Pop Culture

People like to bemoan how horrible pop culture has become.  I think this criticism is unjustified because, quite frankly, all pop culture sucks, and it always has.

The definition of pop culture is essentially any entertainment or artistic medium that exists for the sole purpose of being produced and consumed in mass quantities in order to make a profit for its creator.  It is not to be confused with high culture, which is any entertainment or artistic medium that exists for the purpose of personal expression.  Pop culture didn't truly exist until after World War II, when the television became the norm and people could afford to go out because there was one car in every garage.

So let's take a look at some of the media pop culture has produced over the years.

Music

Music is perhaps the oldest medium that currently exists in the realm of pop culture.  Humans have quite possibly been making music for longer than there have been humans.  Frequently, there is music that blurs the line between pop culture and high culture.  For some reason, the band Queen is the first artist that came to mind, but there are others.  The whole grunge movement of the early '90s was all about bands who just wanted to express themselves accidentally becoming famous, but I don't know if I agree completely with the accidentally part.

I will totally submit that the music that is on the top 40 radio stations today is pretty horrible.  The robotic drown of the auto tune sometimes makes it difficult for me to tell the difference between what's playing on the radio and my car shifting gears.  I will also submit that the pop culture that existed before my time was pretty horrible as well.  The pop songs of the '60s, like Rockin Robin, Tiptoe through the Tulips, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie...., and Monster Mash were absolutely horrible.  Don't even get me started on the disco from the 70s.

But the pop music from the era when I was growing up is good.

And I'm willing to wager that nearly anyone you ask will say that (I know of a few exceptions).

However, I will also freely admit that I have bias.  When I think of the pop music from my time, I think of Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Elton John, Huey Lewis and the News, Hall & Oates, Billy Joel, Lionel Ritchie, Cindi Lauper, Stevie Wonder, and the like.  These people were all very talented, and they were all very successful.  But they combined for a tiny fraction of what constituted the music scene at that time.

There are a lot of songs from the '80s that I like that people who weren't alive during the '80s would think are very strange, to put a positive spin on it.  We Built This City is currently pretty widely recognized as the worst song of all time.  Rock Me Amadeus sounded pretty raw when it came out, but now it just sounds like a cartoon.  Quarterflash and Accept both kind of sucked, and Sussudio pissed me off because I couldn't figure out the point.  The one song, though, that really irked me more than any other was Don't Worry, Be Happy.  Perhaps the most catchy song of all time, one could not deny that Bobby McFerrin had talent.

I'm not here to defend the music of the '80s, though.  I'm merely here to point out that I like the music of the '80s because it is what I grew up with.  My mind isn't capable of rating it on an unbiased scale, so I will submit that pop music from every era sucks equally as bad.

Television

We are, right now, in the golden age of television, and we don't even know it.  Over the last 15 years or so, the quality of the programs on television has improved so immensely that I've even started watching a couple of shows.  Keep in mind that I am a person who would frequently go months on end without turning the TV on.  In fact, as I type this, my TV hasn't been turned on in about two weeks, since I last sat down to watch a couple of episodes of House of Cards.

The reason for this is pretty simple.  Technology has advanced to the point where it is easy for us to enjoy cinema-like quality in the comfort of our own living rooms.  That combined with the intense competition between providers in this day and age has left us with a ton of variety to choose from.  The result is that the quality of pop culture TV programs in 2016 is far superior to any programs from any other eras, and it is only getting better.

Movies

There are still good movies out there, but the medium has deteriorated to the point where it is really hard to tell.  Most box office hits in this day and age are either sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes, or part of a franchise.  I don't see this changing any time soon, either, as Hollywood is looking to expand into markets where the gimmicks of old will still be new.  It's hard for me to pinpoint when cinema had its golden age, and I would be willing to bet that there would be a large disagreement anyway.

*******************************

All in all, I really don't think pop culture has changed, as far as quality goes, all that much.  It should also be noted that the improvement of TV is probably directly related to the decline of cinema.  At any rate, I have really shunned pop culture for most of my life.  I hate hype, and pop culture cannot thrive without hype.