Jacopo BERNARDINI
Postmodern Openings, 2014, Volume 5, Issue 2, June, pp: 39-55
Postmodern Openings, 2014, Volume 5, Issue 2, June, pp: 39-55
As recently stated by Samuelson (2003), we are living in an era in which it is practically normal to refuse to accept one's own age, an era that is characterized by young people who want to be adults and adults who want to be young.
he main target remains the adult for at least two reasons: his economic resources and the massive presence in the population. The promotion of the infantilization by the market has this aspiration: to foster the regression of the desires of the consumer in order to make them more compatible with a capitalist logic based on surplus production and equality of the products.
Not only that. As recently shown (Bernardini, 2012), the economic promotion of an infantilist ethos has widely influenced the major social and mass media contexts. Television schedules, for example, have gradually lost their original pedagogic and cultural depth in favor of fun and entertainment; the movie industry is increasingly focused onkidult movies, sequels, remakes, comics and cartoon superheroes at the expense of the complexity of plot and dialog; in publishing one sees motivational books and novels apparently addressed to children or adolescents (think of the Harry Potter phenomenon); Internet use, by adults, seems to be increasingly linked to ludic motivations, especially through social networks, while that of video games has assumed a nostalgic-escapist function that promotes the regression of the adult male to a utopian world of fantasy and virility, and to the consequent escape from family obligations and social responsibilities (Burrill, 2008).
Not only that. As recently shown (Bernardini, 2012), the economic promotion of an infantilist ethos has widely influenced the major social and mass media contexts. Television schedules, for example, have gradually lost their original pedagogic and cultural depth in favor of fun and entertainment; the movie industry is increasingly focused onkidult movies, sequels, remakes, comics and cartoon superheroes at the expense of the complexity of plot and dialog; in publishing one sees motivational books and novels apparently addressed to children or adolescents (think of the Harry Potter phenomenon); Internet use, by adults, seems to be increasingly linked to ludic motivations, especially through social networks, while that of video games has assumed a nostalgic-escapist function that promotes the regression of the adult male to a utopian world of fantasy and virility, and to the consequent escape from family obligations and social responsibilities (Burrill, 2008).
The Birth of a New Social Figure: the Kidult
The kidult, therefore, may be considered to be the evolutionary peak of the postmodern changes linked to the socio-media infantilization, to the weaknesses in adult value models as a historical- generational consequence and to the social and psychological reproposal of an infantilist and youthful ethos.
No comments:
Post a Comment