Posted 3 years, 3 months ago in the late afternoon by oso
In the NY Times Business Day section there’s a long feature about the explosion of private schools catering to teenagers with behavioral problems. It’s in the Business Day section because some big name investors see it as a sure fire way to make some big cash. It makes sense: there’s no shortage of over-working, wealthy parents not willing to spend time with their children, but more than willing to throw down 50 grand a year so that someone else will. And like one investor says, “all indications are that the market is still growing.”
Of course, is you’ve spent a good deal of time with over-working, wealthy, and ambitious families like I have, you know why the children have their behavioral problems in the first place. Rich parents didn’t get rich by chance - they’ve got a keen sense of incentives, assets, and liabilities. And - subconsciously or not - they always commodify love into something that is earned and lost, bought and sold. You can almost see the formula working itself out in their heads as they argue over $30 plates of spaghetti: “honey, I’d be willing to buy you this, if you’d be willing to do that.” It’s a great way to manage businesses and a great way to fuck up kids.
In the spring of 2000, after having spent the last seven months studying in Kathmandu, I started school at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. There was still a lingering ambition of wanting to study physics, but after such a thought-provoking time in Nepal (the last 6 weeks of which were spent high up in the Himalaya), I convinced myself that a double major in philosophy and outdoor education was the path for me. There was a vision and that vision was me as a full time forest ranger living in a lonely cabin with crowded bookshelves, which at 19-years-old was all I wanted out of life.
So on a cold January morning - with the teeth-clenching-trip of New Year’s Eve rubbing off - I waved goodbye to San Diego’s marine layered beaches and set off for Flagstaff’s mile high, snow-covered mountains in my sturdy Saturn full of mountaineering equipment and cardboard boxes full of cheap pirated paperbacks from India. That semester I spent my study time in the dark corner of Macy’s Cafe listening to live jazz and reading up on the P’s and Q’s of logic. My social time, though was spent very far away from the philosophy department, which was saturated with hippie hypocrisy.
Instead I fell in with the Outdoor Education students - some of the most beautiful people, inside and out, I’ve ever met. We’d go on hikes together, picking up cigarette butts and beer cans the whole way. We’d go on multi-pitch rock climbs and get naked on top of Sedona’s sandstone spires, just to let our dinglies dangle triumphantly over the tourists below. We’d have giant bon fires out in the middle of the forest and run around naked in the dancing shadows of the flames. (nudity seemed to play an integral part in our scene)
When Allen Ginsberg says, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness,” these are the individuals I remember. They never did wrong and were consistently striving to do right. Our inspiration and energy source was mother nature herself and if we ever felt disheartened by the front page news, a simple walk in the woods was all it took to recharge our constitutions.
I ended up returning to San Diego though and when my friends did in fact graduate from NAU with a bachelors in Outdoor Education, they were all presented with the same singular job offer: teaching troubled youth on “outdoor therapy excursions,” also known as babysitting. The kind souls that they are, they figured this would be an ideal opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of future generations which are steadily losing contact with the natural world around them. We all had a concrete faith in the healing powers of natural environments and surely these young people would, in time, have that “ah-ha” moment.
Instead though, these beautiful people entered a sickened world of upper-upper class suburban brats used to wheeling and dealing their way towards a love-starved attention circus whose ironic facade was inevitably to prove that they didn’t need anybody, not mother nature and certainly not a bunch of naturalists who do things like read John Muir in their free time.
Troubled rich kid psychology isn’t something that’s “cured” in three weeks around a bunch of camp fires. Which is why “troubled youth counseling” is really an appealing name for “nightmare babysitting without showers.” There is an ABC reality show Brat Camp, which documents precisely that. It’s become obvious that showing the unhappy everyday minutiae of rich people (ie. Osbournes) is a sure hit on prime time and Brat Camp wants its share.
Of course the big name investors in the article are ecstatic about the news because any attention is good attention and when troubled teenagers see their (now famous) peers having sex in the bushes at some troubled youth camp, they’re gonna threaten their parents with drug use and crime records until they too get sent off to some $50 grand a year program.
