POP CULTURE: Is it Popular or Cultural?

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What is Pop Culture?  We have all seen Andy Warhol's repetitive prints, reflecting common images back at us in cotton candy colors, but what does it mean?

By most accounts, the term "Pop Culture" is hard to define.  It varies between groups of people and is itself very transient and subject to trends and fads.  I would define it simply as the common consciousness of a cultural group... meaning that "American Pop Culture" would be what most or all Americans are aware of and are subjected to in daily life.  It is the collective assortment of people, things, technologies, media, etc., that we become familiar with on a mass scale.

To identify popular culture is easier.  Consider the names of the famous or infamous that would be recognized at any gathering.  Think of the many TV shows, songs, video games, cartoons, politicians, political or social groups, memes, images, and other knowledge that is common among your peers, even if you don't have direct experience with those people or things.

In today's society we are inundated with information from a wider variety of sources than ever before. In the past, an icon might have taken a much longer time to become well-known or a protest to be organized with only word of mouth or early print resources, and even in to the days of radio, but popular culture has always be a factor in any given demographic group of people.

I believe that being familiar with popular culture can be beneficial to a person in business, giving one common ground for conversation and camaraderie with a wider spectrum of other people.  In my industry its required.  I work in telecommunications, for a company that supplies subscribers with television programming, internet services and programming, telephone services and other data services.  It is my industry that brings people like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber to the world.  For me, knowing popular culture is simply product knowledge at work.

 

As a pop culture artifact, I submit the cable box.  I believe that cable television might be the largest source and influencer of popular culture over the last thirty years.  Through cable, America has become the most informed and also the most distracted society in the world.  Cable took us from only being able to view the news at 6 and 11 to a variety of 24-hour news and analysis channels-- and created stars or villains out of the presenters and the subjects of the stories.  

Cable offers immediate stock information, up to the minute weather information, channels dedicated to teaching us how to cook or how to decorate, others that educate us on the past, or nature, or technology, even about the latest cars, or music, or video game releases.  Most every religion is represented on cable TV.  

But cable also gives ample bandwidth to provide dalliances about celebrities and to create pseudo-celebrities, along with a window to lifestyles we never imagined existed.  We have shows about UFOs, bigfoot, sexual deviance, and living dangerously.  We can see slices of life from all corners of the world and all sorts of activities, from the most respected to the least savory.

I hear lots of complaints about reality television.  Most say these shows are so over the top and no one really lives like that.  Often I hear that some of these shows are degrading us, pulling us down and destroying society.  I say that it is really a natural progression of the past popular culture.

Why wouldn't ladies who grew up with Barbie and her vast empire, and with TV soap operas and prime time dramas where everyone wore black tie and evening gowns to the grocery store, appreciate the Real Housewives of whatever city they're in this time?  It seems easy to expect that those grew up in the 1970s "Me Generation", and their children who were given unprecedented attention, would be fascinated with shows where the average Joe is the star, or with venues like You Tube where they can shine as well.  Why not find respect in the Daily Show or the Colbert Report, or even the faintly-masked political humor of South Park and the Simpsons, after the proliferation of late night talk show monologues and satirical comics like George Carlin or Dave Barry.  

While some might find it drivel, I still see great value in cable television including it's lowest common denominators.  The world is in the box, and you can travel it with your remote.