"Merchants of Cool" was Wrong

(Disclaimer: Merchants of Cool was aired in 2001, before social media as we know it, and therefore did not take a position on social media's impact on marketing. I have given my essay its title because the idea of telling Douglas Rushkoff he was wrong pleases me. Continue.)
In our class discussion of Merchants of Cool last week, the question of whether youth culture is an expression of who we are or what we're sold arose. Inevitably, social media was mentioned, and a new question was asked: Does social media make culture more or less a product of marketing schemes? I say less.
First, what is youth culture? I interpret youth culture to mean pop culture, and pop culture is defined by Wikipedia as "the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture." Now, since we are debating the effect of social media on culture, we must first consider culture before social media. In the old days, media messages - the purveyors of the ideas, perspectives, attitudes, and images that constitute our youth culture - reached the public only if they were sponsored by corporations.  A song only became available through a record label, a film through a movie studio, a show through a TV station, and writing only through a publishing company, magazine or newspaper. So for any piece of culture to reach the masses, it first passed through a profit-driven middle man. These corporately-processed media messages certainly still exist, but social media has changed the way we consume culture to the point where big-money interests can be bypassed.
With the advent of social media, anyone can create an account and create media messages accessible to an unlimited online community. You can, and my guess is, you already have. By posting our own media messages and sharing those of our peers, a pop culture landscape has emerged where corporations are unable to disrupt the transmission of media from creator to audience. Seeing as our generation will encounter more media messages online than through traditional, controlled outlets, social media has greatly reduced the influence of marketers on culture.
However, pop culture is still more about what is cool than it is about what all is out there. Just because I tweet a great number of media messages without corporate sponsorship to my 17 followers does not mean I've lessened marketers' control over anything. To impact popular culture, a thing must first be popular. But despite the large amounts of obscure junk posted on the internet, social media has still reduced marketers' influence on "cool." This is so due to social media's interactive model. Whereas traditional media outlets shove messages down our throats and hope we don't get bored, social media allows the masses to decide what they "like" (and mention, and share) - and thus what gets seen by others. A bad TV show can still air on CBS because the producers decided to slot it there. The viewers can show their disapproval by not tuning in, but can't decide what content gets broadcast. Contrastingly, a media message only becomes prevalent on social media if a great number of people share it. Therefore, it's guaranteed that the most popular messages become the most widely absorbed - and the most cool. After all, what is cool is what is liked, and as much as marketers seek to figure out what appeals to us, they can't guarantee the approval half-a-million retweets shows.
How do democratically elected pop culture fads exclude corporations? Well, because viral fame is so unpredictable, there's no mechanism by which marketers can link their brands to soon-to-be-viral posts before they blow up. In fact, many of the social media posts that leave their mark on pop culture do so because people find them relatable and genuine. And it's difficult to film a cute puppy Vine or write a hilarious tweet while also advertising a brand. People see through that stuff, and it's their approval that's needed for more people to view the message. All told, social media takes the power to make things cool out of marketers' hands. Because any post from anyone can become cool - and therefore weave its way into pop culture - if the masses approve, no corporate interest can play "merchant of cool." The people will decide what is awesome, for themselves.
At the end of the day, nobody would argue that social media has eradicated marketing from youth culture. However, a culture driven by social media can't be manufactured by marketers, as they have little control over what gets seen and can't decide what becomes popular. The best content becomes pop culture because people share it, whereas promotional trash gets scrolled past. It appears corporate America has lost its cultural monopoly for the time being. Viva la revolución.