MY WALLY WORLD SPACE…
Why is it that when I read this story I have a tape loop of The Simpsons’ creaking Monty Burns wagging a finger in the air and exclaiming “23 skidoo” as he does his best to be hip? Probably because it’s dead on. From AdAge:
It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users “hubsters” — a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.
The Hub is where teens can go and register to become ‘Hubsters’ — Wal-Mart’s ideal of a hipster.
Desperate to appeal to teens with something other than pencils and backpacks during the crucial back-to-school season, Wal-Mart is launching a highly sanitized, controlled and rather unhip site at walmart.com/schoolyourway. Teens are invited to create their own page, “show it to the world and win some fab prizes,” including a chance to have their videos appear in a Wal-Mart TV commercial.
With all the hysteria of late about sexual predators and similar scum cruising My Space and Live Journal, this move by Wal Mart makes sense, if you’re a parent. But you’d have to have self-esteem in the Paris Hilton zone to want to be a hubster.
Oh you kid!
If Walmart is so tone deaf as to the attitudes of teenagers how do they manage their purchasing decisions for this demographic?
Perhaps Walmart kids just wear what mom buys? I think not.
Shalom Robert,
I think Wal Mart has its present teenage demographic figured out very well, it’s attracting the Target crowd that it doesn’t get.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] MY WALLY WORLD SPACE… Why is it that when I read this story I have a tape loop of The Simpsons’ creaking Monty Burns wagging a finger in the air and exclaiming “23 skidoo†as he does his best to be hip? Probably because it’s dead on. From AdAge: Keep reading… [...]