When you watch TV or look through magazines, it's amazing to me how many of the ads target teenagers. Or, at least it was amazing, until I found out that teens spend $154 billion a year. Teenagers are a dream come true for any advertiser. They have money in their pocket and almost nothing important to spend it on. Most of them have food and shelter and access to the family phone, so all of the basic needs are covered. And, they haven't been jaded by 30 years of buying things that bent, broke, blew up or shut down.
Now, OK, maybe teenagers don't make a lot of money per capita, but whatever income they have is disposable. So, they have no problem spending it on tattoos or body piercing rather than on heat and groceries. But, before you parents go off on a huge rant about how the advertisers are taking unfair advantage of our naive offspring, let's step back for a minute and realize where most of that $154 billion comes from -- allowances from you. I know you didn't mean for it to go this way. Giving your kids an allowance is you investing in the future. Well, I have seen the future, and it has a safety pin through one eyelid and wears its pants around its knees. I should probably criticize the teen spending patterns more often, but I was up in the attic the other day and came across my Capricorn medallion and platform disco boots.