July 8, 2008

SHOPPING CAMP !

Hey kids! Time to be thinking about summer camp! Tired of sailboats and archery? Drama camp too much like school? Weight loss camp too depressing? I have just the ticket for you and your anxious parents!

Worried your kid can't get into sports camp? Listen to Becky Ross of Louisville, Kentucky who declared recently: "not everybody can be a cheerleader or football player, so here is something for someone with different interests…"

That something is, get ready, a "shopping camp" at the Summit Mall in Louisville. Yep, a. "Fashion Camp for girls" - one group for six to eight year olds, the other for 10 to 12 year olds. And not to worry, camp coordinator Becky Ross says, it's not really about fashion or designing clothes: it's about how to put together and accessorize outfits, it's about "personal development and self-confidence."

In short, it's camp at the mall, where - announces the camp ad -- you "will visit stores that teach lessons in organization (the Office Depot), how to find information (Barnes and Noble) and the importance of thank-you notes (Hallmark)." Yep, and the day "ends with a graduation ceremony, where campers receive a certificate and goody bag that includes a $40 Summit gift."

If this makes you want to, well, throw up in your shopping bag, please don't. Listen to camper Lucy Sweetall, eleven, who says, "I really like shopping. It's fun going around to all the shops."

There's a serious side too. I mean some six year olds might not think going to the Office Depot is their idea of summer fun. But kids have obligations too! They may be too young for Iraq, but think how they be America's Plan B when the Bush stimulus check plan fails! If we could get every other kid in the country into shopping camp this summer, goodbye recession!

Plenty of high schools already do courses in entrepreneurship shopping, with-it versions of the old home economics classes. The University of Nebraska at Kearney is offering a "High School Entrepreneur Boot Camp," and not too far from Yale in New Haven they're building the new "Coop High School for Arts and Humanities" smack on top of 2900 feet of commercial space.

On the "Jezebel" website (devoted to Celebrity, Sex and Fashion without Airbrushing,") cynical bloggers wrote stuff about the fashion camp like "now you pay to shop," and "I'm pretty sure my mom's behind this." One fuzzy-minded liberal whined that on reading about Camp Shopping "my soul just died a little." Probably a socialist.

Well I say it's time kids figured out patriotism is their thing too. After 9/11 President Bush reminded Americans that the way to be part of the war on terrorism was to get back to the mall. So why not the kids too. I mean consumerism's just too important to be left to the grown-ups.

Previous commentaries can be found on Benjamin Barber's blog.