Though this past weekend I was reminded of just how much I’ve been missing the mountains, I’m glad I didn’t go through with outdoor education to wind up working with one of these programs, because I would’ve never had the patience. I do believe that in 90% of the cases, the parents are to blame (sorry parents - I know you say you’re trying (buying) everything - but look harder), but if some rich kid comes to me complaining about their woes, you know what I’d do? I’d buy them a one way ticket to the Old Delhi train station with nothing more than 100 rupees in their pocket and I’d tell them to have fun. A hell of a lot cheaper and it’d actually work.
Which brings me to the one point I actually want make. According to the article, annual revenues of the estimated 100,000 American students attending these “troubled youth academies” now total at least $1 billion dollars.
That’s a lot of money. Which is why I hearby demand $10,000 from one of these hot shot investors to fly out to a major Indian city where I will find a group of 30 or 40 middle class Indian kids with a good command of English (they all do these days anyway) and get them to all start blogging in an exclusive myspace or livejournal-like community. Then I’ll go to one of these rich kid academies and get 30 or 40 of them to start doing the same. Part of the rich kids’ curriculum will be writing about their own lives and commenting on the entries of the Indian peers. That way the rich kids can blog about how they’re cutting their arms because some gothic-indie band told them to and the Indian kids can blog about how they’re studying four hours a night- when the electricity is working - to get a perfect SAT score just in case they’re chosen in the US visa lottery.
If ABC wants, I’ll let them follow me around and they can make a reality show comparing the lives of the rich American kids and the middle class Indian kids and the relationships that develop between them.
So go ahead and leave me a comment explaining how I should pick up the 10 grand.
Now, for two completely unrelated items. First off, I think all of the women on the new ads for Dove’s “campaign for real beauty” are attractive. More than attractive, I think they are sexy. They have curves, they’re muscular, they’re reasonably athletic, and they shine. Hopefully it’s spreading a new trend. But let’s be fair and draw a line between “real beauty” and real obesity. Eavesdropper that I am, I often overhear women who clearly need to lose a good 40 pounds complaining that they live in a society that glorifies anorexia. That is true. But it’s true that we also live in a society with a major obesity problem. So hopefully encouraging a realistic ideal waistline (like Dove’s models) will get more people to start exercising and stop starving themselves.
Second, reading through the Wall Street Journal’s international section (what’s up with no Bug Me Not love for the WSJ?), I came across two articles on socialist economic policy - one which I am totally for and the other which I am totally against. In Venezuela, banks are required by the government to “devote as much as 29% of all loans to activities such as home mortgages, agricultural loans, and microloans to small companies.” The article goes on to say:
“Strict capital controls have helped increase outstanding liquidity in the economy and have prompted a rise in bank deposits. Mr Chavez imposed capital and price controls on the economy in early 2003 to stem capital flight. The resulting trapped liquidity has helped push down interest rates and has helped spur an economic recovery. The Venezuelan economy is expected to expand at least 5% in 2005.”
The second was about how the Indian government has backed off from privatizing 13 state-owned companies. We’re not talking health care here - these are manufacturing, aluminum, and petroleum companies which have no business being run by the state. Government control of companies should be kept to an absolute minimum and is only necessary when profit motives directly harm either people or the environment - like health care. You could also make the argument that state ownership over petroleum companies is necessary for environmental reasons, but the Mexican nationalized Pemex, which has had numerous oil spills this year and is a business disaster, gives plenty of reason to regulate environmental standards by laws and not by messy state ownership.
I, too, love those new Dove ads. The only problem is firming lotions have been scientifically proven to not work. Lancome (or maybe it’s L’Oreal?) has had to pull their firming lotion ads off British tv for violating false advertising regulations. It’s unfortunate that commercials that (rightly) encourage women to have positive images about their bodies sell bogus products while they do it.
As for the main point of the post–too bad Amazon’s NIA contest has already chosen its shortlist. I have no other ideas about how you can pick up $10k, but if my project ever gets off the ground, I’ll happily make a space for your bloggers on my server. Or, rather, I will if you guarantee that these kids with their $50k/year educations actually use what they’ve been taught and not write entire posts in netspeak, much less neglect punctuation and capitalization. Surely, for a sizable chunk of my gigabyte of net space, you can indulge my most persistent pet peeve.
Largest size among the women of the Dove ads: 12
Average size among American women: 14
These women are still below the average. But yes, it is an encouraging sign. Annorexic models gross me out.
As to brat camps - having your child join a cult might be more effective, and ultimately cheaper. Don’t you think?
