KidZania

April 13, 2011 2:00 PM

The candy cigarette has found a rightful heir. KidZania, an international chain of family entertainment centers, invites children to be the adults in a simulated city-state. It claims to teach children about work and money, but its critics say that KidZania, full of sponsored and branded activities, is an early introduction to corporate consumerism. (via)
posted by domnit (47 comments total)

Fascinating and horrifying in equal measure.
posted by knapah at 2:11 PM on April 13, 2011

Yeah, I read that earlier and was thinking of posting it. On the one hand, there is a little something Richard Scary/Space Camp about the idea which is appealing. On the other, much larger and heavier hand : "cooking lesson no. 1, kiddos! First, you take your microwave. Then, you take you Perdue frozen nuggets, and...." Sigh.
posted by Diablevert at 2:13 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sounds fun, honestly. And introductions corporate consumerism is not hard to find for children. We even celebrated some recently in the Blue (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic")

Also, from the article, this: "As I was unable to visit KidZania for myself—the franchises haven’t spread anywhere near me just yet—I spoke with Jeffrey Friedl, a parent who has taken his children to KidZania Tokyo many time" Makes me think that the real thing may be different than the hand wringing.
posted by blahblahblah at 2:15 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

is an early introduction to corporate consumerism.

Which is fine, since that's the prevailing force in our civilization. Don't you want your children to thrive in the world, or would you prefer them to become beggardly, "high-principled" malcontents?
posted by hermitosis at 2:16 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Eugh. My fourth-grade class got packed off to a low-rent version of this circa 1994. I believe I got stuck staffing the mini-McDonalds, chaperoned by some classmate's pill-popping mess of a mother who kept calling the mock radio station demanding to hear Boot Scootin' Boogie.

Looking back on it from the other end of six years of art school and 12 months post-Masters with nary a sign of regular income, I think the message of free enterprise somehow failed to take.
posted by wreckingball at 2:17 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

On the surface, this looks kind of awesome to me, actually. Teaching children some form of budget management at an early age is good. As kids, we always played pilot and doctor - what's wrong with a place that lets you do it better?

In Texas, we took a field trip to "Enterprise City", which was something similar done by an elementary school. I forget the job I had... but I think I was a clerk at a video store. I pretty much blew my salary for the whole day playing games in the arcade and buying ice cream. The experience turned out remarkably prescient.
posted by heathkit at 2:17 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

If my children do not turn out to be malcontents I will consider myself to have failed as a parent.
posted by Aizkolari at 2:17 PM on April 13, 2011 [16 favorites]

I only let my kid do activities that aren't that aren't advertising-intensive-- like reading the newspaper together, or going to the ballpark or even just a Saturday morning subway ride.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:21 PM on April 13, 2011 [6 favorites]

I'd say it's Horrors of Capitalism Day here on MeFi, but really, every day is Horrors of Capitalism Day, isn't it?
posted by oinopaponton at 2:22 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

My fourth-grade class got packed off to a low-rent version of this circa 1994

Oh god. AVOID AVOID AVOID.

I'd say it's Horrors of Capitalism Day here on MeFi, but really, every day is Horrors of Capitalism Day, isn't it?

QUIET YOU! Get back to your Double Frappa-Macaroni-and-Cheesarito Taquito or we release the bees!
posted by JHarris at 2:26 PM on April 13, 2011

wreckingball: "chaperoned by some classmate's pill-popping mess of a mother who kept calling the mock radio station demanding to hear Boot Scootin' Boogie.
"

This is the type of detail I troll Metafilter for, hoping to eventually construct a fictional world of great, well-loved literature out of the non-fiction of other people's lives. Seriosly, from your childhood pain, I am grinning horribly.

Looking back on it from the other end of six years of art school and 12 months post-Masters with nary a sign of regular income, I think the message of free enterprise somehow failed to take.

After following the link provided, I like to think that the Stavros Institute isn't real but instead some sort of art school project you are using to ruin my day.

