Rant #695

This has been a major peeve of mine for years now.

I used to be puzzled as to why everything seems to be marketed towards teenagers, and very little for people of our age (I'm 45, DH is 52). I mean, go into your average shopping maul. I remember going into one to shop for a gift for someone in the Red Hat Society (a club for women over 50). It was as if the RHS disisn't exist, from the merchandise in that maul! Everything was geared for teens, the clothes were mostly slut and thug-wear.

I was puzzled, because people our age are likely to have more money to spend than younger people. We've been working longer, and have earned experience, promotions and raises over the years. Why was no one marketing to us?

Then it hit me...it is ASSumed that people our age have kids, and said kids would be teens right about now. We are supposed to give all of our money to the kids, so they can have all of the expensive shit for themselves, for the reasons mentioned in the rant. And then we have nothing left for ourselves, so why would anyone bother marketing anything to us?

Fuck that shit! I'll shop at smaller specialty, non-maul stores that want my business and will cater to ME, not stupid spoiled teenbrats.

Oh come on, you know you secretly want the world to see your thong. How else are you going to pick up a thug?
Anyway, I've always considered the mall a big indoor playground for teenagers. Parents drop their kids off there because the security guards and corporate stores terrified of bad press make it a safe space for them to hang out.

As I wrote in my rant, these teen-brats are all spoiled beyond belief. And catmommy is correct, there is almost NOTHING marketed for us (I am 41). Long ago, I learned somewhere that marketers don't aim their ads/products at people over 35. I didn't believe them at the time. But now I do. Watching TV, walking the "mauls" (love that one!), it is SO OBVIOUS that we DON'T MATTER to advertisers. And, I suspect you are correct. We "should" have teen-brats by now, and we should be turning over our wallets to them. We should be spending every dime on cell phone crap, stupid-looking hip-hop clothes and music (crap), and overpriced "bling". AKA: GARBAGE. These brats will just want more crap tomorrow, with their insatiable appetites. Next time you do go to a maul, count the number of cell phone vendors. I counted THIRTY. I buy a new cell phone every five years. Good grief! Do these teen-brats need a new one every time they descend on a maul? And take a look at the empty-headed younglings SELLING the crap. Glad to be CF!

The more you spend in dollars, the less you need spend in time. Spent dollars prove your love in a more tangable way than spent time ever would. This is the line fed to adults and children.

I did think of a few products that are marketed to adults.
Toilet cleaners
Mortages
Check cashing services
Vinyl siding
Baking soda
Laundry soap (but not dryer sheets for some reason)
Perscription medications for sexual disfunction, anxiety, sleeplessness, and high cholesterol
Funeral home services
Meat (like steak, not lunch meat)

Oh yeah...and I forgot...
Jewlery

I hate mauls with a passion! About a month ago, I had to go to one to buy some new clothes. I hate these places so much, that I hadn't gone clothes shopping in two years. I couldn't believe my eyes! First of all, it didn't open until 11AM. WTF? Oh, yeah, the teenagers don't wake up until noon on Sundays and everyone else is at church (I live in Fundieville). By the time it opened, the breeders & teens were everywhere. What really pissed me off was how the 19yr old salesgirls were calling me "honey". That just annoys the hell out of me.

i have seen the mauls in america and the shopping centres in the UK, and i was shocked, i kept calling them mauls too, .. its not as bad here.. yet.. will have to get my girl to write up what she feels about the UK shopping centres..

when i went there i thought they are small, but in a bigger area, and your right a lot of teen stuff, i am 32 i am large, i have to travel 15 miles (which may not seem a lot to americans) to buy trousers. where i live theres 188,000 people living in st helens its 3 miles from any side of it to the centre.

I'm 25 and I hate that every piece of clothing I find in a Maul for children (I'm only buying this clothing for my niece, a pleasure to be around) is low-cut, coochie-cuttin', thigh-high or any kind of sluttish!!

"Oh come on, you know you secretly want the world to see your thong. How else are you going to pick up a thug?"

*snort* LOL

This topic has reminded me why I shop on-line

You reminded me why I don't go to "Winners" anymore. I used to go there to get cheap designer jeans for Squire.

They have since merged men's jeans with "young men's" jeans. I am not going through the racks of thug-wear in the fruitless hope of finding something suitable for adults. I've complained at the checkout about this, but they aren't interested in 40-year-old men, I guess.

I went to Lammle's Western Wear and found damn fine jeans, cut for adults, that make Squire look delicious. Cowboys in denim...yum!

Old Navy has regular men's jeans, too, and they're only like $20 per pair.
Another thing I've noticed is that the sizes are all different than they used to be. Everything is cut really large! By that I mean sleeves being so long that they hang past the fingertips, necklines sliding off of shoulders, and tops are so long they brush the tops of knees. I know clothes are made in general sizes to fit the majority, but most women aren't 6ft tall! Is it me? Has anyone else noticed this?

I work retail and I have noticed everything is getting cut bigger and bigger. They are making everything bigger so people can fit into smaller sizes. Arbitrary sizing has inflated a LOT in the past 55 years. A size 8 today is the equivilent to a size 14 back in 1950. Quite a bit of the higher-end stores put in the smaller size label so that the customer will buy it to feel thinner (as if we're that stupid).
And TRUE smaller sizes are hard to find unless you like to shop in the teen's section. I have that problem and I realize I'm too damn old at 22 to be shopping in junior's. But I'm too poor to shop at specialized boutiques due to student loans I have to pay off.

Well, I'm 32, and I have to go to the girls dept. That's really bad. I can't justify paying boutique prices (I'm kinda cheap), and I'm way too old to dress in the slutty junior clothes. I'd look ridiculous! We've all seen these women (mostly moos) who dress like teens. It's pretty sad. At least in the girls dept., I can find solid t- shirts without some dumb Strawberry Shortcake retro- logo on it.

I don't blame you for being cheap, sporgless. Even since I worked retail, I can't pay full price for clothes since I learned how much they really mark up the price of clothes (my store knocks the price up to 60%).
I might have to try the girls section instead of juniors; even though they do have some slutwear since that's the trend (unfortunetely); but not as bad as junior's.
I hear you on the old moo's fooling themselves by trying to dress like teens. My moo super is 40 and tries to dress like a 20 year old in uber-trendy clothing, bleached hair, fake tan, and Tammy Faye make-up. Both her girl brats (the knocked up 18 year old and the un-knocked-up 17 year old) do the same except for the bad bleach jobs. And moo tries to fool herself into thinking she's thinner than she really is by squeesing into clothes 2 sizes too small for her not realizing that she's muffin-topping (the rools of fat are hanging over the waistband of her pants) and that she has bad camel-toe. I just want to say "you're too old to be doing this! Grow the fuck up!"