An assault on popular culture

Ooooooh boy, where do I start?! I was looking for a critique of mass culture theory and I came across this video. This video is blaming pop culture for the end of society as we know it. He's touting it's all trash, hyper-sexualized, vulgar, immoral, and even the reason for the rise in teen suicide. While I do agree that television shows and music have become much more sexual and violent in nature over the last 20 years, I don't agree that anything that strays from that isn't or can't be popular. Reality TV isn't all bad. I am a BIG fan of Chopped. While most of us will never have to make a dinner using Cheetos, cinnamon candy, and tuna cheeks, it showcases critical thinking and ingenuity.

He states that "postmodernists want to annihilate the distinction between high culture and popular culture. They want to turn everything on its head." The goal in this, he says is to "completely undermine the foundation of Western civilization  and leave us open for subversion and capitulation." I don't agree that the distinction should be annihilated, but nor should it be what it was. Our heritage and art should be available and accessible to anyone and not all modern art are bad.

A prime example is the Okuda installation in the Seaport district. It's an outside installation and therefore accessible to everyone. I think the pieces are cheerful and intriguing. This art is popular and encourages healthy activity, going for a walk.

He references one of my favorite movies "Ideocracy" in his rant. While I used to agree that we were heading down that road, and the current world situation seems to support it, there are rays of light everywhere. I don't agree that if we do end up there, that popular culture will be the cause of it. More information is available to anyone at any time of day than at any time in history. Of course, turning on a screen and jumping on the internet immediately immerses you in pop culture. Designs, colors, ads, and paid search results are all there to try to influence your thinking but it's not a guarantee that they will.

 Paul attempts to make the case that counter culture doesn't exist anymore, that teens are depressed because they have no outlet for their angst. I don't find this to be true. In music, alternative music is huge, and one of my favorite genres. Skater culture and grunge are still very much alive. Rock and roll is still alive.

There is so much in this video, I could write for hours analyzing every minute of it. Perhaps I'll come back to it again in another post.

Module 15 - Cultural Hegemony (Module 9)

Domination of one social class or a group in society describes hegemony. As of lately, hegemony has become a strong part of mass media, in the news particularly. For my example of, I chose to write about hegemony and how it is involved with the news. Each news station is viewed as something that is independent or differing from other news stations. What many of the viewers do not realize is that many states require news channels to cover certain parts of the news, and leave other parts out for the sake of the state ultimately controlling what the public knows and does not know, or trying their best to at least. Many stations are required certain topics, and are held accountable if they do not report on the proper things, as the state has the idea that by controlling what the viewers see, naturally they can control what they viewers think about said topics depending on the presentation of those topics. Often times, you may notice something that is portrayed in the news as a positive thing although in your mind you know it isn’t a positive thing, like framing the raising of tax percentage by providing pros to the topic and leaving out the cons, for this topic specifically the con would be ultimately needing to pay more in taxes, which is more money coming out of the tax payers pocket at the end of the day to go towards doing something that may not necessarily benefit all tax payers. By using the framing technique, media often controls the crowd by making an idea or thought seem ideal to the viewer when in actuality it is affecting them more than helping them.