Google Revealed A Bunch Of Data Showing What Teens Think Is Cool And Lame And The Results Are All Over The Place
AV Club – Google just dropped a document called “It’s Lit: A Guide To What Teens Think Is Cool,” a title that already invalidates whatever’s inside the damn thing. After multiple attempts to explain what “cool” is—a question already answered by The Simpsons in 1996—the study reveals that teenagers like music, sports, fast food, and shoes. It’s fascinating stuff.
It also asked 1,000 teenagers to rank brands by their coolness. While some of the answers are obvious—YouTube, Xbox, and Oreos—others are a bit surprising. Old Spice is cooler than WhatsApp, for example. Kellogg’s is cooler than ESPN. Wendy’s is cooler than Axe. And Vice, which posits itself as the epitome of cool, is shivering off by its lonesome, unknown by most teens and considered massively uncool by those who do
Trying to keep up with what’s cool with younger people as you start to get older can be tough work. But this PDF guide from Google is like the peak edition of that, right down to the “It’s Lit” title and the colors. But the thing is…it’s Google. They know everything about you. Places you go, things you see, every single thing you’ve ever searched on your computer or your phone if you have that stuff turned on. If anyone is capable of getting right to the heart of what’s important to human beings using a wealth of information that you’d be horrified they know, it’s Google.
But some of these are so outrageous. Oreos are cooler than Starbucks and Red Bull? Google over Apple? Xbox over Instagram and Snapchat? I mean come on. Hell I’ll even go so far to say that Buzzfeed shitting right on the face of Vice is a bit of a downer, teens must love GIF lists and quizzes about Disney princesses. It’s all kind of jarring to see. Like I wouldn’t think Google is “cool,” it’s just sort of a function similar to a ConEd or AT&T and inherently uncool as a result. But if this report is correct, teens these days are all over the place, acting like the Joker of personal choice with picks all over the map that don’t make a hint of sense, an organized chaos of interests. It’s hard to question that Google knows what it’s talking for all the reasons outlined above but overall I’ve got some real doubts here either about them or the future of America and their shocking love of all things Google. Cheating on brand awareness reports: Decidedly not lit.
PS Sick burn on this part of the PDF though
Cyberbully the shit out of those innocent teens, you show em Google.