Pop Culture

Guide Note

Popular Culture encompasses what the people of a particular time and place agree is popular within the society. This includes the culture's popular forms of media and expression, the celebrities and personalities that are most revered, the fashions, the fads, the favored pastimes, and the most sought after merchandise. Pop culture reflects society's collective identity, and changes as the values and ideals of the society change.

A distinction is often made between popular culture, or that which is popular with the people or with the majority, and high culture, which is less popular but is considered to have more depth and lasting value. The lines between the two are not entirely clear, though, as the high culture of the present sometimes stems from the popular culture of the past.

Pop culture may also refer more specifically to the Western culture of the last sixty or seventy years, a culture based on advertising and mass communication. This definition is the opposite of folk culture, which is a tradition-based culture passed down over time. Before the advent of mass communication, popular culture and folk culture were essentially the same.

Fast Facts

1. The word "popular" originally meant "low" or "vulgar"
2. Scholarly interest in pop culture began in the 1960s

Quotes

1. "The music that is most special to you and stays special all through your life is the music that is special to you in junior high, high school and in your early 20's. That's when you have time to spend on popular culture."—Tom Taylor
2. "The down side of Americans being obsessed with pop culture is that they kind of like it light."—Bill Griffith
3. "The concept that an artist would be revered by popular culture is an immediate dismissal of his relevance as an artist."—Thomas Kinkade
4. "It's generally my belief and those of others in this field of cultural studies that popular culture has a big effect on the people who consume it."—Michael Asimow
5. "Pop culture hates you and wants you to fail."—Aisha Tyler