If you’ve often heard the term pop culture being thrown away but are a little confused about what it means, you’ve come to the right place. As listed below is a foolproof guide to understanding pop culture. So you can understand how your own life has been affected by pop culture.
What is Pop Culture:
Simply put pop culture refers to forms of media and entertainment that enjoy mainstream popularity and which typically are household names. For example, pop songs that feature on Billboard’s Hot 100 are part of pop culture as are video games that enjoy widespread success such as Animal Crossing.
Pop culture is usually targeted at young people, especially teens. Some examples of pop culture mediums which teenagers who fit into generation z obsess about include SnapChat, TikTok, and Instagram. While previous generations of teens loved spending their free time on social media platforms such as Myspace, Bebo, and Facebook.
How pop culture can define generations:
In some cases, pop culture can define a period of time or a specific generation. Although there are forms of pop culture that appeal to all demographics such as Ariana Grande’s catchy pop music and the streaming platform Netflix. Even YouTube has a mass appeal and has become a huge part of pop culture.
Books:
Throughout time various books series became part of pop culture. For example, most Millineals grew up obsessed with the Harry Potter series, The Twilight Series, and The Hunger Games series. All of which were quickly turned into film adaptations so that film companies could make huge profits from their popularity.
Memes:
Another form of pop culture that you may have not realized was part of pop culture are viral memes, which you probably share with your friends. As memes are designed to go viral and to become shared knowledge between a large group of people.
Celebrities:
Yes, celebrities can be associated with pop culture. For example, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles can be seen as pop culture icons. As their style, personalities, and catchy tunes are seen as defining their generation. While at the height of his popularity, Elvis Presley was also a pop culture icon. As was Marilyn Monroe. Some historical figures such as Audrey Hepburn are still pop icons, decades later.
Companies:
Companies can also become part of pop culture. For example, Apple has become an extremely popular tech company that has a huge following and can be seen as a part of general pop culture. Another example of a company that has become a part of pop culture is Nintendo, which is known for producing one of the most popular console systems of the past decade, the Nintendo Switch. Which feature nostalgic characters from Millineals childhoods such as Pokemon, Mario, and Luigi. Sometimes due to nostalgia, characters, books, movies that were part of pop culture in past decades resurface to become cool and mainstream once again.
So if you weren’t sure about what pop culture is and how most forms of media and entertainment are part of pop culture, hopefully, you now have a much better understanding of the topic and how it relates to your everyday life. As well as how your generation has been affected by pop culture!
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