This week, I wanted to depart from my normal series and talk about something I consider to be really important on multiple levels. If you checked this week’s Link Round-up, you may have noticed that my link was to Jezebel’s Friday post about the backlash received by Victoria’s Secret in regard to their new “Bright Young Things” line.
Context for those who missed this news story in the past week—outraged people online complained about Victoria’s Secret’s new line aimed at “tween” girls called “Bright Young Things.” Apparently, the company is gearing up to sell underwear with slogans like “Wild”, “Call Me” and “Feeling Lucky?” on them, marketed to the under 13 crowd. You may have even read the impassioned post by the Protestant minister, imploring Victoria’s Secret to scrap the line for the sake of his daughter’s innocence. Do these people have a point? It seems like it. The media firestorm they ignited set of national news coverage. Only there is one little problem…
…Victoria’s Secret’s “Bright Young Things” line isn’t aimed at tweens! It’s just a line like any other they sell—marketed to older teens through twenty somethings (and beyond?). The whole “fire and brimstone” “oh-think-of-the children” stuff—a conservative disinformation campaign. And the worst part (yup, believe it or not, there is something even worse than a conservative disinformation campaign)—the media, and plenty of other people bought it!
Look, this whole thing is gross for a number of reasons. First, it goes to show you that there are people out there that want to intentionally mislead you and cause change through lies. While reasonable people are willing to accept the fact that there are news sources that simply aren’t reputable (cough…Fox News…cough), this one can’t be chalked up to sensationalist and biased news sources alone—almost all major news sources were at fault here. What ever happened to fact checking? What happened to good journalism? The whole “Bright Young Things” story reeks of laziness.
I can understand why too. It is a good story. A place where many liberals and conservatives meet is in the desire to protect children. The ways and reasons from protecting them though, are vastly different. As I mentioned in my post about M. Gigi Durham’s The Lolita Effect, there are ways to help girls understand sexuality in a safe environment. It is true that the type of over-sexualized, “commodified girlhood” that people tried to claim “Bright Young Things” to be would be potentially harmful to girls. However, the more conservative approach of plugging one’s ears and pretending that kids won’t try to grow up and learn about sexuality doesn’t work either. Regardless, this isn’t really what this news story is about at the heart of it.
The most important wake-up call that we can all take from the “Pretty Young Things” madness is that we need to question everything. Simple, right? Shit, it’s pretty much the meta lesson of undergraduate education in a nutshell. It is so important; I’ll say it again….
QUESTION EVERYTHING!!!
Don’t be led astray by wackjobs with a blog. Question why you are listening to and reading what people have to say. Question what I’m writing right now. Because if anything, what last week has taught us is that the mainstream media isn’t going to do so. Hell, we’ll be lucky if they bother to fact check…
ShoutOut! James Madison University 
I think that the people doing the misleading are Victoria’s Secret! Walk into the juniors underwear section at Wal-Mart next time you are there – this underwear is definitely aimed at “tweens” and says stuff like (halloween example) “eat me” with a candy corn over the crotch. Saying they are not aiming the line at young girls is a quick cover-up, but a pretty transparent one, especially when so many other major companies already have these types of products in stores! Clearly everyone invovled in this post- the news, V.S. – is following their own agendas, which NO ONE is being truthful about. Question everything is right!
PS Isn’t it parents who buy their tweens clothes? How many tweens have money of their own, much less the freedom to walk into stores unchaperoned? That’s a rare case! Maybe the conservatives should aim their focus at better parenting? Maybe that pastor should talk to his daughter honestly about sex/ about why these clothes are inappropriate/ about how when she is 18 she can make her own choices, rather than writing a letter to V.S.?
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Thanks! You are correct in pointing out that this issue is multifaceted and very troubling. It really should be up to good parenting to help guide children. However, it is up to good journalism to investigate and fact check!
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You nailed it here. I think it’s so weird/messed up that undergarments are rhetorical to begin with…I love this line especially: “Shit, it’s pretty much the meta lesson of undergraduate education in a nutshell.”
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Thanks! As much as the message seems obvious after all this time, I feel like people often forget it.
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I used to work at Pink, a subsidiary of Victoria’s Secret that is targeted towards the younger crowd, and even the employees would cringe at some of the things the panties would say. We HATED when little girls would go through the checkout line with 20 dollars their parents had given them to purchase panties that said ‘no peeking’. We had multiple conversations with parents that would be astonished that that type of underwear was even being sold, and the employees and management would all completely agree. I think Victoria’s Secret is a great example of that contradiction between a company that internally promotes women and their success, but externally promotes….nakedness.
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I guess I never thought about this aspect from Victoria Secret before but it is more than interesting! I think it is gross that the young girls spend so much money on such things as the labeled underwear… however i completely agree with you on the ideas and beliefs about some of the conservative views.
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