As for the link provided by the OP, it has also made me ponder. KidZania Dubai -- fake place or most fake place ever?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:27 PM on April 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

Children playing at work is as ancient as work itself. Kids playing at corporate branded work, for that matter, dates back to at least 1900 with baking sets, toy trains, etc. Is it creepy? Only if you let it be. Brands are part of our everyday background, at this point it's odd to edit them out.
posted by Nelson at 2:27 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder how they choose which kids get to be doctors and which ones get to work in the Coca Cola™ bottling plant. Do the kids themselves choose? And if so, do the factory workers and McNugget™ cooks get to experience the dawning realization that they made the wrong choice?

Do they all get paid the same? Because that's ... like ... Communism, or something. I hope, at very least, the McNugget™ kids get humiliated and made to clean up fryer grease, otherwise we're really not teaching them anything about life.
posted by Afroblanco at 2:28 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

This isn't exactly new. I went to a place like this (Enterprise Village) on an elementary school field trip years ago down in Florida.

It was the culmination of a month-long program teaching real-world skills. Each kid would pick a career and then study aspects of it (like filling out a spreadsheet for accounting) and complete special projects (like writing a 30-second radio spot for marketing). Everybody practiced making change and balancing a checkbook and other personal finance stuff.

The day of, we arrived along with several other classes at a vast warehouse-like space full of fake storefronts sponsored by businesses like McDonalds and Bank of America. We all got split up into different shifts -- some kids would work their job, while others were free to wander around, spending their allotment of play money on Waldenbooks and Happy Meals (mine was slathered in onions despite asking for none; I guess my server slept through the unit on proper order-taking).

After half an hour or so we'd swap roles, going to work at our practiced careers while the former workforce got their leisure time. I remember having to fill out a lot of fake paperwork for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Overall, it was interesting and different, but I'm not sure how effective it was.

Lots more fun was Safety Village, a community learning center in town. It was a miniature outdoor city full of tiny buildings: a long, skinny supermaket, a fire station, a courthouse, an ecumenical church. I don't know how educational it was -- apparently not very, considering my little brother knocked me down while racing his "car" (bike) down the Safety Village sidewalks -- but it was crazy fun. Sadly, it looks like it was demolished last September to save the city money. You can see an older picture of it here.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:30 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

from post: “is an early introduction to corporate consumerism.”

hermitosis: “Which is fine, since that's the prevailing force in our civilization. Don't you want your children to thrive in the world, or would you prefer them to become beggardly, 'high-principled' malcontents?”

Look, pal – I was a beggardly, 'high-principled' malcontent when I was a teenager, and so were all my friends. If being beggardly, 'high-principled' malcontents was good enough for us, then it'll be good enough for my kids too, by golly.
posted by koeselitz at 2:32 PM on April 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

This actually sounds like a good idea. I kind of wish I had a more realistic idea of what people do in their jobs when I was little. I mean, I didn't know what job I'd like when I graduated high school. Four years of college later, and I'm still unsure, and it looks like I need to spend even more time to graduate because of it (plus some health issues that kept me out of class a few semesters).

As for the corporate branding, it's kind of creepy. But at the same time, it doesn't really seem to be that bad. I got the impression from the article that they design the activity, and then pitch it as a branding opportunity to a corporation. I don't want to spin it too much, but maybe it'll seem more realistic to kids if they see logos they recognize on the activities.

And, as others have said, there's much worse consumerist indoctrination out there. I'm pretty sure Pokemon, Apple, and sites like Facebook (via heavy targeted advertising) are doing more to teach our kids to be consumers.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:36 PM on April 13, 2011

Yeah, this is pretty ubiquitous in the US, but we usually call them children's museums.

You wanna talk about intro to consumerism and branded activities? The Miami Children's Museum is complete with a mini carnival cruise ship, bank of america, etc.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:39 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Junior Achievement's JA World facilities are like this.
posted by milkrate at 2:41 PM on April 13, 2011

This reminds me a lot of this theme park they have where I live, called Adultzland. You work a certain amount, and get "AdultzBuckz" in exchange. It's pretty cool. You can be a policeman, or a teacher, or I think there's a few other AdultzJobs. I'm doing one where I work in an office, sending e-mails and filing stuff. I think tomorrow's when I get this week's Adultzbuckz, so some of it goes into BankLand, but some of it I'll probably spend on AdultzFood (they have these restaurants where they give you pheasant and vodka and stuff).

