Summary:
Popular culture exists today through many different things, but not just material things such as radio's and TV's ect But also through emotional and spiritual feelings, everyone feels fear, hate, lust, envy, joy, happiness, and even love.
A Look at Popular Culture
How important have the deeds and actions of the hero/gods been to popular culture?
What is popular culture?
Popular culture is a wide range of universal things, anything that appeals to people, Music, TV, Books, Radio, Cars, Clothes, Entertainment, and the list could keep going on. Just about everything is popular culture and if it isn't popular to someone it might be popular to another person.
Just about every famous person influences popular culture, by the way they dress, the way they act, what they look like, who there dating, just about every aspect of there lives is known by people, because they read it in magazines and see it on the news or any other way they get it.
Heroes are deffinetly part of popular culture. Just about everyone has a favourite hero or at least likes one thing about heroes. Heroes are role models to people, especially young kids, someone that they respect and look up to. But heroes aren't jut the classic stereotypical type hero like Spiderman or Superman, but also someone famous like David Becham, Jonny Depp, Dali Lama, Britney Spears, and so on.
There cant be anyone who isn't involved in popular culture some how, unless they live on a different planet. I don't believe that there is anyone who isn't attracted by a Ferrari 360 Spider, a Holden Club Sport, a cruise around the Caribbean Islands or a new G5 laptop with 2.5 gigahertz and 500 gigabits of internal hard drive memory, a cute little puppy, or even just a good book, all these things are part of our popular culture today.
Just about everyone knows what's happening on big brother, thousands and thousands of people vote everyday. Even someone talking to you about something that happened on the news, its all popular culture. There is basically no way you can escape popular culture even if u tried.
Quotes by Dr. Ray Browne about popular culture
"Popular culture is the everyday culture of a group, large or small, of people."
"Popular culture includes all aspects of our daily lives that are not
narrowly academic and are free from the elitist standards
which dominate the fine arts."
"Popular culture is the voice of the people - their practices, likes and
dislikes the lifeblood of their daily existence"
How does popular culture exist today?
Popular culture exists today in the minds of people, it's the information that they get through the media and magazines and newspapers. If popular culture is what the masses are interested in it exists today in just about everything around us.
Look around your home do you have a computer, TV, stereo, bed, fridge, car, playstation, books, ect, these things are part of our popular culture basically because its popular to have these things. Which average house doesn't have at least one of these things? So this is how our popular culture exists today.
It's popular to watch TV so you do it, its popular to play a sport, go watch the footy, go to party's, have a girlfriend, have money, have nice things. Just about everything or if not everything is popular to someone, so just about everything is popular. We all live in popular culture and want to be a part of it because it is the way we have been brought up and the way we think and what we want to be.
We go to school because the government tells us to, thinking that if we do we will have a greater understanding of the world and will be able to find a good job one day. By law you have to continue attending school until you are 14 and 9 months, and then you have the choice of finishing school or dropping out, this is one of the biggest parts of our culture because so many people go to school or have a job.
Popular culture exists today through many different things, but not just material things such as radio's and TV's ect But also through emotional and spiritual feelings, everyone feels fear, hate, lust, envy, joy, happiness, and even love. Some people are deprived from these things and want then so badly that they pretend to be feeling them. These feelings are very popular everyone feels them; they are one of the biggest parts of our culture.
People say that geography is the study of everything in this world, not just land formation, the water cycle, and what's going on with the atmosphere, sure these things are probably studied the most in geography. Popular culture is like geography, everything can be called popular culture because it's a part of everyone's lives and abundant in everything it is in all aspects of life.
Why do we still need Hero/God figures?
Most of the trappings of popular culture are physically un-necessary, but mentally we come back to the question "why do we need hero god figures?"
We still need hero god figures today because we need someone to look up to, someone who we admire. We like to think there is someone out there to rescue us when we're in danger, someone without human failings. Even cartoons are heroes, most young children watch and like cartoons and they love the cartoon heroes on the shows, because the heroes are having fun and going on adventures, which is what kids want to do.
Even famous people like Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Cathy Freeman, David Becham Russel Crow ect. These people are heroes to other people in one form or another, they aren't as much heroes but more role models and what people can look up to. Famous people are the prime example of popular culture because they are the ones that have the biggest impact on people, for example when you see someone you like on TV, and they are wearing something that you really like or doing something that you admire then you respect them and even want to be a bit like them.
Copying your hero in this age is much easier because of the wide range of popular media e.g. Magazines, talk shows, books, movies ect. Some argue that it is a negative impact because people try to be like their heroes more than them selves, and failing, e.g. Girls becoming anorexic because they see thin people all over the media. People think that you need money for everything, sure you need money to buy just about everything you own but do you need everything that you own? Some people say that in the future we wont need physical things of popular culture but all throughout history mankind has clung to some form of hero or god.
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