Merchants of Cool: The Midriff

Merchants of Cool spent a lot of time talk about the midriff. Examples of midriff are in the above image, which is one of the first results you see when you look up 'teen outfits', thus, the midriff is still quite popular today among teens. Walking the halls at McClatchy you can easily see that though the style may have changed from low waist bedazzled jeans to high waist jeans, there are still plenty of similarities to the teen girl's clothing from Merchants of Cool. The question is, is this a positive aspect of teen culture, or another thing that easily makes girls feel bad about their bodies?
The midriff in Merchants of Cool was mostly used by MTV to attract viewers to the company. Today, I think the midriff is not as much about being part of a brand, I think now the midriff is just a part of teen's style. The midriff when used by MTV was over sexualized and meant only to attract the hormonal teens to MTV. I believe that nowadays the midriff may just be another part of a teens weird style. It is a lot less sexual compared to the way MTV utilized the style, and recently, every girl ones at least one crop top or cut off t-shirt.
A downside to the midriff idea is that a lot of girls are not confident enough to wear this style, yet they see so many girls doing it, they feel pressured to wear these short shirts. A girl who is self conscious and worried about how she looks may feel even worse when she sees people wearing clothes that show off how pretty they are, seeing someone confidently wear something like a crop top can be difficult when you can barely wear a baggy t-shirt confidently. The midriff style is of course not an epidemic or something that is detrimental for teens. The way the look is used in present day is much better than the way we saw the style being used by MTV in Merchants of Cool, which is a good sign that teens have finally grown close to getting rid of the midriff lifestyle that MTV created.