Mooks, Midriffs, Myspace and More: Engaging a Plugged-in Generation

Corporate profiteers produce and market media for a target youth audience they call mooks and midriffs — caricatures that exploit adolescent insecurities and hormones — a strategy described as “grabbing below the belt and reaching for their wallets.” The result: average teens now consume digital media for 72 hours each week and increasingly digest that media online in what the New York Times calls, “Websites Without Rules.” This workshop will: 1) Expose the strategy behind mooks and midriffs; 2) Examine the rise of “Websites Without Rules” and ministry opportunities they create; and 3) Explore ways to engage this plugged-in generation.

Downloads + Workshop Audio (Recorded at MNYBA Regional Pastors Conference, Greenwich, CT) + Workshop Video (Recorder at PaLM Engage Speakers Series, Flushing, NY) + What’s The Strategy? How do we Engage a Plugged-in Generation? + Mooks, Midriffs … Powerpoint Presentation + Mooks, Midriffs … Prayer Concert Audio + Mooks, Midriffs … Intergenerational Conversation Audio - Part 1 / Part 2 Source Material + Why Should I Care So Much? And Other Christ Like Musings on Myspace + Merchants of Cool (PBS Frontline Documentary) + Websites Without Rules (New York Times, January 2, 2007) + Too Wired for their Own Good? (Time magazine cover, March 27, 2006) + Myspace Generation (BusinessWeek cover, December 2005) + Translating Truth from Babel to Cyberspace, TechMission Keynote Audio 2005 + Have You Seen Your Kids Myspace?