Elenita,
Silly me - I didn’t even look at what the ad was advertising. Thighs distract me.
Xolo,
You make my point for me: the women in the dove ad have nice figures. The average American woman, increasinly, does not.
LOL. Great idea on the rich kid therapy, that is sure to put some perspective in their lives, and get them to think twice about how bad their life really is.
for what it’s worth, here’s my 2 ad geek rupees on the Dove campaign… I wonder how long they will last. it seems every few years there is some sort of beauty/fashion campaign focusing on body acceptance but it fizzles out after a year or so. I can’t think of a single major brand in the industry that has built its name on such an idea unless it’s tailored to a specific consumer (Just My Size, African-American hair products e.g.). then again, if Dove just wanted to create awareness of their new product lines (the all-white packaging does get lost on the shelves in the skin care aisle) they were definitely successful in generating buzz.
What I like about the new Nike women’s campaign right now (click on what story does your body tell?) is that it emphasizes the role of fitness in a healthy life, mentally & physically, not a quick fix beauty cream.
for further media reading, I suggest the trendspotting blog PSFK or join adholes and check out the blog section.
Oso: Rachelle and I were discussing the Dove ads last night. I was dozing off though (television does that to me and a huge Laredo Dinner plate at this kickin’ Mexican restraunt in East Austin) and I remember telling her that I use Dove and it’s given me silky, glowing skin. Of course, that being the last thing on my mind, I had a dream where I was thumbing through a magazine with only Dove Ads, each page had Queen Latifah, rather much in the same poses as those women in your post. Funny thing, I do my daily read and I find this Dove thing. I think it’s great to project a natrual sense for women to go by, but I agree with Rachelle, how long will it last before they return with Emacia, the French model.
I went to a private Catholic university and I had a great experience. Yes, I was surrounded by a bunch of rich stiffs, mommy and daddy’s little boys and girls. But aside from a handful of really dense kids the majority that I met were rather well centered, driven, and mostly gay. I sure hope that a trend doesn’t arise where private schools, of all levels, become harbors for “rich, dumb and troubled kids.” Because I believe this is not the case.
Brat Camps - Foreign countries dislike us as it is. Do we really need to show the world that the US is full of arrogant, rich, troubled youth?
Oso,
As usual, I really liked your article. I agree with you on most of your points: that many wealthy (and less wealthy) American parents do not spend enough time with their children, that too much is commodified, and that many rich children in America are unbelievably spoiled. I liked your suggestion to send these brats to India. Send them to Mumbai - since I work in the slums, I could give them a nice introduction to slum life.
I do have one more thing to add: while I agree with your points about American elite kids, I don’t think that the Indian middle class should be unduly glorified. Indian parents force their children to work for a bunch of reasons, with conformity being one of the strongest. Additionally, there is a tremendous amount of sexism in the anglicized middle class… don’t get me started on that.
I want to add one more thing: while I completely agree with your points about American rich brats, I also think that the Third World elite youth are often even more entitled and arrogant than American elite youth. In my most recent blog article I wrote about rich teenagers and twentysomethings who drive in their SUVs and terrify pedestrians and other motorists for fun.
But the rich entitled thing is not just an India/America thing. It seems to be present all around the world. When I lived in Mexico I had contact with superelite teenagers and twentysomethings who were openly racist (e.g. “indiorante,” “eres tan indio,” etc.) and looked down upon their darker and poorer paisanos with scorn.
What is my point: I agree with you in your points about Americans. But many in the Third World elite are unimaginably entitled themselves.
k ondaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
k paso con el blog del rolandog????
Venezuela is growing because of capital and price controls?
Uh huh. Right.
Oso you’re smart enough to throw your own BS flag when you see this pathetic of an analysis.
Last year Venezuela grew at 17%. Does the WSJ reporter think that was because capital controls plus Chavez staying in office spurred the economy to new heights?
It’s a bit more complicated. Someone needs to tell him there is this thing called oil that’s currently over $60 a barrel. I tend to think that it is having more of an effect on Venezuelan GDP than moving around a couple million with lending requirement and freezing prices. These controls are having an adverse affect on the economy (take a look at the inflation rate that these measures are supposed to control).