It's a neat idea, although it seems like it's not really that well thought-out. Like, I used to have other AdultzJobs that paid less, but made me work harder (you can switch AdultzJobs if you get sick of them), so it seems like they could stand to make a more uniform system of work/reward for Adultzbuckz. Adultz who clean up urine, for example, actually make a lot less than Adultz who play baseball, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Still, it's kind of a fun thing to do if you don't have anything better going on.
posted by Greg Nog at 2:43 PM on April 13, 2011 [30 favorites]

Yeah, this is pretty ubiquitous in the US, but we usually call them children's museums.

My parents took me to the Exploratorium in San Francisco on what was probably a monthly basis and I don't recall there being any corporate sponsorship or brands involved at all. (I do recall it being it being my favorite place on the entire planet, to the extent that my parents referred to it as "the E-word" because if they said the whole thing I would demand to be taken there immediately.)
posted by theodolite at 2:44 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

its critics say that KidZania, full of sponsored and branded activities, is an early introduction to corporate consumerism.

Yeah, best just pack them off to Disneyland to make sure they're safe from all that corporate consumerism.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:45 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

(they have these restaurants where they give you pheasant and vodka and stuff).

I WANT TO GO TO THERE
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:46 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Adultzland

A nice place, but it could use more of those Zupervisors.
posted by theodolite at 2:46 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

invites children to be the adults in a simulated city-state

Maaan, I was all excited for some Spartan vs. Athenian "the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must" action, but noooo, they just get to play construction worker and security guard and shit. I bet they don't even get to ostracize each other.

You are no fun, corporate America!
posted by furiousthought at 2:47 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

"Commune World" in which spirited, high minded young people band together to live the dream of egalitarian, peasant harmony is much better. Male or female you get to grow a beard, live six to a room in a house made of mud, argue about Gramsci, watch all the potatoes die, let someone else clean the toilet (which they never do) and gradually drift off into drug addiction or a little part time job in an estate agents. So long as you don't mind 19 rules about breathing right and having to scrimp and save to buy a stamp to write home for money from your mother, it's fab.
posted by joannemullen at 2:53 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]

Adultzland needs to get more JobZones. I've been waiting in line for a part-time AdultzJob for like a year and a half now. I'm pretty much just biding my time in the kiddy part known as CollegeMania.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:55 PM on April 13, 2011

These entertainment centers need to include locations where kids can score some krack and/or a little koochie-koo.
posted by perhapses at 3:00 PM on April 13, 2011

JHarris: "QUIET YOU! Get back to your Double Frappa-Macaroni-and-Cheesarito Taquito or we release the bees!"

This is your fault.
posted by boo_radley at 3:15 PM on April 13, 2011

The candy cigarette has found a rightful heir.

Sure, if the kids at KidZania could end their working day by going over and spending their KidzBucks on KidzCigs and KidzBeer, while complaining what a ball-buster their Zupervisor is.

A better analogy than candy cigarettes might've been that Simpsons gag with the Oscar Meyer periodic table.

While it's distressing to watch corporate consumerism creep in to children's playtime (well at this point in time it's more or less parading in with a brass band sponsored by Yum! Brands) this article is rife with good old-fashioned "I haven't seen it but I know it's bad" hysteria. I liked the line about the kid's news show presenting a piece on how nice cops are. Criminy, what do you want the kids to say on fake TV in an idealized, positive working environment?

"Violence broke out this afternoon at the ec-o-nom-ic summit, as riot troops fired tear gas into crowds of peaceful protestors. Over four hundred injuries were reported, and city officials fear a full-scale riot in re-tal-i-a-tion. In in-ter-nat-ional news, the UN today formally con... condem...ned the government sponsored guh-en-o-cide programs which have killed nearly three million in... I don't know how to say that. Closer to home, un-em-ploy-ment rates soar to an all-time high as layoffs continue in what experts are calling the worst recession in years. Now here's Carter with sports."

