Pop Culture

Pop Culture, is it Good or Bad?

     “You have to stay updated on trends, social things and pop culture, you need to stay with the times and keep evolving." - Corey Feldman 

       Pop culture defined by many is perceived to be a detriment to society. The reason for this is the fact that pop culture has become one of the major influences of society today. With growing social media outlets such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter pop culture is reshaping society like it never has before. Phil Williams, from Ted Talks, during his “Pop Culture” Ted Talk conducted a quick example of how Pop Culture works. He asked everyone to take a picture and go around the room and decide who had the funniest one, this is similar to making a meme because one picture can have multiple captions and be funnier than the other.

 

    In the end one lady had the best picture of all of them and he was predicting what she would do, like go on social media and boast about it. Reality is because of social media, and the way pop culture has used these programs to take over our daily lives most of our actions are now extremely predictable when it comes to things like this.  He then began to speak about how negatively social media is influencing our generation. How suddenly we are doing things, like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, because it is the popular thing to do and not for the reason behind it. To legitimately promote awareness and raise money for a disease that plagues many in our nation. It became just a craze and something to do in the summer but the true meaning of it didn't get across all the people that were dumping buckets filled with cold water and ice on them. That's disappointing, and reality is sickening. Thousands of people were dumping ice water on them without knowing why they were doing it and they only did it because it was popular and at the time was part of pop culture.

      Pop Culture truly is a detriment to society. For the kids of this generation they are being spoon fed what to think and believe is right. One of the worst things of pop culture is that it teaches kids to change with it. Pop culture teaches kids that change is good, as it is, but it doesn’t teach kids how to be themselves and who they are instead they change as much as pop culture does. Take for instance Collin Kapernick once a “heroic” quarterback and one of the most well liked players in the league, in a matter of months has become the most hated player in the NFL. 

     ESPN, one of the largest sports multimedia corporations in existence,  recently conducted a poll to see which player was the most hated in the league and Colin Kapernick was the sole victor in that category. Although I am not endorsing Kapernick or think what he does is morally correct he is being attacked for exercising one of his rights and going about this situation the way he feels he should, he’s being himself.

    Phil Williams spoke upon what children ages 10 and under said their goals were. In the study
conducted the results demonstrated that the number one goal that kids wanted to achieve was become a celebrity. This is because of how much pop culture is affecting not only society but our adolescents and the future of society as we know it. Children of today’s day and age are receiving pop culture from wherever they turn. From their televisions, to their laptops, to in their pockets like their cell phones. Pop Culture is consuming us. Tying all this back to the original quote at the top, pop culture is starting to demand all of our attention, all of our time even when we don’t have any. As the quote says “we have to” that phrase right there is reason enough to realize how bad pop culture is. It’s not just about a like, comment, retweet, etc. It’s about trying to fill a void in your life that you didn’t know was there with minuscule things that are temporary and truly have no meaning, instead of investing your time in something meaningful and making a greater change. Pop culture, is a detriment to society.