Eric Schlosser's Short Story 'Kid Kustomers'

Eric Schlosser's short story “Kid Kustomers” is about how big companies are able to persuade children to like their product by advertising it with things they adore and use on the daily. Kids have always been an easy target to manipulate whether it's from clothing stores or restaurant chains. During the 1980’s is when kid advertising blew up and is actually known as, “the decade of the child consumer”. Schlosser states how working parents felt guilty from not being able to spend more time with their kids and would often buy them items they wanted to buy their happiness. Childrens nagging has been known to be able to make parents feel annoyed with their child and to make them be quiet is to get what they have been asking for. The internet has …show more content…
Parents often feel annoyed when their children will not be quiet a product they keep ranting about and will give in just for them to stop talking about it. A sociologist named Vance Packered described a child for being so called a “salesman” just being they were able to persuade their parents into buying something for them. “The aim of most children's advertising is straightforward: Get kids to nag their parents and nag them as well”(179). This quote states how children are able to get their parents to do what they want just by asking them countlessly. Another study written by a man named James U. McNeal said they’re seven different types of nagging called pleading, persistent, forceful, demonstrative, sugar-coated, threatening, and pity nags. All of these have their different ways of persuading their parents but lead to the same thing which is to get the product. Children often stick to one or two of these strategies that are able to work on their parents. Nagging is one of the biggest strategies that helps corporations make business cause if the parents never heard their kids talk about a certain products, they would never know to buy that for