Before taking this class and if someone asked me what I know about Popular Culture, I would say that it is anything and everything that is considered popular within a culture. However from reading Common Culture by Micheal and Madeleine I was introduced to the scholar dilemma meaning of the word itself. No matter if you are rich or poor, educated or not, from an upper class or lower class, Popular Culture is shared within every single member of a group at a defined period of time. For example, with the advances in technology, three dimensional movies are becoming more and more popular among everyone in this world. I remember when the movie Avatar was released; it took me four tries to be able to secure a ticket to the 3D IMAX version of the movie. I even had to be one hour early just to secure a seat in the theatre. Everyone was standing on the line waiting to see the movie including members from different regions, different believes, different casts, and different ages sharing the love of the Popular Culture of 3-D movies.
The Book of Common Culture has underlined some interesting explanations about the advantages and the disadvantage of studying Popular Culture. I agree with the fact that one should study Eliot rather than Elvis in an effort to get high culture meaning and background knowledge. However, studying Elvis will help us understanding who we are as culture and what we do as a society. Every era has it is own icons that shows us how we evolve as a culture.
Popular Culture evolves with time and one should understand and follow the evolution of its evolvement to achieve individual as well as corporate success. Jobs can be a direct implication of the changes in popular culture. For example, in the past someone like Elvis did not need to have a webpage or blog to list all of the singer activities. But today, Lady Gaga will require having such technology medium available. And therefore people go to school and try to acquire the knowledge needed to work in webpage development. Corporations in the other hand try to study the market to determine what is considered hot and try to achieve it. Time and circumstances are very important factors in their study. I think that in the future cellular phone will be the major medium of advertizing for celebrities and popular artifacts.
I choose the pyramid as one of the most important artifact in all times. It is considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World that no one knows how it was built nor by whom. Even today, a lot of people still buy pictures and artifact of the pyramids to decorate their homes or offices. Also, if you ask anyone about Egypt, the first thing that comes to mind the pyramids and how great will it be to go and visit.
Reference:Petracca, M & Sorapure, M. (2007). Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture. (5th ed.). University of California at Santa Barbara. New Jersy, NJ: Pearson.
Excellent post! Its also a very interesting artifact to choose. Especially considering the fact of how the views of pyramids have shifted from a place of burial and worship to tourist attractions of today. It almost makes you wonder if our churches and temples will turn into tourist attractions thousands of years from now.
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