they just don't know how to enunciate it they don't know how to put it into words one of the biggest examples of this was in 1955 the release of a movie of one of the most famous actors of this time James Dean what's he known for what movie anyone I mean he's done a lot of movies but there was one big one he was really known for anyone nobody how many people have heard of James Dean okay well that's something at least okay talk about a theme for a generation their rebelling against something they're not quite sure why but they know they don't fit and so they start acting out but they don't really have a target for their acting out they're just rebelling and so you start seeing this big team and early 20s early young adult Rebellion on a wide scale basis this is where you start seeing things like if you heard of American Graffiti movie way back when Harrison Ford played a street racer in that movie yeah people start acting out leather jackets the bonds Grease you guys heard of any of these okay well that Rebellion that leather jacket I don't want to be part of it smoking cigarettes off in the corner I leave me alone kind of thing that became White spread so even though they don't have the definition they are still part of this seething rebellion and James Dean becomes the poster child why this becomes his last movie right after filming Rebel Without a Cause he got into a car accident and died he rolled his car and he had a convertible he died and he died young so he forever will be symbolized with this Rubble Without a Cause young person screaming out against the Conformity of society and ultimately getting killed by his own impulses he will become the symbol of rebellion for an entire generation he becomes a hero of the young people and a martyr to their cause now there's another person who's becoming very influential in this period of time also and his name is Elvis Elvis Presley the king now when we talk about the beatnics we've talked about the sexual Revolution their experimentation with drugs the music that they're creating what do we got here sex drugs and rock and roll beat next for the guys who basically invented that well he's the guy who lived it drug addict check alcoholic check famous for sleeping with any woman that will sit still for more than five five seconds check he actually had his own bedroom in the Playboy Mansion did you know that he was a visitor to the Playboy Mansion Hugh Hefner invited him in and when he was there there was it is a legend there that he actually spent the night with eight of the 12 Playmates for that year the women who are in the centerfold after he stayed there and left you Hefner roped off the room and he wouldn't even let it be cleaned up and for years only his friends and people that he really wanted to share it with he would open the door and show them but he would never let anybody go in now I don't know what they've done with it since for all I know the new purchasers of the I mean it was sold after he died but the Playboy Mansion was legendary for a long time and that room was sort of a shrine to Elvis especially after he died in 1977 but yeah right oh yeah yeah his relationship with Priscilla was well odd to say the least you guys know that their daughter just died not long ago yeah Lisa Marie okay did you know that she was married to Michael Jackson okay now Elvis he was different rock and roll thing now rock and roll at this point had been an underground music scene and it was largely in the African American Community Elvis is the guy who took it mainstream this is when rock and roll becomes big now he was not the person who invented it but he is the person who made it nationally huge because of the young people and how they responded to him his music was also distinctive he starts talking about or singing about very sexual theme ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time why is he crying he's horny yeah and when you couple that with the dance that he's doing here he starts thrusting his hips at the crowd while he's thinking nothing but a hound dog and so it's very suggestive and the older Generations both of the music and the reaction of their parents and that just encourages them to listen to it more because it's listening to Elvis becomes a form of rebellion he takes off the rising social norms of this generation this young group of the 50s and early 60s who are coming of age it's different they're looking at the American dream as being not something that they necessarily want follow now does that mean all of them no truth is probably 70 to 80% of them look at the American dream sand that's what I want but what about the other 20 to 30% their questioning and they're very loud in their question a very famous author he want to pull it sir anyway he wrote an article called the white negro no understand that he is playing on a lot of the stereotypes for African Americans that are still prevalent in a white supremacist country because this is pre-civil Rights era we haven't really moved into full civil rights at this point the battle is going on but when he writes this he's playing on those prejudices he says basically the only life-giving answer to the monotony of conformity this restricted American Dream was to abandon physical and spiritual Security in other words give up their religion give up this future job that would have them doing the rat race for years and years and instead delt straight into the world of instant gratification why save for tomorrow when you can spend today why worry about what's going to happen in the future when you can be dead they see people dying all the time by the mid 60s people their age where where