A function of this marketable cultural obsession with microcelebrity is classism, which Teen Boss doled out in large supply. It’s fair to say that young people from a range of backgrounds need to find work in order to support themselves, their families, their futures—often as a means of survival. Clearly, however, this publication was not for them; there is a reason it was titled Teen Boss and not Teen Worker, or Teen Paper Route, or even Teen Business: the term “boss” signals power, authority, and elite status. If this appears obvious, just imagine the number of alternative approaches Teen Boss might have taken: a more consciously useful text could have taught preteens about financial literacy, or placed greater emphasis on the kind of off-the-books work that fits into an after-school or weekend schedule. Rather than, say, indoctrinating them into an influencer economy.

“It’s too bad because girls at the ages [Teen Boss] is targeted to, ages eight to eleven, are going through a really tricky developmental moment where they become more withdrawn,” said Melissa Campbell of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) when we spoke by phone in February. Campbell explains that a girl’s self-esteem often plummets around age nine. “A lot of that has to do with whether or not you see yourself as a fully embodied person who is creating something in the world [or] whether you are something to be consumed.”

It’s here—beyond its meme-like absurdity—that Teen Boss reveals its particular strain of parasitic nefariousness: it fed on the developmental vulnerabilities of its young readers. “A magazine like this is really insidious,” Campbell added, “because it makes you think that you’re building your power, because you have a vision, you want to carry it out, you want to make something of yourself—but really what you’re doing is monetizing your experiences [and] setting yourself up to be consumed, literally, through your videos and your content and your personality.” The turn represented by Teen Boss, Campbell concluded, is that it was “being sold to you [as if] you’re embodied and in charge.”

It’s easy to laugh about Teen Boss; to see it as just a passing meme or a joke. But what it represents about the way young people are failed by platform capitalism is a serious concern. The problems with Teen Boss will outlive Teen Boss, and they speak to a society-wide dereliction of responsibility with regard to the effects of predatory tech products on our culture, on our ability to meaningfully hear ourselves and others, and on our willingness to communicate in a way determined by social need and not the profit motive. Vulnerable populations are made more vulnerable under these conditions, including kids and tweens especially.

Capitalism has always exploited and deadened the imagination. Platform capitalism takes this a step further by repackaging this exploitation and selling it as empowerment. By encouraging young people and teenagers to become influencers, these companies push them into a commodified space filled with negative forces that run counter to their interests.

“It is just so clear, marketing is terrible for children. It limits their imaginations. It makes them sick,” Campbell told me. “As a kid, you figure out who you are by being around other people. . . . It’s challenging enough to be developing your social relationships on these disembodied platforms. But when all of those platforms are also tracing out the contours of your relationships and trying to figure out who you are and what you want so they can sell more stuff to you,” she continued, “it creates new norms where young people just expect all of their relationships to be commercialized.”