The other day, I was watching my 5-year old niece, Chloe, at work, and one of my coworkers asked me why I started Fridge Box. I turned to my niece and asked, “Chloe, what color is a mermaid’s hair?” To which she answered, “Red!”

Red. The only mermaid Chloe has ever been exposed to is Disney’s Ariel: a trademarked character designed to fit within a stable of characters that a multinational corporation owns. In Chloe’s mind, there is only one mermaid, and she looks a certain way, and comes with certain friends and accessories (an orange crab, a blue and green fish, a white dress with a gold crown). But most importantly, Ariel the mermaid has red hair. Why does she have red hair? Because at the time, Disney already had a raven-haired character (Snow White), two blondes (Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella), and a brunette in the works (Belle from Beauty and the Beast). Ironically, their logic was probably, “Children like variety.”

Ask any child the name of an orange and white fish. 99% of them will answer, “Nemo!”

I’m not knocking Disney. I grew up on Mickey Mouse and Cinderella, and if you asked me, when I was 5, what an elephant’s name was, I would have said Dumbo. But, when I was 5, global media conglomerates didn’t control almost every story I heard as a child. I read a lot of books without pictures or movie tie-ins, so the pirates in my imagination weren’t advertisements for a whole division of merchandise made in China. I could make a pirate sword and hat from newspaper without feeling inadequate because my parents didn’t buy me the Jack Sparrow Deluxe Pirate Kit from the Disney Store. Most importantly, I had an imagination that was strong enough to see a Deluxe Pirate Kit where grown-ups could only see the Sunday Times. It’s a great thing, the imagination.

I hear a lot that technology will save us from global warming. What no one asks is, “Who will own that technology?” Because whoever owns it, will control the world, literally and figuratively. Disney owns Ariel, and it controls, in a very subversive way, what our children think about mermaids. And what will happen to those children, who have inadvertently sacrificed their imaginations in exchange for packaged solutions? They will be running the planet in 40 years – right around the time the last of the petroleum is circling the drain. If they are not already in the habit of imagining creative solutions to everyday dilemmas (like boredom), if they have been spoon-fed alternatives to resourcefulness and critical thinking their whole lives, how will they overcome the economic and ecological challenges coming down the pipeline at them? They won’t. They will be lost, and they will turn, once again, to those multinational corporations that solved their problems as children, because they never cultivated resourcefulness and creativity as essential survival skills. The scariest part is, I don’t know what’s worse: Disney not being aware of the long-term ramifications of controlling mermaids and pirates, or being totally aware of it and controlling them anyway.

People tell me all the time, “You know, as soon as Fridge Box takes off, someone’s going to copy it. You should get a patent on it.” Patent the cardboard box. That’s what we’ve come to. It’s all kids have left, the cardboard box! I hope every multinational corporation starts selling their own cardboard boxes. Because if 5 year olds around the world are turning cardboard boxes into pirate ships instead of buying Jack Sparrow Deluxe Pirate Kits from the Disney Store, we might still have a chance.

When Chloe said, “Red!” my coworker smiled and nodded. “I get it.” I shook my head a little. “Kids have no imagination anymore, you know?” I said, “It worries me, because that’s what’s going to save us from global warming. Not technology or multinational corporations. Resourcefulness and creative thinking. These will be the survival skills of the future, and they have to learn them now, so by the time they really need them, they’re prepared.”

April Capil is Director for Fridge Box, Inc. (www.fridgeboxworld.com)

Photographs by Rachel Capil