For a better analysis, also from the Journal, take a look at this piece (second one down by Vladimir Chelminski):
On another note, I know we can’t continue this thread forever (I’m pretty much done with it at least), but how about a reply? This is really where the root of most of our disagreements lie.
come mocos peter
Pinche rich kids! We wouldn’t want them living in van down by the river now would we.
I have very little interaction with kids who grew up truly rich. I went to school with a lot of middle class kids up until high school and when I got to UCLA I started slumming it with kids from East Los and the Central Valley. Just kidding.The middle class kids in HS and middle school were generally the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. I’m guessing that the kids who attend these brat camps are disproportionately white because when brown and black kids act up, they send us to another type of “camp.” I once asked my mom and dad why they thought my siblings and I grew up to generally be “good kids.” I thought they were going to say something about being Catholic, but her answer centered on her role in raising us and never having a full-time job and not even having a part-time job until Adrian, the baby, started school.
About the Dove ads, I definitely noticed them when I saw them which seems like what a good ad should make you do. Have you ever heard of how some men think the word “thick” is misused a lot to describe certain body shapes. Generally, they say thick should not be confused for fat, which I guess goes along with what you were saying.
EMC, Dove leaves my skin feeling soft too
Dove ads? Shit, I need to watch t.v. And I’ll be your camera man in India. They were having sex? Yikes.
Rachelle,
I was going to mention the Nike campaign, but then I saw one of their ads - supposedly of a girl proud of her “thunder thighs.” But these were no thunder thighs. Like the NY Times said today:
I don’t know just how trendsetting PSFK can be if they’re only writing about RSS now.
EMC,
I always wondered how you got your silky, glowing skin.
Julissa,
Don’t worry about those foreign countries disliking us. We’ll bomb them until they go away.
Vikrum,
I completely agree with you. I didn’t mean to glorify Indian middle class - it just came convienently since I was able to find a picture of Old Delhi’s train station. But you’re right - this is really much more of a class thing than an American phenomenon. In fact, I remember one day Abogado and I were in Yogyakarta and he was pretty ill so I went walking by myself to a nearby mall where a lot of rich kids were killing time. It hit me that there is absolutely an international “Fronchi and Fresa” culture throughout the developing world. It consists of priviledged, bored rich kids doing their very best to appear priviledged and bored. And they’re certainly in India too. Hanging around Cannaught Place in Delhi would crack me up ’cause there were so many rich kids going to such effort to look like they didn’t care about a god damned thing.
Pedro,
I love it when you call me smart. Or I guess it was “smart enough,” but I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give. I shoulda been more clear up above. I quoted a whole paragraph from the article (which was only about three paragraphs total) because I was so surprised that a WSJ reporter would imply causality between Chavez’s reforms and Venezuela’s expanding economy. But yeah, obviously rising oil profits is the most important factor at play here (just as falling copper prices was the most important factor in Chile’s economy in the early 70’s).
My whole point is that despite the fact that regulating bank loans will probably have a negative effect on overall economic growth, I still think it’s good policy. Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) has been a big cultural movement in the States for years now, Chavez simply made it law.
Regarding how many toothbrushes a supermarket should be able to carry, part seven of Pitching Outside the Strike Zone is, in part, a response to what you wrote on Freespace and deals much with Locke and the like.
catarf,
Fue el comentario mas chingón que había visto en un buen. Hoy llevé mi playera de la marca “moco.”
Gustavo,
It’s pretty obvious that I should know the etymology of “living in a van down by the river,” but I’m not really surprised that I don’t.
Cindylu,
It’s a sign of a good childhood when you start slumming it when you go to UCLA. Thick and fat are two different categories in my radar. And I agree with your mom … I think time is the thing that parents need to regalar to their children the most.
DT,
Who was having sex? What’s going on?
Oso,
I’ve been avoiding commenting on this entry for awhile now. I’ve been avoiding because it hurt me.
I really hate all the positive attention the Dove adds are getting.
First of all no matter who is on the package, Dove is still trying to sell “Anti-Aging face cream” to give you “smooth and youthfull looking skin” and “Intensive firming cream” in order “to work on problem areas to help skin feel firmer and reduce the appearance of cellulite ”
Second, as Xolo points out these women are still smaller than most American women. I am the same size (if not slightly bigger) than their largest model of “real women”. I am obese. I am also beautiful, damn sexy and can do the splits, backward bend, put my legs behind my head. I am both “real beauty” and “real obesity”.
