Children's Commercialism

Raise your hand if, like me, you are sick of all these children's movies that are nothing but transparent marketing ploys.

The latest is SpongeBob Squarepants, but he's just the newest addition to a long and venerable line of branded products marketed to children. This goes at least as far back as the advent of children's TV. The only difference nowadays is that the information age has ushered in a plethora of new marketing opportunities.

Most of us agree that we shouldn't have this sort of toxic advertising culture around our kids. So what are we doing about it?

After all, this kind of thing only has as much power over us as we give to it.