Sponcon and Your Kids

One simple way for you to track with changes in culture is to pay attention to the announcements from the dictionary companies regarding new words that are being added, and older passe words that are being removed. You see, our language reflects what’s happening in culture. For example, you might wonder what took the folks at Merriam-Webster so long to add the term Pumpkin Spice to the dictionary this fall. Nevertheless, since everything these days seems to be coming up Pumpkin Spice, I guess it’s better late then never. One new word that deserves our attention is sponcon. That’s spelled S-p-o-n-c-o-n. The world combines sponsored and content, which gives a clue to what we’re talking about here. It refers to content posted by a social media influencer that looks like a typical post, but for which the poster has been paid to advertise a product or service. This reminds us that we need to teach our kids to spot persuasive marketing efforts wherever they appear.