are their generation dying 60s people there we go a lot of there friends their neighbors people that grew up with so over to Vietnam and they don't come home alive if they come home at all they come home in the middle box and that's waking up a lot of the Youth of America especially in the 60s a work ethic that the American dream encourages leads to postpone gratification Norman mailer sets and he says instead they're following the imperative selfishness the imperatives of self what they want they don't really care about what they should be doing they only care what they want to do now if it feels good for you instant gratification basically he says on these two Polar Opposites you have the man and the great flannel suit who was following the American dream and on the other hand you have the American history and the kids are moving over to the fitness category he Associates that with the Moors of black society music style calling rock rock and roll he's still calling it Jazz but their taste for jazz drugs slang and the moral disregard they average sexual appetites that blacks are supposed to have in other words he's commenting on the sexual Revolution he says it this is basically their way of resisting cold water pressure this is their way of saying I don't feel comfortable in this and so this is how they're reacting to it what are they looking for they're on a quest for an authentic experience they want something real he says basically they're looking at Society being over civilized and it becomes artificial in the process now the interesting thing about mailer despite the racial undertones or overtones if you will of his writing is that he actually Nails a lot of it right on the head not his comparison to black society but what the kids are thinking what they're feeling what they're going through and why they're doing it he says it's all about a disdain for Wonder Bread Tail Fins suburbs and everything plastic they look around at the society America has become and they see that it is artificial everything's fake you know why Wonder Bread is so wonderful why it creates so much wonder you wonder where the nutrition went they took the bread out of the bread and left you with what something that tastes good and contributes no positive benefits to your health sugar yeah and so he's just people are reacting to this this over civilized thing where they're forcing everybody into this little box and everything is artificial the cars are made to look like planes and Rockets they don't even look like cars what happened to cars looking like cars why decorated with all this other crap and make it look fake why don't we go back to the normal he says the kids of this generation are looking for something real something authentic and all they're seeing is fake artificial and hypocrisy everywhere they look by the 1960s resisting conformity was elevated to a whole new level and one place it really launched forward was Berkeley the Free Speech movement was led by a Berkeley student named Mario Savio seen here basically these students had put out some flyers and printed some things to distribute on campus that said we don't really like what's going on in Southeast Asia this was in 64 so the war in Vietnam hadn't fully kicked in yet but we had troops in the area and it was clearly ramping up tensions were building Anderson we don't like what's going on there we don't think America should really get involved here and they start speaking out about it well the University of California Berkeley censored them they said no you can't distribute them and they confiscate those flyers and they start holding demonstration saying we have a right to put that out there and Berkeley called in the cops and had the students at that rally arrested well the problem here is Berkeley is one of the elite universities in California and a lot of really really important and wealthy people send their kids there and some of them just got arrested and so the Berkeley president at the time he gets this phone call thing yeah you know you just arrested my son in this rally well I'm very sorry but he was participating yeah yeah you arrested my son in this rally and you know that 5 million dollar donation I was going to make for that new edition onto X building I think we're going to go a different direction sorry and that started happening again and again and again and the university president's going oh my gosh this is a capacitor and so in order to play Kate the parents it allows the students to do what they're going to do but keep in mind was he in violation of the law actually yes Berkeley is a public institution not private if the president at USC had pulled this he could get away with it legally the president at Berkeley Berkeley is a state school it has Public Funding which means it is government and the government is bound by the Constitution and the First Amendment says you can't restrict speech or freedom of the press and he was doing that so if this had gone to court Berkeley would have gotten slapped down hard for this so he reversed his position and what lesson did the kids learn all of these students who are protesting what did they learn if we stick to our guns and unite in common cause our voice can make a difference we you want to know why Berkeley ends up being the center of the protest world this is why because they've done it they've won which means they can win again so in the anti-war movement in the feminist movement in the Civil Rights Movement Berkeley will be right at the heart of a lot of those protests that become internationally famous when John Lennon from the Beatles comes over to what to walk in anti war marches