Merchants of cool

1.      What are people watching, wearing, listening to, playing and reading?

Some popular trends people are into are:

Watching: Vampire diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Survivor blood vs. water, Modern family, how I met your Mother, Teen wolf, Glee, The Amazing race and The Voice

Listening: Lorde, Avicii, Miley Cirus, Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Jayz, Drake, Zedd, Justin Beiber and Ellie Goldings

Playing: GTA 5, Just Dance, FIFA 13 and 14, Candy Crush and Mario Kart

Reading: Mortal instruments, Hunger Games trilogy, Harry Potter series, Lord of The Rings trilogy, Divergent trilogy, The Gathering and The Hobbit

2.      Are their common trends among peer groups or are people discovering and exploring their own individual cultural expressions?

There is a mixture of both. There are people who follow trends and people who are trying to start new trends. Some people are a mix of both creating trends and following them.  In my opinion people who follow trends are either trying to fit in or are simply wearing the trends because they like how they look. People who are creating their own trends/ are wearing their own style of clothing don’t want to be main stream. They want to make their own type of cool, or are maybe even are trying to start their own trends and who says they can’t! People are individuals and what they wear is a means of expressing oneself.

3.      Do people strive to be the mooks and midriffs of the “Merchants of Cool” or do they seek different ways of interacting with others? 

Most teenagers I know don’t per say strive to follow the trends, however they sometimes we end up following them anyways. People don’t always follow trends just because they want to be cool. They follow the trends because they like what the trend is or because they simply because they want to fit in our clothes can say a lot about us and following the trends can sometimes give us a good image of ourselves. The trends can make us look more grown up or professional, therefore making us feel important and in some environments cool. However being cool isn't always why people decide to follow trends.

4.      What affects the current cultural trends at Riverdale?

The factors affecting current trends at Riverdale are the different ages of students, our friends, what everyone else thinks is trending, our gender and our personality.

5.      Is there one specific genre or form of media that influences trend or are students informed by a variety of media? 

Students are influenced by a variety of media. There are so many different types of media today, giving students a variety of things to choose from. One of the main influences would be magazines, movies or T.V shows simply because we often watch or look at these types of media multiple times each day.