"My daddy had a layoff. I wanna go home."

There's some good points to be found in the article if you can just get around the excessive teeth-gnashing and horrified tut-tutting.
posted by Spatch at 3:26 PM on April 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

I like the realism:

Children do not create their own stories at KidZania. The story that some children are tasked with writing for the journalism activity at many franchises is a report on the how great the police are. Meanwhile, in the painting activity at KidZania Dubai, they do not paint their own picture but color in a picture of one of the KidZania mascots.

Hey kids, don't worry - the future isn't about thinking much for yourself, but doing your part well and not making a fuss.

I hope to teach little filthy light thief junior about our proud French/Norwegian history, and become a saboteur.

Right, back to that report I was working on. But I've slipped in some Comic Sans and sarcasm, that'll teach The Man!
posted by filthy light thief at 3:31 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

A spin-off venture, SforZania, invites children to engage one another in a simulated ruthless struggle for power while cultivating a simulated enlightened culture of flourishing artistic and scientific inquiry.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:46 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ah! Do I have a story for you!

We had a similar experience in 5th grade and if it wasn't an allegory for the real world, well I don't know what was. It wasn't branded like this one, but there was a shop and everything, it was fairly well put together. Ours went like this:

Each shop had some fundamental setup tasks to do and was given seed money. I don't really remember the specifics, but like every shop would be forced to order a sign from, say the "sign shop" and if they spent more money than others, the sign shop was to spend more time on their sign. The idea being that the better the sign, the more people will shop at your store. This was the gist of the entire thing. You received a base pay and if more people shopped at your store, you essentially got bonuses, which you'd use to spend at other people's stores. This is the sort of American Dream indoctrination that causes years of therapy.

The catch, and fatal flaw, was this: each shop was run by a parent (read: always a mom, except for the one guy who had a French dad and whose mom was an heiress to something, and so whenever there was a parent thing he was the only guy that showed up, everyone assumed it was a "French thing.") If every parent was honest, and this was the whole point of having a parent at each shop, the bookkeeping was done correctly, kids only got paid when they were suppose to, etc. I'm guessing most of the time this worked. I went to a private school and there were some really, really wealthy people there. These parents formed cliques that didn't think the rules applied to them. One of the moms was fucking our principal, and I'm sure the rest held considerable fundraising sway over him as well, so this will come into play shortly.

So the wealthy kids and their popular friends, and moms!, were magically placed together in the same row of shops. There was no discipline, the moms talked and when the kids wanted more money they just took it out of the fake money envelope. This pissed everyone off and despite several moms complaining to the principal, nothing happened. I don't remember most of this, I was just kind of having fun, but I remember my mom and a couple others being really pissed. They were right, the whole game was broken and we eventually just ignored the tasks that relied on these rich kids. The added indignity was that you weren't suppose to be able to "shop" unless your work was done. All the rich kids did was shop, and then kind of jack around with the cheap plastic trinkets they "bought," while the rest of us watched from our shops in true Dickensian fashion. If the game had been setup with this in mind, the extra cash from the rich kids would have meant we could have stopped working and shoppe as well, but you couldn't shop based on money earned, but on time spent working.

Whatever, it wasn't really work we were doing, and I really just remember the bad kids being bad again and not getting in trouble and how much my mom hated the snobby moms. The class issues were completely lost on me at the time. I do remember, the car ride home from school that day, my mom trying to instill the lesson we were suppose to learn. That if you work hard, you'll get rewarded and that in the real world those kids wouldn't last a minute. I'm sure my friends and I all nodded in solemn agreement, knowing that once we enter the mythical real world, we will be the heroes.

I don't think I need to give an update as to which of us are putting in 40 hour work weeks and which of us are "looking to model, possibly act," in LA. You can't make this shit up.
posted by geoff. at 3:51 PM on April 13, 2011 [30 favorites]

As I was unable to visit KidZania for myself...

Hey, who needs primary research for journalism these days eh? We can blog!
posted by modernnomad at 3:55 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whaaaat? whaaaaaaat?

wait.... Whaaaaaaaaaat???


