Pop Culture: Effective?

         Forget about the power of the pen; now it is the power of the tweet. Social media has grown exponentially throughout the recent years with the aid of pop culture. Pop culture has integrated itself into our global network through the use of social media, and as a result, it has driven improvements in our society. We find ourselves daily scrolling into our social media feeds to find out what our favorite celebrities are doing, and at times we encounter one of them twitting a link that will direct you to donate money to a pet adoption facility or help free a  63-year-old grandmother serving life in prison. Regardless if you support the objective of the charity work, you will follow it because it was the actor who plays your beloved character in your favorite television series.
         Pop culture has gained the standing of causing many young people to have the eagerness to have “social acknowledgment and praise” as Malcolm Caldwell states in Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted.  Teens are finding their ways to get such attention from others, one being social media, to build up their self-esteem and their character. They have become more attentive to what content should be posted on their social media accounts because it is a ‘reflection of who they are.’ In 2009, “without Twitter, the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy.” Based on the fact that majority of the users in Twitter are teens it leaves to speculation that majority of the support for the Iranian people were them. What was their motivation in helping such a strong case? The answer is relatively simple, to meet pop culture’s ideology regarding being recognized. Young people tend to follow the trends to get noticed faster. By doing so, it is evident that pop culture is installing a sense of selfishness amongst ours acts and restraining us from formulating an opinion.

2009 Iran protest for their freedom

          Steven Johnson stated in Watching TV Makes You Smarter, “what media have lost in moral clarity, they have gained in realism.” Johnson is challenging the favored opinion of pop culture being nothing less than useless and unrealistic ideas being projected by the media. Pop culture is a representation of how our society truly works. It connects us to the reality of the common hardship we struggle often. Referencing back to the Iranian people who seek freedom, if it weren’t for the media, a tool that pop culture utilizes, the majority of the population would not have found out about such adversity. Thus would not have been able to help Iran citizens fight for their freedom. All pop culture shows are another form of media in which exposes “high-pressure environment where no established strategies exist (Johnson 291)”, such as Teen Mom and Unexpected. Those shows follow the daily lives of the teen mothers in an effort to project the idea that teen pregnancy is not recommended. Like Teen Mom and Unexpected, the purpose of these pop culture shows is to denote the struggles that may be present in the near future in a specific situation. 

         Pop culture keeps changing from generation to generation and has a distinct effect on the youth. Regardless if we find pop culture controlling of our opinions, it is at least obligating us to voice one, even if it may not be the one we agree with at first. It is undeniable that pop culture is breaking boundaries, and allowing us to be more aware of our surroundings.

References:

Gladwell, M. (2010). Small Change. The New Yorker, pp.312-327. 

Johnson, S. (2005). Watching TV Makes You Smarter. The New York Times Magazine, pp.277-294.