Third, you have no room to criticize obese people for complaining about aneorxia they have every right to. You don’t know what it is like to go out and have people stare at you becuase you are overweight, or have people comment about how since you are a “good 40 pounds” overweight maybe these new models will encourage you to get a “realistic ideal waistline like the dove models”.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention…I LOVE the Dove Ads, great stuff!!! Keep it coming!!!
EM,
I agree - an overweight person is just as entitled to criticize anorexia as anyone else. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But, methinks that we should neither idealize anorexia nor obesity since they both do damage to women’s health. Over-consumption of food also means higher national health care costs, depletion of oil as food is shipped to and then around the US, and the environmental impact of making and throwing out food packaging. Anyway, I guess my entire point is that if we’re going to idealize any type of body, it should be a healthy body.
Finally, if it’s socially acceptable for a guy to tell a girl (or vice versa) that she needs to eat more (like I constantly do to many of my friends), than it should also be acceptable to tell her to eat less (which I’ve never done) since they both come from a concern for the person’s health.
I’ve now received three separate emails asking just who endowed me with the power to decide what makes an ideal women’s body. It was HP.
Actually, it’s a good question. Of course there is no Oso-approved body type (I’m picturing the tattoo now) and I wasn’t trying to suggest that everyone should look a certain way. Ask my friends, I’ve gone out with girls whose bodies run the spectrum. Variety is the spice of life. The only thing I was trying to say is that it’s good that there are more realistic looking models out there. If that’s too much for anyone to understand, then like my dear comrade Armando says, “come mocos.”
What the hell? How the heck was your post encouraging an ad which promotes women of all shapes (and there are way too many body types to include in a single ad, but the point is well made) taken the wrong way? I don’t think you should apologize or set an explanation for who or what you like. Plain and simple, those Dove Ads are a marketing ad, just like those McDonald’s “I’m Loving It!” ads are geared towards urban youth, and how the Time Warner cable ads (a year or two ago) were geared towards interracial couples. It’s a market trend. Obesity and overweight issues is a touchy issue, indeed. It’s a touchy issue not just for women, but men too. I went through a lot as an oveweight kid and young adult. Although, my issue was slanted with identity issues, it crosses to what we’re force fed each day: women should look like skinny twerps while men should lean with washboard abs and muscles. Unless, you’re genetically prone to that, then one’s never going to be or look that way. Obesity in this country is a terrible disease but I will say that I am an example of someone that turned themselves around. BUT it doesn’t start from the body, it starts from the mind.
re: the Dove ads/obesity/anorexia - I’m glad elenamary said it, so now I don’t have to.
I do agree with your thoughts on bratty rich kids. My father taught at a private (Southern Baptist) school and my sister and I got to go for half price. We were surrounded by kids obsessed with owning things like Coach purses, Girbaud jeans, and those leather Bass shoes (you know , the brown ones that you would mess with the shoelaces with - maybe before your time). A lot of them came from very well-off families We, instead, were usually wearing hand-me-down outfits. Bratty rich kids can be very cruel.
EMC,
I give you a running cyberhug my friend. I was also a phat, fat youth. I’ll put some pictures up soon. I exercise more than anyone I know (literally, five hours of running, cycling, and swimming on Sunday) and I’ve still got pasty breast tissue and lil’ love handles. You’re absolutely right, you’re only gonna look like a supermodel if your genes say so.
But I’m not gonna apologize for encouraging people to be healthy if that’s something they want. (and no, thinner does not always mean healthier - healthier means healthier) If they don’t want to be, that’s their choice.
I think it’s great that Xolo and Sara are detoxing and eating so healthy these days. (but Beaver does make a good point) My little sis and I have been trying to cook healthier food around the house too. And like Sara, I’m trying to drink much less coffee, but it’s tough.
e,
I give you a cyberhug as well. I’ve been in such a hugging mood these days.
Esque eres el Oso amoroso con un gozo poderozo.
Oso,
I took another look at those ads (after reading a critique on BoingBoing) and then went to the website. I just realized that I went to high school with the pale white girl in the picture. I know it has to be her because Sigrid is such an uncommon name and she’s from Hacienda Heights. I would have never recognized her, of course I never saw her in her underwear at school.