and he's on the anti war bandwagger celebrities movie stars musicians alike they will all come to Berkeley we talked about Charles Manson and his appeal he's at Berkeley during this period of time and he has that appeal because his ideas are outside the box they're looking for that they're on a journey for something real they don't know what it is they just know that they're wanting it they're on a quest for it now why does this have something to do with consumerism well the truth is as much as the kids of the day of those 40s and 50s felt increasingly restricted and oppressed like the pressure of everything is waiting down on them and they're trying to keep it up the advertisers feel that way too they've been Trapped By The Genius of their own creation The American Dream has not just put a box around the American public it's put a box around them and the lid has been nailed shut they are looking for a way to get out of that trap and counterculture gives them the pry bar to get the lid of that is what they're going to ride right out of the Trap they're going to subvert it rejecting tradition embracing immediate desires self gratification the imperatives itself this is a retailers dream come true the advertisers are going to Stage their own creative revolution because they want to get out of this trap that they've created where everything has to fit into that American Dream now they're going to be breaking out of it and using that sense of rebellion being your own person the Quest for something real they're going to embrace it and they're going to subvert it for their own good you're going to use it for advertising and it will be jeans one thing that they to learn from doing this if I ask you when an Advertiser targets a group of people what do you call that group of people that they are targeting with their ass you're called what a demographic demographic okay you are a demographic you're all college students that makes you a Democrat but what advertisers figure out is if they tailor their demographics more specifically to who they're trying to reach their advertising becomes much more effective for example if you're trying to sell to email college students don't Target all college students so segmented demographics is something that emerges in this period of time and the best example of this in action is the battle between Coke and Pepsi the Colo now Coke has been around for years and Pepsi has been constantly trying to break into their Marketplace but they've been unable to do it hope has an ironclad hold on it but Coke markets their product differently than Pepsi won't then Pepsi will in this period of time and Pepsi does some pretty genius stuff so what is Coke do first of all Santa Claus what's he look like red hat red suit trimmed with what white fur what color is it red and white Coca-Cola created Santa Claus as we know him today before Coca-Cola came along when they portrayed Saint Nicholas he was generally wearing green they changed his outfit to red and white so it looked like Coca-Cola was Christmas and even to this day every time Christmas comes along you see Santa Claus holding mechanic Coke think about this as an international thing Santa Claus travels all around the world to all the boys and girls and delivers all the presents on Christmas Eve so that they wake up Christmas morning and ooh there they are Santa Claus and Coke Global they're selling to everybody all people are targeted by Coke take a good look at Coca-Cola's ads when they come out they show people of different ages different races different nationalities men women boys girls everybody holding hands and singing Kumbaya holy cow that's Coke Pepsi says let's do it differently here people why don't instead of focusing on selling to everyone we'll sell to the people who actually drink soda the most and so they do they come up with an ad campaign that was absolutely genius Pepsi be your own person don't drink cold at all drink the uncola drink 7 up and look what they're advertising here okay hear no evil speak no evil say no evil you know that whole thing the three monkeys doing their thing well they're hippies and they're in psychedelic colors they're clearly referencing counterculture you want to be a rebel you want to be counterculture don't don't settle for Cola that's Main Street even Pepsi is Main Street instead drink the uncola this campaign is still going with 7UP they still refer to themselves as the uncola Pepsi still says we are the choice of a new generation Coke says Kumbaya find its way into Automotive as well cars Oldsmobile has an unfortunate name old is part of their name and they want to try to convince younger buyers that their car is made for younger audiences so they say don't buy an old mobile buy a Young mobile instead and boy did they create some good ones you see that car there if that car were in perfect original condition today it would probably sell for somewhere between 80 and 100,000 they were part of the muscle car movement of this period of time big engines horrible gas money culture became the battleground of business competition and you know what else it did it's sped up rapid fashion obsolescence now we talked about fashion obsolescence right how Fashions go in and then they go out well instead of going in and out for a year maybe two years they're trying to do it every six months and then pretty soon they start doing it every four months and then they try to cram it down to three months to where they can get three or four Cycles a year that's what a lot of the advertisers and products are trying to do the more you can convince people well that's obsolete now there's something new they have