The inevitable effects of pop culture - 100 PDF

Preview

Summary

An essay on how negatively popular culture has declined over the years ...

Description

Park 1

Se Min Park Professor Rancourt SINQ: Pop Culture 10 July 2017

The Inevitable Effects of Pop Culture Popular culture in the modern era has shifted exponentially compared to past decades. The influence of popular culture on the youth has a tremendous impact on how they will live out their teenage years. From social media to popular trends, this influence can many times be a negative factor when growing up. When thinking of popular culture decades ago, an individual would have seen icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Star Wars, pop art and many more iconic things. In today’s generation, when thinking of popular culture, people think of funny memes on social media, fidget spinners, people getting famous for idiotic acts, etc, none of which will be remembered or iconic decades from now. Although modern popular culture does have its positives, the quality of it is slowly diminishing and the influence it has on the youth is generally negative. The evolution of popular culture is ultimately leading the youth through a negative path. Through generations, pop culture has substantially changed. Previous pop culture consisted of many positive and great things but nowadays many will see more negatives rooted in popular culture. With both parents working traditional jobs all day, sometimes the only way for children to pass that time is being exposed to pop culture through TV and social media. This isn’t always bad but many times it can have negative outcomes such as increased violence. In a research done by Sven  Kepes, Brad Bushman, and Craig Anderson, they concluded that violent

Park 2

video game effects remain a societal problem (Kepes et al. 775). Video games play a huge role in popular culture and a lot of times teenagers love to play first person shooter games. The media also exerts countless examples of violence such as Danielle Bregoli on Dr. Phil who got famous for disrespecting her mother by trying to fight her. This has become viral and many teenagers are praising this act of disrespect. It is reported that this 13-year old is set to be a millionaire by the end of 2017 (Fama). Society is glorifying her aggressive words of nonsense and soon enough she will be richer than most people at the age of 14. This will cause children to think it is permissible to act this way and retaliate against their parents who work very hard to provide for their children. In a poll taken by the New York Times, 33% of participants named some aspect of popular culture to blame for teenage violence (Kolbert). This can be confirmed by numerous studies including the one mentioned earlier in the paragraph. Parents seem to think that the way their children behave is highly correlated with the media they associate themselves with. However, with modern society having such a high demand for technology and social media, it may be hard to control what the youth associate themselves with. Excluding the violence factor, social media is becoming a platform in which individuals’ represent themselves with what they want to show the world. Since social media is such an integral part of people’s lives, they spend their time behind a facade trying to impress others. This happens not just with teenagers but with adults as well. Claire Millard, a writer for the TIME magazine did an article on why individuals choose to spend to impress and said “Possibly  the biggest challenge today is that when it comes to lifestyle, everybody is faking it. Social media promotes unrealistic ideals when it come to the perfect beach body, but it is responsible for projecting a lot of unrealistic lifestyle images, too”(Millard). Popular culture nowadays

Park 3

demands a standard that many fail to achieve and instead of accepting this, people tend to hide behind a facade. These unrealistic expectations leaves a clear distinction between social classes. Lower class families may not be able to afford the expected lifestyle or the current trends whereas a middle or higher class family can afford all the technology and trends in order to keep up with modern pop culture. This may be a little contradictory because popular culture is the culture of the mainstream audience but nonetheless this idea of classism still exists. For example, modern popular culture would say that most people have iPhones and to not have one is questionable. Yet some parents aren’t willing to buy their kids a $900 phone and it’s justifiable. However, by them not buying an iPhone, these kids don’t get to experience the mainstream culture without any choice. This may be a good thing because of the sometimes negative content on social media and the internet but nonetheless children deserve a chance to discover things for themselves. Furthermore, the modern pop culture we experience today has lost the substance and value that it once held. It seems as if the modern generation is attracted to the negative aspects of popular culture more than anything. Because so many people give these negative aspects attention this causes modern popular culture to sway towards the negative content. For example, reality TV is such a huge aspect of modern television. Generally, reality television surrounds negative, pessimistic and cynical individuals who are entertaining to watch but have no positives to offer for an audience of vast backgrounds. In a research paper done by Anjali Pahad, she stated “Since Reality TV is believed to be true life, people come to expect that the things that they watch on the shows will happen in real life and people start acting negatively towards others”(Pahad 2). Reality TV is a huge factor when having a negative influence on people,

Park 4

especially the youth. In Pahad’s research she also concluded that the images of television and celebrities facilitate people and draw attention, eventually causing a huge influence on their thoughts and behaviour (Pahad 2). Young  children think that behaviors such as aggression, jealousy, provocative language, etc are okay because celebrities on television do the same. Celebrities need to set a good example for the future generations. Music is another huge factor in popular culture. Music effects children because there’s so much exposure to it with the radio and internet being so available. Several decades ago, popular songs used to be about love and having a good time. A prime example of this is My Girl by The Temptations. This song glorifies women and has very little negative influence to it. However, as music evolved the negative influence factor has grown exponentially. “The effect that popular music has on children's and adolescents' behavior and emotions is of paramount concern. Lyrics have become more explicit in their references to drugs, sex, and violence over the years, particularly in certain genres”(Media 1). Current day music boasts terrible lyrics such as Mask Off by Future. This is a very popular song for all teenagers and young adults and is even played on the radio. The lyrics consist of “molly percocets, Chase a check never chase a b****”(Future). This one line shows many negative aspects of today’s current music. Molly percocet is a combination of two drugs and to have kids listening to something like this is a decline from where we were decades ago. Although this existed back in the 50’s and 60’s, it wasn’t as popular to make a song about the subject than it is now. A majority of rap music nowadays is about sex, drugs, and violence. Popular culture deserves to be criticized because the content of it has declined over the years. Not only does it lack substance but it also influences our innocent youth negatively and

Park 5

leads them down a path that they otherwise wouldn’t have crossed. Because popular culture has such a tremendous impact on individuals, the content of it should be more positive and proactive. The creators of this content should be more aware of the effects it has on the growing generation in order to lead them on a successful trail.

Park 6

Work Cited Kepes, Sven, Brad J. Bushman, and Craig A. Anderson. "Violent Video Game Effects Remain a Societal Concern: Reply to Hilgard, Engelhardt, and Rouder (2017)."Psychological Bulletin , vol. 143, no. 7, 2017, pp. 775-782, PsycARTICLES, http://stats.lib.pdx.edu/proxy.php?url=http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/docvi ew/1912303407?accountid=13265,doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1037/bul00 00112. Fama, Amanda. "'Cash Me Outside' Girl's Set To Be A Millionaire, So Rethink Your Life Goals." Elite Daily. N.p., 06 June 2017. Web. 11 July 2017. "Future – Mask Off." Genius. N.p., 17 Feb. 2017. Web. 13 July 2017. Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Americans Despair Of Popular Culture." The New York Times . The New York Times, 19 Aug. 1995. Web. 11 July 2017. Media, Council On Communications and. "Impact of Music, Music Lyrics, and Music Videos on Children and Youth." Pediatrics . American Academy of Pediatrics, 01 Nov. 2009. Web. 13 July 2017. Millard, Claire. "Why We Spend to Impress Others | Money." Time . Time, n.d. Web. 11 July 2017. Pahad, Anjahli. "Influence of Reality." Indian Journal of Applied Research 4 .5 (2011): 370-73. Web....