Facebook video clip of some Wizards of Waverly Place actress on a late-night show all “this is how you can tell she raised a generation!!” but honestly, that one was casting its pilot back when I worked for the youth-heavy talent mangers in LA and I’m not sure there’s a Disneylodeon property from that era I’ve gone on to hear of less.

Did anyone even break out from that one? Hmm… Selena Gomez, I suppose that might be why I’ve even heard of that one to notice how much I never hear of it

rhymingwithpurple:

ronaldreagancutupwhiletalking:

At this point I think you’re just objectively wrong if you think marvel movies being shat out at a sickening pace is good because what in gods name is this. who the fuck are these c list characters. when will you people stop going to watch generically attractive people stand in front of a green screen

Really is getting through to me how culture engines like “Make Movies With Pretty People” are still going after the internet shattered the media system that integrated that with the rest of life.

Like, it used to be The Teens were into Beverly Hills 90210, or Melrose Place, or Dawson’s Creek, or The OC, and other mass media like E! and supermarket tabloids and late night TV would pick up and repeat out like “oh, these are the few people that are important now” even if you weren’t in their specific target demo

And the cutting edge was maybe talking on the internet but that would mean likely over 1-to-1 IMs or melee “chat rooms” but even if there were specific scenes for it it was general-knowledge stuff, like the real nerds might be on alt.tv.x-files but even people with no internet were aware of The X-Files, and read about it probably mostly in TV Guide

The “Zendaya is Meechee” song really captures the difference now because I still have no idea what that movie was or who Zendaya is. I hear she came from the DisneyLodeon Celebrity-generating neo-studio systems, those were already going in the ‘90s but when Lindsay Lohan was declared a Thing I, with no Disney Channel, could still say “oh, the girl from The Parent Trap, which I saw commercials of on TV, which are things I still see and a place I still see them!”

Hilary Duff I couldn’t pick out of a lineup but it got through to me that there was a person in that life role with that name, I guess that’s about the level Zendaya’s made it for me

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody – like, identical twins, living in a hotel, with a mother from the workaday entertainment industry but plenty of freedom to get into trouble on their own? Those are child stars. I kind of wonder if Nickelodeon isn’t running a feedback loop in teen TV – supercreator Dan Schneider was on Head of the Class, and a lot of his material is basically about how fun (and sexy) it is to hang out with a bunch of teen actors and actresses

Sam and Cat looked like a perfectly good show to be 12 and masturbate to for the first time

In a long tradition stretching back to Alex Mack at least

y’all acting like Dan Harmon’s foot scenes are some kinda corruption, “this superpowered middle schooler can morph into a puddle of goo but when she reforms she’s naked and wet” was a conscious creative decision with writers and directors and costume supervisors and agents and managers and development execs and set tutors and hair and makeup people behind it in 1994