Growing Up Pop Culture

Most common cultures have rituals, celebrations, or traditional ceremonies to acknowledge the coming of age of boys and/or girls. The Hispanic culture have a traditional “Quinceañera” for young teenage girls turning age 15 to recognize her coming of age as a woman. Jews have “Bar Mitzvah” for men or “Bat Mitzvah” for women to celebrate coming of age. Although in some cultures, celebrating coming age is nothing less than actually celebrating; but in other cultures, such as Aborigine culture, rather than having a huge celebration, young teenage boys, age thirteen, are enduring an essential evaluation. In this stage of their life, their elders test them to see if they are “man” enough to survive by themselves.

values, as well as, influences the actions of society. Social media, as well as the natural

     In comparing the sixties and the nineties, my first thought was how much popular culture has changed since then and how different society is today. The strange thing is, the more I tried to differentiate between them, the more similarities I found. Both the sixties and the nineties were about youth, creativity, free-thinking, and expression. With the nineties coming to a close and the popularity of anything ?retro," I decided to compare the fashions, people, music, and issues that defined pop culture in the 1960?s and its influence on pop culture in the 1990?s.

A pop culture element that is important to me is music. Music has had a major impact on my life, and I am thankful for it. I truly believe I would be a lost soul without music. It speaks to me in a way that many people would not understand. This element brings me ideas in many different ways and it helps me to be a better me. Music speaks to my mind and sooths it also.

Looking through the decades, you can see the evolution of what is cool through phases and trends that society goes through. From the phases of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll to today’s hipsters, striving “be cool” stems from fitting in with specific values in society. Over the decades, growing up has become more confusing; making it harder for teenagers and young adults to find a sense of self. Pop culture continues to parallel the values of society as they both continue to change in content. Self and social acceptance has resided as goal of society therefore, we use pop culture as a tool to reflect today’s societal values and express individualism.

Outline However for some games today is simply one more piece of their day by day lives, it is anything but difficult to overlook that only 120 years back, a number of the games we underestimate did not yet exist, and those that did would be scarcely unmistakable to the present day sports group of onlookers. The historical backdrop of present day sports points of interest an advancement, from diversions played essentially for excitement and recreation to an industry equaling some other in size and power.

Most everyone from previous generations have come to believe that forms of entertainment in today’s society—from approximately thirty years ago to now—has somewhat corrupted or put off the progress of the current generation. Though many forms of entertainment are the main reasons for our current society’s procrastination, Johnson states that today’s pop culture is educational. It exercises the mind and brain in ways we don’t even realize. Over the course of thirty to forty years, pop culture and media has changed significantly, enhancing the way we think and live our lives. Johnson proposed a theory called the “Sleeper Curve”, which basically states that current U.S. society is influenced intellectually by popular media. Through his text, he

Pop Culture permeates our society and is now the first and last thing we think about every day. Almost every waking moment includes pop culture in some way, as society has embraced this new way of life. Parents use electronics to entertain their children and keep them out of the way, and children use them to avoid their parents. Escapism, guilty pleasures and popular culture define each other in ways that they didn’t in the past and now our world is trying to reconcile it.

For centuries, sports have been a cornerstone of American culture and way of life. Through the years, countless innovations have been made to improve the viewing experience, convenience, and accessibility of sports, however only one thing has stayed the same, the way the game is played. No matter what happens in the future, a live ballgame will hold the same weight. There is truly nothing like attending a game, and in my opinion, being in person at a game beats the hell out of watching it on a screen. Teams and Networks constantly battle to win over the consumer. This war was started when the live television broadcasts were first introduced and new mediums such as the Internet and smartphones only add fuel to the fire.

With such a broad range of effective advertising methods, Kanye West was able to create such a great hype for his shoes, everyone wanted to get their hands on a pair. Similarly, Horkheimer and Adorno recognize the importance of advertising in the culture industry, with its power to “turn all participants into listeners and authoritatively subjects them to broadcast programs which are all exactly the same” (1256). Therefore, with such influential power, the culture industry’s aspects of advertising, possesses the ability to compel the public in its intended manner, leading to the creation of a passive and homogenous

Aesthetic surgeries are surgeries in which the main point is to improve one’s appearance. Most of the general public see it as an excuse to get attention. Many people get them and not just famous people. Those who do, do it to feel more confident. Plastic surgeries should be seen more positively and not as an act of vanity because it boosts people’s confidence levels.

Raunchiness has worked its way into pop culture through media and other forms. Which brings up the question: can raunchiness be empowering? Levy looks at how a portion of women are raunchy, and she found that its use can be almost derading to some women. This viewpoint is made obvious when she finishes her article with “[i]t is worth asking ourselves if this bawdy world of boobs and gams we have resurrected reflects how far we’ve come, or how far we have left to go” (131). Yet, there are levels of raunchiness that I believe are liberating for many groups of people, not only women.

America is too focused on bogus Trap artists, and the way that they portray the celebrity lifestyle. We have Teenagers that are currently in Middle School and High School that presume that money will come easy to them without putting in the hard work first. This is a result of trappers who push the idea on to them that money is the only way to be happy. The way these celebrities push this idea is through social media, which is another problem that consumes too much of our youth’s time.

What pops into your mind first when you think of popular culture in today’s day and age? The latest dirt on celebrities or the latest iPhone release? The latest controversial issue or the latest iTunes hit? Regardless, pop culture encompasses all four of these concepts and many more, which consume the world we live in each and every day. Think about education. At first thought, your mind may not make the connection between the newest Taylor Swift song and the highest ACT score, but the linkage between the two becomes undeniable when you dive deeper. Ponder this: each day millions of kids walk into school buildings across the United States, each of them glued to a little slice of pop culture, a.k.a. their phone. And each day these millions

Sixty-five percent of American households have at least one video game console in the house (Education Database Online). The Walt Disney Production Company has produced over 1,400 films to date, grossing trillions of dollars and releasing films in several countries all around the world (Disney News). Popular culture has spread at an exponential rate and only continues to become more and more widespread. In our technology driven society, it is becoming harder and harder to avoid the ever-growing reach of popular culture. Video games, movies, television series, and web-based media have become increasingly expansive as more people have access to these types of entertainment than ever before. Although these mediums are most frequently focused on creating amusing content for a viewing audience, these seemingly innocuous sources of entertainment may very well feed into a more malicious agenda. Video games invoking violence in younger players and children’s cartoons diminishing the body confidence of viewers are just two of the many issues seen in our modern media. But do these problems truly exist? Is this backlash just a product of pop culture’s unanimity? By taking a closer look at both sides of this debate, we find an unexpectedly clear conclusion to this predicament.