What is Popular Culture.
It is a mixture of ideas, values, perspective, attitude and morals given to the and deemed to be Popular because everyone knows it through mass media. In the reading Arnold thinks that people deserve to know what the rest of the world deem worthy to be called knowledge or perspectives and in turn slowly gain equality based off knowledge. forget financial and social classes, because everyone could be equal as to what they know of the world.
But with Arnold’s main intention, today the world has twisted it and the popular culture content we get is altered and have their own agendas. Popular culture today is ‘dumbed down’ to widen the demographics and they are seen as superficial and not very meaningful. I suppose that is half true, considering that mass media IS supposed to cater to everyone’s ‘needs’ to consume the ‘junk’ that we take in.
If your’e a teenage girl you get Justin Bieber and one direction, while boys have their Emo-rockbands.
But the Beatles through to Michael Jackson were considered ‘pop’ which is how they started off, adn they are now considered to be the greats of music history.
Aside from music, TV series such as The Simpsons teach moral lessons in each episode, and that sort of mixture of comedy and real life experiences through a yellow cartoon world, works. It’s hard to find someone who has never heard of the popular American TV series.
People also keep up with popular culture for conversation, ‘did you see the latest episode’ is a normal question between people who share a same bond, that is what they consume with their eyes and mind. Cinephiles (people who love movies) have the same bond. people who read magazines and online articles, the ones who love to hate the Kardashians and keep up with Ryan Gosling, because.. Well He’s Ryan Gosling.
The reason I think people do keep track of celebrities is because they want to relate and compare, so they know that they are humans too and they go through the same problems we go through but on a bigger scale (at least thats how things are portrayed). They are idols that people look up to because they (the people) want to be them.
Popular culture is to be a part of something bigger, the community is formed through commonalities and shared ideas.
References:
Takacs, S. (2015). Interrogating Popular Culture: Key Questions, “What is Popular Culture?” (Chapter One), Routledge: New York, pp. 1-17.