From the moment we open our eyes to each morning’s new world, we are immersed in a society that demands deference to popular culture. The norms that guide us in thought and action are firmly anchored in the silent suggestions of public figures, fictional characters, and Top 40 lyrics. The values we come to defend, our national sense of cringe-then-giggle humor, even our understanding of ourselves, are borne out of implicit demands of media; effects of pop permeate thought and deed in ways both small and sweeping. The millennial generation is the product of our pop culture, which is, in turn, the product of the millennial generation; the two act in reciprocity, so seamlessly integrated that it is nearly impossible to understand one without the other.
I think the general understanding of pop culture is one that spans from 7:00 to 10:00PM but its reach extends far beyond primetime. We absorb the power plays devised by the too-stylish Olivia Pope, reiterate the sultry lyrics of sexy baby Ariana Grande, and yearn for the saccharine-but-always-doomed forbidden romances of the latest pretty white couple created by Nicholas Sparks (spoiler: she’s got cholera, he has to fight in ‘Nam, but they’re gonna try to make it against all odds until they both die of broken hearts and also the cholera). Aspects of the culture are unwittingly internalized and assimilated as it is consumed until we are amalgams of it ourselves. Simply by virtue of its constant presence, we are natural artifacts of our surroundings.
So that’s essentially the purpose of this blog. Well, one of two intentions; the first is that, just in case too many people like me, I can significantly whittle that number down the moment I say I have a blog. But the second one is my own attempt to understand how the pop culture I’m trying to navigate is working within me as an individual. By breaking down the pieces of the machine as a whole, I might be able to understand the purpose and effect of each cog and bolt in the scheme of my own experience as a citizen of a media-frenzied society.
Columbus sailed the ocean as a citizen of the Age of Exploration.
Mark Twain exposed the irony of his own Gilded Age.
We live in the Age of Kanye.