to go out and buy new stuff will the kids are going whoa wait a minute things are going too fast and a lot of the kids will say you know what I don't feel any better buying these things and they start stripping their life down to simplicity get rid of a lot of the materialistic crap and focus on what they really value connecting with people and so you start seeing something unusual in the '60s rather than people getting more stuff in their life the kids start simplifying their lives by stripping the unnecessary stuff that doesn't have any way of making them feel better they get rid of it and they focus on the things that make them feel better they are on a quest for something real but guess what happens when advertisers start using counterculture every time you turn around when it's blaring from every radio when it's on every billboard when it's coming out of your TV set and inundating you what does it do all of a sudden counterculture becomes the new culture and it's no longer counterculture at that point is it when that becomes the dominant voice out there that's no longer the counterculture but what's unusual here is the dominant voice is the voice of the minority at this point most people are still on the American dream Highway they're still going for that and that's even to this day how many of you want to go out get a good job maybe an executive position have a good life buy a car buy a house get married have babies a lot of you probably want to do that kind of thing okay great well 80% of the American Youth want that but the other 20% are the only ones who are being heard so counterculture has become the new dominant culture even though most people don't follow it but the Quest for something real is something that people were looking for and it is in this that yet another car Advertiser figures it out big and it was Volkswagen now this is not something new this is actually a reverting to something older remember Henry Ford what time you changed it was either improve it or make it less expensive to manufacture quality durability those were his Hallmarks that's what he wanted to build well guess what we're seeing a return to that the same model T came out year after year now Volkswagen picks up on that the books wagon theory of evolution notice they're tying into Darwin the same car every year can you tell the difference no the design of the Volkswagen Beetle does not really evolve very much but those advertisers had a lot to overcome these guys had to reinvent this car why do you guys know the history of this car the Volkswagen Beetle this car was personally or at least had a hand personally by Adolf Hitler and it's designed it was known as the Nazi mobile yikes do you really want that stigma on your car specially at the Holocaust probably not and so advertisers have to come up with a way to reinvent this car and get people to look at it differently and not associated with you know Hitler so they start changing it it becomes now the young hip affordable car of you they also are famous for their sexist advertising I'll tell you that right now okay here's a good example she's ugly she's cheap and she gets around your car is a w**** but take a look what the record actually selling self mockery becomes a very powerful tool she's ugly again they put it out there hey we're not going to lie to you our car is ugly it's an ugly car but you know what at a certain point ugly sort of becomes cute too and a lot of people think that the beetle is cute but more than that she's ugly okay she's cheap this car is very inexpensive and for the Youth of America who don't feel like they want to buy a Cadillac for top dollar they just want something to eat cheap works and then she gets around she will get you from point A to B this car will do everything you needed to do it's transportation and it's affordable that's what they're selling but the self mockery and the reality of it is something new they're selling honesty brutally self-deprecating honesty that Quest For Real they tap into it and that really keys on with the younger generation the emphasize the changes would only be made to make the car function better and they start really openly scorning those car ads that are emphasizing these new changes that make the car so much better from this year from last year when really it's just cosmetics it's saying they don't respect your intelligence as a buyer but we do and you know what they actually have a point they didn't respect their particular intelligence the Volkswagen essentially had become the anti car for the rest of the car market this is the counterculture car that will move and when you think back to the 60s and what the hippies were driving or were they driving those right painted with flowers and psychedelic colors and all sorts of weird stuff though but notice the sexual yeah if you can sell her on this you can sell her on anything wrong and then there's this one another sex and stuff sooner or later your wife will drive home notice one of the best reasons in other words play bad drivers they actually do studies about this showing time and again women actually have far fewer accidents than men do yeah so this is starting to change people's opinion the young people of America are buying Volkswagens but in the 70s it really changes when Disney makes a movie about a mischievous troublemaking Volkswagen who rushes in and saves the day at the end and his name is Herbie the Love Bug and their success is complete the Nazi mobile has transitioned into the chief affordable car of Youth into and Hitler's forgotten talk about genius advertising these guys got their money they did it right and if you take a