By Nolan DeBord
Popular culture can be how some countries define the U.S. as well as criticize us for. Our text defines popular culture as the cultural products that most people share and know about, including television, music, videos, and popular magazines (Martin/Nakayma 2010). Being college students I feel that we are in the environment that most displays our dependence as a society on popular culture.
College and even high school students are often driven to do whatever it takes to maintain an image that is acceptable to society. You can see this when walking in the Union on campus or downtown Lincoln on a Friday night. MTV and magazines like Cosmo or Muscle and Fitness have given us an image that we feel we must maintain to stay with the times. I personally believe that this has not only spread from the millennium generation but also to the older generations as well. It felt like yesterday that our parents criticized us for phone use and texting along with Facebook. Not only do both of my parents have Facebook but also have become phone junkies! Popular culture is on a steady incline that is going to get worse and worse. The only reason I say worse is because I personally believe that popular culture has a negative impact on our society.
I try to stay away from popular culture as much as I can. I want to be my own person and in a lot of ways I think that being different and thinking for yourself is much respected in our society, even more so than converging to popular culture. It is a matter of whether you are gutsy enough to do so. This chapter has given me the opportunity to reflect on myself and I am sure others feel the same way. Popular culture is the definition of the American society and someday may ruin our image to other nations.
Reference:
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
I have to agree with you on how popular culture is the definition of American society and may someday ruin our image to other nations. It is ridiculous how we obsess over the current trend in clothes, shoes (sperrys), tv shows, films etc. Popular culture is brainwashing Americans, especially us college kids are more prone to be dependent on popular culture due to our new independence and finding our identity. Even kids in elementary school have cell phones, ipads, xbox now a days. The days of playing with barbies and toy cars are rapidly decreasing.
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