The Pentagon Papers. Wiki Leaks. The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Rosetta Stone. The Magna Carta. And now:
It’s Lit: a guide to what teens think is cool.
Yeah, so, someone at Google put a report together, about what teens think is cool. We just found it today. The report’s dated March 2017. And it looks like a Macy’s catalog that got lost in 2004:
How is it? Well, you can glean more “insight” about young people from your drunk spinster aunt popping it to “Bad and Boujee” at cousin Abe’s bar mitzvah, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a read.
Just, seriously…just look:
Because you’re smart, you know that all of this is laughably reductive and demonstrably untrue, but when you’re trying to sell snake oil-selling insights on the other snake oil salespeople, none of that matters. You just know that somewhere, some consultant paid to show up to marketing conferences and lecture people about how to make money off millennials just had a minor neurological event, and feels as if they’re opened the ark of the covenant.
And the best part? The graphs. Dear god, the graphs:
According to a report by Google, one of the most highly valued companies in the world, members of Generation Z think
– Chick-fil-A
is “cooler,” as a brand, than:
- Supreme
- VICE
- Tesla
- H&M
- Uniqlo
- Vans
- Converse
- Under Armour
- Zara, and
- Beats By Dre.
…to name a few.
And look, far be it from us here at Mashable Dot Com to be the Generation Z whisperers or whatever, who can dictate to you what’s cool, and what isn’t, but what we can tell you is that whatever marketer’s figurative ass this was pulled from needs a literal proctological exam, inasmuch as one can be administered. Does the Wokest Generation really think Hateful Chicken Incorporated is really cooler than Beats By Dre?
If so, anyone not in Generation Z has the answer to their quarter and/or midlife crisis and Trump’s America. But again, doubtful. The data from this report was apparently culled from the responses of 1,100 teens aged 13 to 17 when asked to rank 122 brands by coolness. Nowhere in the report, it’s worth noting, is it indicated that these teens were high on glue as they ranked them, either, so either the teens intentionally skewed the answers, or Google culled their respondents from the Kidz Bop: Facism Anthemz casting call, or they just used an incredibly small and wildly disproportionate/skewed/useless polling group to get their results, and printed them.
For those of you not in the cottage industry that revolves around selling this intelligence-insulting marketing sausage, or those of you not gullible enough to gobble up any “Young People Think This” futurists’ trends reports sight unseen, you will get a laugh out of this.
As for Google: Why? What was the purpose of doing this? Did anyone actually look at the graphed results? Is god dead? Is Google dad?
We have…so many questions. For now, please, just: Enjoy.
This article was originally published on Mashable and can be accessed here.