look at Volkswagens advertising today they follow the same basic approach to this they insult their own product and they tell you the truth about it that's something that they try to do okay so why is hip advertising taking over everything why is this becoming so big so powerful in selling well for one thing after World War II all those veterans came home and they either got married before they went over or as soon as they got home they immediately got married and what are they sure do cranking out kids like there's no tomorrow they're getting busy yeah and all of a sudden the families come along but they're not satisfied with the two kids per family they're starting to have three four five six kids eight kids 10 kids they're cranking our kids like there's no tomorrow and America gets it's single largest population swell in its entire history and that generation becomes known as the Baby Boomers now advertising around this period of Time start focusing on them why in 1969 50% of the American population was under the age of 25 half the country was under the age of 25 that is huge it's never been that high before and so as time goes on if you watch the advertising it'll stay focused on when you turn on your TV today what kind of ads do you see pharmaceutical thing companies new drugs dealing with arthritis and diabetes up see those Life Alert ads you see all that stuff right why because all of those guys are now in their 70s and 80s and advertising is still following them like a sunflower following the Sun yeah so the lesson of consumerism what are the ads for playing they tell you straight out consumerism is a fraud but you're smart enough that you know that it demands that you act like everybody else and fit in but you you're an individual you're a rebel it's okay consumer culture will try to sell you shoddy products that don't do anything for you and fall apart quick but you know better than to fall for that you crave something real you crave often history but you're too smart to fall for all that stuff that the ad people are throwing at you oh yeah you know better than to listen to us notice that they're calling themselves Liars but they're telling the truth aren't they yes consumer cup consumer culture Fosters conventions that are unfulfilling and unfulfilling and repressive now is that true will stop make you happier something's Mike but it won't guarantee happiness hip Trends can smash through all that garbage no more stifling mores of the past Conformity has been the bulwark of society they're telling you you have to fit in that box but now it's different you can be outside of the box it's about diversity now be your own person be a rebel just like everybody else did you catch that there's the ultimate Paradox of their selling be a rebel like everyone else well if you're like everyone else it's not Rebellion is it it's just standard well that's what they've done they have essentially normalized Rebellion being a rebel is not rebellious if you want to look at the real Rebellion at this time it's the people who ignore all this crap go to college have a pocket protector the nerd glasses with the tape on it they go through it they get a job they get an engineering position and they go on and make a great living for the rest of their life those become the real Rebels all of a sudden it's kind of flipped over another important thing that they figure out sell to women advertising has been dominated by men forever and around this period of time they start figuring out hey you know we'd be a lot more effective if we're selling to women they're starting to figure that out but they don't quite have the hang of it do they there's still a lot of sexism in this and a lot of women have been going they're so insulting yeah absolutely yeah and they're getting much better at selling to him and the reason because they actually start hiring more women that's you want to talk about the way advertising actually gets better at selling to women that's it hire more women at exits and you'll get better well this is what they start doing and again what were the two big industries that you really have to watch for to be the ones who are the ones who revolutionized advertising cars cigarettes these guys hit a home run not just a home run these guys hit a grand slam Virginia Slims this was one of the most genius marketing campaigns ever why they've been trying to figure out how to get women to smoke for years and some women do but what do they actually do here Virginia Slims isn't just encouraging women to smoke they came out with a line of female cigarettes the cigarettes are female if you are a male smoker you feel uncomfortable smoking one of these even if you have to bum it off someone okay I can speak from experience yes I'm a former smoker I quit a long time ago but when you're addicted to nicotine and all of a sudden you look at your pack and you're going oh my gosh I'm out I got to get a smoke you start looking around huh there's a lady over there who's smoking I'll go by myself sure sure I still feel kind of weird this doesn't make me a woman with estrogen these cigarettes were female it was uncanny but you know what no ad campaign tied into the women's smoking Market better than this they created cigarettes specifically made for women they were a little skinnier and a little longer they have the same amount of tobacco that the other ones have what's more lady like when they were smoking then if they were smoking another cigarette this was a genius marketing campaign and it convinced a whole bunch of female smokers to flock to their brand sold off the shelves absolutely incredible but if you really want to take