By Marisa Pjerrou
The official website of the national, non-profit SHiNE organization,
shine.com is aimed at 12-24 year olds who "care about the world
and want to make positive differences." Founded by Alan Rambam,
a former whiz in youth marketing and advertising and one of the country's
"foremost experts on cause branding" (whatever that is),
the somewhat broad goals of the organization are to help "young
people develop the tools they need to build self-esteem, embrace diversity,
promote social harmony and practice non-violence." Kids can get
involved through participation in SHiNE mall events, teen town halls,
and nationwide SHiNE clubs. The shine.com website attempts to convey
SHiNE's goals by providing "teens with information on relevant
social and political issues, entertainment and pop culture news, and
a w! ealth of resources to help them mobilize for change." Not
an educational site in the strictest sense, shine.com has more of
an after-school club feel to it where teens can "discover each
other, share their views, and talk about their lives." Rambam's
middle-of -the-road kind of focus plays it safe in attracting big
corporate sponsors such as Tommy Hilfiger, Kodak, Procter & Gamble,
and AT&T Wireless, and either ignores or obfuscates controversial
subjects. While the site's discussion board and advice column clearly
shows that many of shine.com's fans are concerned with relationship
and sex questions, there is no mention of safe sex or birth control
use anywhere. Also, while SHiNE managed to land a gig at the White
House as the "lead youth partner" in the National Campaign
Against Youth Violen! ce, there were surprisingly no articles on subjects
such as rape or teen gangs.
For an organization that seems committed to social/activist causes,
the inclusion of celebrity news doesn't make sense and actually detracts
from what SHiNE seems to want to represent. The most dominant visual
element of the home page was a photo and accompanying blurb about
Drew Barrymore and Tom Green's recent house fire. If the purpose of
including celebrity news is to create stronger appeal to the 12-24
year old crowd, it would at least make more sense to align tidbits
of celebrity info with SHiNE's themes of diversity, social harmony,
etc. and not just with random information. Why not focus on Drew Barrymore's
vegetarianism, for example? Another annoying focus on celebrities
were two separate lists I found of celebrity endorsers, but with no
expl! anation as to why they were chosen to endorse SHiNE, or what
their backgrounds were. In one of the lists, by selecting a name,
a scanned image of an autograph and an insipid message would appear
from the famous individual. Cindy Crawford's contribution: "Only
you know what's right for you. Trust your instincts - that's what
they're there for!"
As a forum for allowing teens to express their views, the discussion
board section offers nothing new or innovative that one can't find
at other discussion boards. An odd advice column called "Ask
Maxine" was full of sex and dating concerns from teens with responses
from Maxine, the SHiNE cartoon spokeswoman; I found the lack of an
actual psychologist's visible presence for this column to be somewhat
disturbing. Who is Maxine? A college intern? A SHiNE computer programmer?
The best features of the site were a section called Action (where
one can find out about local volunteering opportunities) and the stories
about young people who exemplify the SHiNE ethos in some unique way:
for example, a young man who started his own urban-style clothing
design firm, or a young woman who is a plus-size model. The problem
I had with these features, especially with the interesting articles,
is that they were "buried" within a wide array of confusing
topics with titles such as "inspiration" or "real life."
I was surprised to find under the Action section MTV's very socially
powerful and well-designed hate crime website, Fight for Your Rights
- and even more surprised to discover that it was a co-production
of MTV and SHiNE. How Drew Barrymore and Tom Green get placed on the
homepage while this link got demoted to another is unbelievable, considering
how well it exemplifies and teaches what SHiNE seems to be about.
I personally didn't like the "raw" style art design of
the website, nor the accompanying unattractive cartoon spokespeople
- although they do give the site an urban, youthful look. The navigation
definitely distracts from the site's intentions: I say dump the celebrity
feature of SHiNE and organize the real teen stories better so that
they are easier to find and more prominently displayed on the front
page. Also clean up and clarify some of the links. The reasons for
including a link to Canada were unclear to me. While I would recommend
putting the MTV Fight for Your Rights link right on the homepage,
I wonder if that middle-of-the-road focus that attracts big corporate
sponsors and well-known celebrity end! orsers wants to keep the homepage
controversy-free? (Hence put the "hotter" issues on another
page?) It would also be nice to see more extensive coverage and photos
of the nationwide SHiNE teen clubs than what if offered in the SHiNE
411 section.