Teen Pop era 2.0 ( 2006- 2009)

I suppose it would be unfair for me to dismiss the high viewership of The Cheetah Girls 2, considering it actually got higher ratings than the first HSM. However, back in 03/04, it had little competition and therefore was able to dominate its respective market. Once HSM moved in, The Cheetah Girls got a little overshadowed. The fact that HSM2 premiere had over 17 million viewers, crushing anything else the network has ever done, really speaks for its popularity.

It depends on what you choose to focus on. I agree that people our age would have been the target audience for the Nickelodeon and Disney-Channel stars of the time such as the Jonas Brothers, Hannah/Miley etc., however that's only focusing on the kid-centric culture and not pop culture at large. There's kid-targeted trends in every era.

When it comes to pop culture overall, however, I would even go as far in saying that the late 2000s were the least kid-friendly era for pop culture since at least the '70s, especially in regards to music. In the early 2010s, for instance, electropop was the most popular genre on the charts and the genre was kid-friendly in the sense that many of the songs focused on partying, having a good time etc. The clothing was bright and colourful, and the social atmosphere of the time was optimistic thanks to there being a greater acceptance of minority groups, Obama being in office etc. You even had a K-pop hit ("Gangnam Style") take the world by storm in 2012 and result in a dance-move fad; I mean, imagine being an 8 year old kid when "Gangnam Style" was a huge fad and almost everyone was taking part in it. I'm sure it must have been great. That isn't to even mention the MCU and superhero movies being released on a yearly basis to critical acclaim.

In comparison, when we were kids during the mid-late 2000s, we had emo, post-grunge (e.g Nickelback), '00s r&b and snap, the zeitgeist of the time was overwhelmingly teen-orientated and I wouldn't say there was any genre on the charts that outright appealed to kids. The most popular rock genre (emo) had a subculture in which many of its fans slit their wrists and even took their own lives. The defining aesthetic of the era was dark and gothic, even many of the kids shows we grew up with revolved around death or ghosts in some way (The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy", "Ben 10", "Danny Phantom" etc.). App culture wasn't yet a thing, and social media was still primarily a teen phenomenon, so there were even less kid-friendly outlets for us than people who were kids during the early 2010s would have had. 

Kids who grew up during the late '90s and early 2000s at least had pop-punk (e.g Blink-182, Sum-41) and teen-pop as kid-friendly music genres, and the overall social atmosphere of the era was upbeat (at least pre-9/11) due to the hype surrounding the new millennium. As eras, both the late '90s/early 2000s and the early 2010s were pretty big contrasts to the mid-late 2000s in terms of their kid-friendly cultures. 

Also I strongly disagree that children had no power on the charts in the mid-to late 2000s. If anything it was the very first time that children could easily hijack the charts by a much easier way of buying with the popularity of digital dowloads. And 3D animal mascotes like Crazy Frog, Gummy Bear and Schnuffel the bunny clearly exploited this new way of selling to kids.

I agree that the actual music wasn't created with kids in mind, but that isn't the point i'm trying to suggest. Certain genres and styles can come across as more "kid-friendly" in the sense that they stylistically sound more juvenile/fun and the lyrical themes of the songs themselves cover topics that younger listeners could understand or relate to. I mean, in terms of their impact and overall appeal to younger listeners, you can't compare a pop-punk song like "All The Small Things" with a melancholic, '90s alt-rock track such as Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box". The former is going to be more kid-friendly in that it has a light-hearted music video, a catchy chorus and is more "upbeat" sounding. The same could be said for the hair-metal bands of the late '80s IMO. Bands such as Poison and Warrant wrote songs about living the "rockstar" lifestyle and just generally having a great time, which is something kids could have tried to emulate and aspire to. 


They were more of the exceptions rather than the norm though. You're right in saying that the mid-late 2000s were the first era in which kids had a significant influence on what made it onto the charts, but even if that may have been the case, previous eras had at least one or more genres of music on the charts that were stylistically more 'kid-friendly' (and they had a much bigger presence on the charts), whereas none of the genres popular during the mid-late 2000s were. Other than the odd novelty CGI-animal characters like Crazy Frog and Gummy Bear, I struggle to find anything particularly kid-friendly about the genres on the charts back then:

Emo - A teen sub-culture which was dark in its imagery and had songs based on topics such as suicide, rejection and depression. It significantly defined the aesthetics of the time.
Post-grunge - A radio-friendly, sub-genre of rock that was less intensive/aggressive than it's grunge predecessor and largely appealed to thirty-something Gen X'ers. 
Indie-rock - Was primarily targeted at college-aged people and twenty-something year olds due to its lifestyle ideologies and minimalist sound. 

I agree that chart music has always primarily been targeted at teens, but the music and overall pop culture of the mid-late 2000s was so much more teen-orientated and 'in your face' in terms of it's approach in comparison to most other eras. I mean, it was the era of the Simpson sisters, Myspace and MTV shows such as "Pimp My Ride" after all. 2005 to 2008 in particular were very teen-centric years for pop culture.

I find the mid 00s less kid-friendly than the late 00s actually. In the late 2000s, you had the Wii taking off which was very kid-friendly and sold tons of copies. You also had Club Penguin which was huge back then. Whilst kid culture was arguably not at its best in the late 00s, that didn't mean what existed wasn't big. Disney Channel was INESCAPBLE back then, I remember that. You couldn't go anywhere in school without people talking about Hannah Montana and High School Musical. YouTube took off during this time, and sure, many of the videos were rather inappropriate looking back, you also had the likes of FRED who were big. He briefly became the biggest star on the entire platform, and was loved by kids whilst also being hated by teens and adults at the time.
By contrast, it was not uncommon to see kids in the mid 00s playing titles like GTA San Andreas, as with few exceptions like Battle for Bikini Bottom, there were very few legitimately kid-friendly E rated titles during that era. Fuck, Sonic the Hedgehog went all edgy and gave us Shadow the Hedgehog. Most of the music was either really raunchy, or really dark, with few exceptions. Even movies like Revenge of the Sith, that was the first Star Wars film to gain a PG-13 rating, and really felt like it was meant for teens/adults than kids, in sharp contrast to Attack of the Clones and ESPECIALLY The Phantom Menace. Really the saving grace was TV, as in my opinion, this is my personal favorite era for Cartoon Network and second favorite for Nickelodeon (my favorite being the early 2000s). Lots of great shows during that time frame. But even a lot of those, as you mentioned, like Billy and Mandy were rather dark, even though I love them personally.
The mid-2000s was really more of a teen-centric era, as exemplified by the overall aesthetic during this time. Look at things like Mean Girls and the game Bully, and you'll see what I mean.

it's funny because this era is what did  the Pop Punk genre in ( not the single reason but a huge contributing factor)  and that is why it was gone for more than 10 years on the radio.
Too much mingling with Pop Punk/Pop Rock went on with Disney artists at the time for the GP.