a look at the big genius when it came to selling to women it came because of a piece of legislation how many of you have heard of the educational Amendments of 1972 anyone there is a specific section of the educational Amendments of 1972 called Title Nine if you heard a Title Nine or you may not have heard of okay I see some of you shaking your heads okay there is a Title Nine office over in the Student Union it is a gender Equity office that's what Title Nine is all about let me read to you exactly what Title Nine says no person in the United States shell on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in be denied benefits from a benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance every public school in America in other words what this means is if you have programs for boys you have to have programs for girls if you have programs for men you have to programs for women if you have a men's baseball team you have to have a woman's softball you have a man's soccer team you have to have a women's soccer team in the picture you have a men's yeah this one they hate you text Texas but what if you don't have enough women to feel the team then you have to let the women join the boys team and Texas they kind of went no they can't make us do that because if you don't let the girls on the boys team they can pull your federal funding ouch and so Title Nine becomes a big deal in public education and remain so to this day now why does that matter it matters in a big way think about sports in the '60s and how they changed in the 70s who played Sports in school in the 50s and 60s did you see any girls teams boys play the sport they're the ones on the floor what are the girls doing cheerleaders talk about a metaphor for Life the boys are the doers the girls are on the sidelines cheering him on all of a sudden the educational amendments in 1972 are saying no the girls get to be on the field too this generation will go on to become Fortune 500 CEOs women who have been shut out of executive positions will rise up to the very highest echelons of international businesses because of this and it all starts with sports saying you don't have to be on the sideline you can go play soccer too get out there play basketball you want to play basketball shorts no problem well Sports companies companies that were putting out sporting equipment like Adidas and Converse we're putting out products for boys they didn't put out products for girls so now that they're suddenly a demand for girl stuff they go oh okay I guess we take the boys stuff and make it a little smaller girl but they didn't really give the girls what they needed they just kind of modified what the boys have it was really when a man named Phil Knight teamed up with the head track coach from the University of Oregon I got by the name of Bill Bauer Bill Bowerman when he came into the University of Oregon came into a program that was a historic bottom feeder of a school okay they hadn't won anything they were garbage and he came in and he takes a look at his athlete's shoes and says 10,000 M wearing shoes that are heavy if you can cut even one ounce off of that shoe add that up over 10,000 steps and tell me how much weight you're not carrying anymore that's just one ounce he is able to reduce the weight of the shoes that is athletes are wearing like 2/3 because he makes them himself he pulls out his waffle iron in his kitchen and his wife hates him for it okay he starts cooking rubber on the waffle iron to make the soles and then he custom makes the shoes for every single one of his athletes and then the University of Oregon starts winning national championships year after year and Bill Knight and Bill Bowerman say hey this this should be our Focus making better products that are Taylor Made to the people who use them women they say let's take a look at the physical needs of women athletes later to death what do women mean you think Converse was putting out sports bras at this point in time Adidas didn't even think about it Nike did when they formed Bill Bowerman and Bill Knight formed a company called Blue ribbons Sports and later they rename their company and more than anything else from propelling Nike to Super startup putting them on the top of the athletic market and keeping them there they gave women athletes what they needed and where the men's Market was split evenly among the various companies all the women went to one place they cater to women's needs and the women responded by buying their products because their products were better for women than anybody else's and this shot them up to the top of the market now did they put out some good ads for men's products too oh yeah 1985 was a big year in fact there's a movie out about it right now have you guys seen it if you have it it's great it's fantastic you'll see it the movie about Nike taking on Michael Jordan and creating a new line of shoes just for him the Air Jordans I had a pair of those first generation Jordans Madison how much they be worth today yeah you know the red white and black ones I actually had a pair of those when I was in teenage High School's colors were red white and black so it fit in with the Chicago Bulls the red white and black of Michael Jordan shoes so Nike became big because they were the first ones to truly cater to the needs of the female athletes that were on the rise and they will become popular ever ever after this so this was a big Leap Forward okay that's it for today have a great weekend I'll see you Monday chances are we will finish up next week we can give you a good week off to help you settle in and prepare for finals and whatever else okay have a good one