10 Ways WWE Can Appeal To The Teenage Demographic
6. Emotions!
There’s often been a drive to portray teenagers as emotionally numb with nonchalant attitudes to the world around them. This is only the case because they don’t care about what adults care about. Get a kid talking about their favourite sports team, which rapper has been arrested this time or which reality TV star is dating which musician and they come alive. Kids love emotions… they are just big balls of conflicting out of control emotions.
Taking cues once again from TV that is very successful in pitching at teens, melodrama is the word of the day. Everything to a teenager is the end of the world or the most important decision of their lives. Being a teenager is like playing poker with shirt buttons but always going all in every hand. Teens love simplistic, powerful emotion.
As such, WWE needs to inject raw, powerful emotion back in to their product. Teens of the '90s loved the hatred between Vince and Austin, teens of the '80s genuinely believed Hulk Hogan was a Real American fighting for their rights.
Adults are cynical and hard to please. Teens just have not yet figured out nuance and subtlety in regards to their emotions, but that doesn’t mean they will not resonate with a powerful moment such as Daniel Bryan's heartbreaking retirement/jubilant return arc.
Bring big emotions back to wrestling, Vince!