"What the results are telling them is that the most money is spent in volume by young people. They also see young people as the consumers of tomorrow and are trying to capture their attention from their competitors"
About this Quote
As an actress and longtime media figure, Thomas speaks from inside the attention economy she’s critiquing. She understands how youth gets framed as both audience and product: advertisers chase young people because they buy now, but also because they can be shaped into “consumers of tomorrow.” That future-tense logic is the subtext that lands hardest. It recasts childhood and adolescence not as stages of development, but as a market-entry moment, a race to plant brand loyalty before identity hardens.
The line about competitors does extra work: it implies the content aimed at young people isn’t primarily designed to inform or delight, but to win a war of positioning. Youth culture becomes contested territory, and the person on the other side of the screen becomes a “them” to be targeted. Thomas’s intent isn’t to demonize young people; it’s to indict the adult systems that flatter youth while calculating their lifetime value. The quote works because it sounds like someone translating corporate strategy into plain English, letting the cynicism show without raising her voice.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Thomas, Marlo. (2026, January 16). What the results are telling them is that the most money is spent in volume by young people. They also see young people as the consumers of tomorrow and are trying to capture their attention from their competitors. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-the-results-are-telling-them-is-that-the-115104/
Chicago Style
Thomas, Marlo. "What the results are telling them is that the most money is spent in volume by young people. They also see young people as the consumers of tomorrow and are trying to capture their attention from their competitors." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-the-results-are-telling-them-is-that-the-115104/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"What the results are telling them is that the most money is spent in volume by young people. They also see young people as the consumers of tomorrow and are trying to capture their attention from their competitors." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/what-the-results-are-telling-them-is-that-the-115104/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.