(I would have hated this as a kid. Chemistry set, Butterfly net, and lots of scrap wood instead thank you.)
posted by lemuring at 4:03 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I went to a private school and there were some really, really wealthy people there. These parents formed cliques that didn't think the rules applied to them. One of the moms was fucking our principal, and I'm sure the rest held considerable fundraising sway over him as well, so this will come into play shortly.

This, is, basically, what's wrong with our country.
posted by Avenger at 4:05 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, this kinda reminds of Children's Railways in former Communist countries mainly in Europe. These are railway lines which operate according to standard national railway regulations but are completely staffed by kids. This was a feature from the Communist era but at least some of them were viewed fondly and were popular enough to continue to operate today. The one near Budapest, Hungary is particularly famous.
posted by Bwithh at 4:06 PM on April 13, 2011

Though the Children's Railways are cooler than KidZania because these are actual operating railways and the kids behave like real railway workers rather than just pretend roleplay.
posted by Bwithh at 4:07 PM on April 13, 2011

Sorry, I came late to the thread. I just looked at the "candy cigarette" thing I thought it would be a link to you know...Sugar Meth Dip or Halloween Heroin or something.

I just started thinking the last couple of days that Capitalism is as much a myth as Communism. The idea has been sorta kicking around my head without much else to do. Now I look at these Capitalism Fun Zones and it really seems to me that it's the same as the Worker's Paradise Parks that communists would have set up to educate their children. Cute, but with a sinister, insidious meta message.

Upon preview; reading the comments, seems to me many here get the same feeling.
posted by Xoebe at 5:19 PM on April 13, 2011

"The overall message is that more education means more money. But KidZania seems to fail to emphasize the idea that education is important for reasons other than as a way to get a better-paid job."

If I had followed the education means more money model, I wouldn't have blown the wad on this useless degree in mother-fucking physical anthropology. My kid will hear "Read books for fun, son, but don't go to college unless you have a PLAN or about $50,000 you don't care about."
posted by Foam Pants at 5:34 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Compared to the 12 minutes of crap students are forced to watch every morning in some public schools, this doesn't seem all that bad. At least you can, y'know, opt-in to this place.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:34 PM on April 13, 2011

So after a while the kids get tired of playing with the un-re-purpose-able displays and things, and drift out of the place. Later they're found sitting in a circle by the Dumpster near the loading dock, smoking cigarettes, talking about stuff and making whistles out of willow twigs, and that is where the "Philosopher", "Scientist" and "Craftsman" learn to think and act independently. They don't even need props to get on with that.
posted by jet_silver at 8:14 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — and do not forget this, Jaedynne — always there will be the intoxication of branding, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of recognizing one's surroundings from television, the cool caress of yellow and red plastic moulding.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine an AirKidZ® boot stamping on a child's face — 20 KidZos for the first hour and 10 KidZos for each additional hour thereafter.
posted by No-sword at 8:50 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

More and more I feel like I am living in a Margaret Atwood novel. I await the waterless flood with dread.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:25 PM on April 13, 2011

<boggle>

This is a for real not-an-internet-troll thing?

I'd be'm all over the class warfare thing starting yesterday. Where do I sign up?

If not for that I'm in the "intellectual class" which might get be mislabeled into one of the stupid classes.

hey, I can make antibiotics for you. .. and uh, I can brew really good booze, too! And I can pretend that I have bad grammer, poorly.
posted by porpoise at 9:32 PM on April 13, 2011

"The more kids are immersed in commercialization, prepackaged fun, the less experience they have of making their own fun, of using their own imaginations, and the more they are dependent on corporations to supply their fun for them."

this
posted by Tom-B at 7:54 AM on April 14, 2011

Based on the capital Z, it's probably pronounced kid-ZANY-uh, but I like to pronounce it like Tansania.
posted by domnit at 11:37 AM on April 14, 2011

"Commune World" in which spirited, high minded young people band together to...

Your axe, was it dull?
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 1:09 PM on April 14, 2011 [1 favorite]