This is your child's brain on Influencer Marketing w/ Lauren Mazzarese (Out Think Influencers ep 1)

“Your child needs to know that it’s okay to make mistakes, that your family and your forgiveness is always an open door.” -Cindy Marie Jenkins

“We don't want to take kids' feelings away from them.” -Lauren Mazzarese

Out Think Influencers is the second podcast series from Out Think Media, where I team up with experts to give you the historical, cultural and emotional context needed to understand kids' media today.

Today’s episode kickstarts with Licensed Professional Counselor Lauren Mazzarese returning to share her expertise on: 

• Influencer culture and how it works differently on our children’s brains
  • Parasocial relationships vs celebrity marketing
• The clearest explanation of brain development and how it affects a child’s decision-making abilities over time I’ve ever heard
• How to prepare kids to identify marketing 
  • In stores
  • In video games like Fortnite
• Exercises to control the impulse to give in to marketing
• Dialogue starters for these conversations, both in advance and in the moment of distress

 

Show Notes

1. “Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence.” -National Register of Health Service Psychologists
2. Front. Psychol. , 16 March 2020, Sec. Developmental Psychology, Volume 11 - 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00451
3. Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers
4. Good Mythical Morning 
5. Coping Skills Primer
6. Origin Story by Carrie Klewin Lawrence
7. Wonderlands by Charles Baxter

Next episode: Romantic Scams with Jennifer Lawrence

Want more from Lauren? Join our Patreon for free or $3/month and hear our Exclusive Extended Minisode here.

Learn more about Out Think Media

Lauren Mazzarese (she/her) is a Licensed Professional Counselor who has been working as a therapist for the past 10 years. In her practice she focuses on several areas including substance abuse, trauma, LGBTQ+ issues, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and ADHD. Part of her work with her clients often involves working with parents to address the mental and emotional health of their children. Lauren also has a background in theatre and spent several years performing on stage as well as teaching acting and music. She enjoys being able to incorporate many of the theatre skills and activities she learned in her first career into her therapeutic practice. 

Cindy Marie Jenkins (she/her), Host & Creative Producer. I have written at the intersection of parenting, tech, and pop culture for over ten years, and in the entertainment industry for over twenty.

As a published essayist/journalist in both international and national media, I always want to help families and educators. While Deputy Editor for JingKids Int’l, I discovered how to channel my rabbit hole research skills to help families into practical and emotionally open articles. 

That’s why I was excited to launch this venture to help families evaluate content creators on YouTube and have the dialogues needed to understand this new world. I am also grateful to the many readers and listeners who jumped on board!

Shortly after graduating from NYU, I moved to Los Angeles where I was a Teaching Artist at multiple local nonprofits, such as CTGLA (Center Theatre Group), Safe Moves, the Virginia Avenue Project, Enrichment Works, before building and managing an arts education wing of Antaeus Company and expanding its professional classical Academy.

For 15 years, I’ve run multiple workshops on arts marketing, outreach, and partnerships and was one of the first to pioneer digital marketing for Los Angeles theaters and nonprofits. Noticing that one gap between artists and potential audiences was curation, I produced and hosted review shows for both the emerging web series genre and traditional arts like live theatre.

Now, I'm thrilled to use all of this experience in arts and higher education, theatre for young audiences, kids media literacy, writing, and outreach to present Taming of the Screens this spring. 

 

Deborah Lee Smith, Audio Editor

Adam Emperor Southard, Theme Composer (also a fantastic photographer)

Annie Collins, PR & Marketing Manager

Annie Ruby, UI/UX & series logo Designer 

Angela Zhong, original Logo Designer/Out Think Media

Produced by CMJ Communications LLC, DBA OutThink Media

 

Who do you like to watch? Who should I review next?

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If you’d like extended, exclusive, and early interviews with our guests, please join the Patreon here. There is a free tier and it’s where we will build this community to help families.