Do you think embracing pop culture is important for society?

society should embrace the teachings of Star Trek, yes.

@ragingloli Agreed, so they live long and prosper!

How many questions do you have in your black bag anyway, @NerdyKeith ?

@janbb Well I’ve had two accounts on Yahoo Answers, as I’ve been active there since 2006. My current account is four years old. I’ve posted over 3,000 questions there. I won’t be migrating everything (as some of my content consisted of some inside jokes between the YA regulars haha).

I have a saved web page copy of my Yahoo Answers Q&A profile. So far, all my four year and three year old questions (I intend to post here) have been migrated. So I’ve about two years of content left.

After that, I will probably post questions based on what is currently going on in current events and pop culture.

Suffice to say I cannot put an exact number of my pre-planed questions haha.

Pop culture? No, not necessarily. In this country anyway, there is too much celebrity worship, not a good precedent. Also, fads in clothing, music, food all come and go, which leads to excess purchasing.

Meh…I don’t know about important for society, maybe important for entertainments sake.
Non interference is the prime directive. lol

I’m going to input my views on this now. I think pop culture is very important, at least for the younger generation. Every era in history had its cultural identity, the 1960s was practically the era of the hippies, the 1970s was very much considered as the “disco era”, the 1980s… well its very hard describe the 80s in words. Lets just say, there was nothing quite like the 80s. The 90s on the other hand, brought on the dawn of reality television, reinvented pop music to be pretty much the standard for today. But the 90s had its fair share of great grunge rock bands too. In my opinion some of the best sit coms came from the 90s.

So suffice to say, every era of pop culture was basically an identify of the time it occurred.

“Embracing pop culture” is a tautological enterprise. “Pop culture” means culture that is popular. Popularity means that it has been “embraced”.

It would be somewhat schizoid if “pop culture” were somehow “not embraced”, wouldn’t it?

@CWOTUS Yes it would. However there is always going to be the mavericks of society; the outcasts if you will. Some would argue that the entire concept of the punk rock scene was about defying the system.

But in saying that, you don’t necessarily have to be a full on rebel to exile pop culture. It could be a simple matter of not having a genuine interest in popular music or not caring about fashion.

@NerdyKeith When you put it that way, I agree. Only I think the 80’s were pretty dull after living through the 70’s. Fast forward to the 90’s, some excellent music in the 90’s.

@Coloma Thanks. Yes the 90s was great. It was when the Offspring were at the peak of their career, there was also Stereophonics and Nirvana

It’s certainly critical to the marketing of needless and useless crap. In fact the more frivolous the product, the greater the urgency to pimp it as the “in” thing essential to the self worth of the target.

Maybe not embracing, but at least being aware and tolerant enough of it to fit in with society. Those who dismiss it, ignore it, or react to it with disdain tend to be seen as misanthropes, and that sort of anti-social behavior isn’t exactly good for society.

I don’t know. When I was growing up ‘Rock & Roll’ was just getting started. The older generation saw it as horrible noise and twisting the minds of the youth. They were obviously wrong. When my son was growing up ‘Rap’ was all the rage. I viewed it as horrible noise and twisting the minds of our youth. I was obviously right. I guess it all depends on your perspective.

Does anyone have any examples of “popular culture” that have not been embraced? I’m starting to wonder if the criticism about stupid users on Fluther may not have been far from the mark.

@Jaxk Haha…I agree 100%.

@Jaxk I hear that. I can’t help but feel a little old now that much of the music I like is now played mostly on “Classic rock” stations.

I take exception to a bit of your decade summary. The 70’s were much more than the putrid boil of 15 months of disco music. Out of the mid-decade rock explosion of Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, the resurgent Rolling Stones, the decade ended with new wave and punk in reaction to disco corporate music. Abba be damned.

No.

I’d rather be into something because it’s genuine, significant, lasting.

Well…no. No more important than “embracing” classical music or hip hop
Accepting that it can be a strong force, especially among the younger kids, is important.

I agree @zenvelo. The 60’s and 70’s was an explosion of music and creativity that people still try to build on, but they can’t. We had real people singing their own songs.
Disco was just a sub set, and not a very big one at that, at least, not on the radio. Well, except they played this song a lot!
Anyway, I had a “Disco Sucks” T-shirt. Remember them?

@Dutchess_III Haha..OMG..I worked with this girl around 1980–81 that played the Bee Gees all effing day long at work, the same tape, over and over and over and over again. Her dad owned the company so we were all SOL. haha
I never want to hear “Stayin’ Alive” for the rest of my life.

@Coloma Not even a cover version by Ozzy Osbourne and Dweezil Zappa?

No. Embracing pop culture and fitting in with society seems to me like an abdication of individuality and critical thinking. The masses are easily controlled because of the mindless adoption and repitition of catch phrases and mindless pursuit of acquisition of meaningless material things in favor of introspective selection, and as mentioned above, far too much consumption and waste.

I’m going to agree with @CWOTUS because I think pop culture is derived from society and its shifting generations and mores.

Point in fact:
All in the Family was a big factor in pop culture of the day, but Archie and Meathead were taken from society’s burgeoning liberalization.
Seems to me that pop culture reflects, magnifies, and ultimately trivializes society’s changes.

Is there such a thing as pop culture anymore? The term used to divide refined culture from the proletariate culture. But since we all have access to anything and everything via the interwebs now, isn’t it all just culture? The creations of human art and endeavor?

First, you’re Irish, so I’m not sure about Irish pop culture.

In America, I find a lot of pop culture to be fairly awful and low quality and annoying and artificial corporate crappola, so I think there are many negatives. We also have problems with a culture that over-values extroverted behavior and under-values intelligence, learning, sophistication, and thoughtfulness, and that’s all emphasized in our pop culture, especially in our TV & film history and music and radio and so on, where short one-liners, sound bites, put-downs and zingers and truisms have way too much value, so I also consider that negative.

So when you use the word “important”, it has connotations to me like you’re likely asking if it’s a positive thing, to which I’d reply “In America, often the pop culture is crap and best ignored and forgotten as much as possible”.

However it’s not all bad. There is also much good and interesting, original, worthwhile or at least funny stuff in pop culture, too. So there’s also popular shi… pop culture content, too.

And it is important, yes, both in good ways, and in that it forms much of our conversations, thinking, community, connection, references, idea exchanges, learning, etc. Even the crap points to the issues and problems and meltdowns, and gets some positive attention, eventually.

This about culture

@Zaku We are highly exposed to American media in Ireland, so the pop culture is more or less the same here.

@Coloma I had a college room mate who played “Desperado” by the Eagles over and over. She was, actually, quite depressed. But man, give me the Eagles over the Bee Gees any day! HA HA HA HA HA Stayin Aliiiiiiii iiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiii takes breath iiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiii iive.