Media influences are common, everyday occurrences in tweens lives. Media venues such as YouTube and blogging provide formats for tweens and teens to comment on shopping and fashion. Of recent note are reports on shopping "hauls" and fashion blogging. Peer influences are already strong in tweens lives, media targets and enhances these influences.
ABC Good Morning America (GMA)'s report "Girls Gone Viral: Online Fame from Shopping" about "teen hauls", where girls record their shopping sprees and post them YouTube. The GMA reporter indicates "this technology trend is turning amateur bloggers into tween tycoons". These 'haul' activities have been incredibly successful, getting millions of hits, being pursued by companies and marketers. Some girls have gotten sponsors with large paychecks. YouTube does require that anyone with a sponsor must disclose that information on the video. GMA staff follows two of the trends biggest stars on a shopping to Forever 21; the girls shop and then comment on their 'haul'. Once, hours after they post about a watch, the watch sold out and the website crashed.
Haul posting are not limited to teens posting. A search on YouTube for tweens also turned up posts with tweens shopping and commenting. The teens featured in the GMA report have posted "haul" videos with their 7-year-old sister as well. The ease of posting is making this activity more widespread.
Further in the Girls Gone Viral article, are comments by Shishir Mehrotra, director of Product Management at YouTube. "Mehrotra scours YouTube looking for top talent. When he finds a vlogger who has cultivated a large following, he'll offer a YouTube partnership to them. The YouTube Partner Program allows budding entrepreneurs to get paid to make videos and pocket a cut of the ad revenue." The search for influential youth to market items and content seems to be pervasive. I noted similar endeavors in a another post, The Tween Market.
Another influential media source for fashion is 13-year old Tavi Gevinson who posts on her blog, The Style Rookie. Many news articles can be found about Tavi, but one I found interesting was by The Business of Fashion where they note that Tavi spoke at an Evolving Influence Fashion Blog conference. Tavi has been invited to New York's Fashion Week and seems to be the teen fashion professionals are keeping in tap with.
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