What Does Popular Culture Mean to Me?

Pop culture can be anything that is trending and mainstream in the world. It can be different things in different regions and may not be the same things for very long. Pop culture can change every day and quickly fade or stay for a while.  To be honest, pop culture means a mixed variety of things to me.  When I think of pop culture I think of big corporations and people sitting around a table trying to come up with the next big thing.  I think of them sitting and trying to discuss what piece of garbage they can throw out into the world to see if they can brainwash people into thinking it’s the coolest thing ever and they must have it.  Millions of dollars are thrown around for production and marketing campaigns to get the word out. I think a lot of people buy into these ideas and products simply because they think it is the popular thing to do. While not all cases are like this, there are some great examples of pop culture icons. I tend to think that best pop culture can happen naturally without influence of money and or greed.

Understanding popular culture is important for all businesses.  Keeping up with popular trends is vital for businesses to continue to appeal to their customer base. If your competitors are out there doing it and it’s working for them, you better have something similar and/or better. Popular culture is relevant to me in my present job to know what I may need to know for my future career.  I plan on being a software developer and in the world of software things are changing all the time. An example would be mobile applications or “apps” as they are commonly referred to. The app is a pop culture icon that is gaining popularity with smart phones and portable devices.  As stated above, if your competitors are releasing an app, then chances are your company should be planning on releasing one too.

There can be many different types of artifacts. My pop culture artifact is the internet.  The internet is a great choice as an artifact because it in itself can host a variety or artifacts. You may remember a time when people would go into chat rooms and chat with multiple people. In my experience over the years, that tended to drift into people using instant messengers. Now people may tend to use Facebook to communicate with new people, friends and family. Other pop culture artifacts derived from the internet include EBay, Amazon, Google, MySpace, Twitter, and Netflix. Netflix you can almost list twice as they were one of the first to offer DVD rentals via their website, and to offer streaming of movies and TV episodes through their website. These are just a few listed as there are many more, and will be many more to come over the years.