After World War II, American lives changed drastically from the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression and then entering World War II. In the 1950's when the youth population increases, modernized entertainment technology is introduced, and white collar workers rise; they create the perils of mass culture. The Perils of Mass Culture that emerged in 1950's and are still with us to this day created the American stereotype.
The Veterans who are returning home from World War II felt the need to get married and have kids to pass down their name and life lessons. This created the baby boom generation; in 1959 the population of kids under the age of fourteen was over fifty million and that significantly impacts society in many area of life. The government responded to the enormous increase of kids by putting them through public schools to educate them and teach how to be hardworking, respectful, and disciplined when or if parents could not do so. Instead of children being influenced by adults to have good ethics, they chose to seek direction and approval from their peers. Parents notice that their kids are different from themselves at a similar age. As a group, they were the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time while they may have been born during the Great Depression giving in to the financial wants of their offspring to give them what they couldn't have. Kids and teenagers had many financial wants and they were greatly expressed by the media. Advertisements were everywhere and they mostly targeted the influential youth of America because of their numbers. Children in America were exposed to mass hours of advertisements slowly turning them into materialistic consumers. Parents helped the growth of materialism by signing up for credit cards. The use of credit was advertised; when money was not available you just borrow it.