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He-Man Effect: How American Toymakers Sold You Your Childhood
He-Man Effect: How American Toymakers Sold You Your Childhood | Brian Box Brown
4 posts | 3 read | 8 to read
Brian "Box" Brown brings history and culture to life through his comics. In his new graphic novel, he unravels how marketing that targeted children in the 1980s has shaped adults in the present.Powered by the advent of television and super-charged by the deregulation era of the 1980s, media companies and toy manufacturers joined forces to dominate the psyches of American children. But what are the consequences when a developing brain is saturated with the same kind of marketing bombardment found in Red Scare propaganda? Brian "Box" Brown's The He-Man Effect shows how corporate manipulation brought muscular, accessory-stuffed action figures to dizzying heights in the 1980s and beyond. Bringing beloved brands like He-Man, Transformers, My Little Pony, and even Mickey Mouse himself into the spotlight, this graphic history exposes a world with no rules and no concern for results beyond profit.
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review
keithmalek
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Mehso-so

I've never read a graphic novel, so it took me a while to embrace the style. As for the content, it's fairly interesting. However, there was nothing in here that I was particularly surprised to learn. It could just be that even though I'm a child of the 80's, I'm smart enough as an adult to know better than to try to pay for a sense of nostalgia.

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keithmalek
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review
Eyelit
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Pickpick

Fascinating and engaging snapshot of how toy companies used psychology and media loop holes to basically sell an idea of childhood with long form commercials (i.e. cartoons) with a heavy slant on capitalizing to the boys. Box Brown is really good at making these large (yet still seemingly niche) markets/stories accessible to the casual reader.

keithmalek Is this why so many "men" of my generation are in a permanent state of adolescence? 13mo
Eyelit @keithmalek seems likely 😆 there‘s def a lot of talk about nostalgia around commercial properties later in the book - especially sad because said properties sold you the story as well as the toy so imaginative play is less of a priority… it‘s one of those blatantly obvious things once it‘s pointed out 13mo
48 likes4 stack adds2 comments
review
jlhammar
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Pickpick

Entertaining and illuminating graphic nonfiction. If you were a child in the 80s, if you are interested in the power of nostalgia &/or how the cultural landscape changed when media companies and toy manufacturers so effectively started marketing to children via television, check it out!

bthegood sold (stacked the book) 😃- thanks for the review - 1y
Meshell1313 You had me at child of the 80‘s ✅ stacked! 1y
Suet624 Haven‘t they been marketing to kids since the 60‘s or did something change? 1y
jlhammar @Suet624 Yes, they had been, but it was taken to a whole new level in the 80s. Really interesting read! 1y
67 likes4 stack adds4 comments