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"Pop culture" is a post-WW2 US phenomenon that creates a shared societal reality through movies, TV shows, household items and brands, etc. As of late, it has i

"Pop culture" is a post-WW2 US phenomenon that creates a shared societal reality through movies, TV shows, household items and brands, etc. As of late, it has infected the whole world through social media "virality". Something new appears, then thousands of outlets, youtubers and "tech" journalists are repeating it and most of society starts talking about it without any historic or technical background whatsoever. It's an overly-expressive culture based on hype and reactivity.

fullshark 4y ago
Not sure you are the author but I don't really think that's what pop culture is considered colloquially. And you're basically just describing any cultural ideas that can be considered "viral." I guess a sufficiently large number of people accepting that viral idea makes it popular but pop culture to me is just music/movies/books etc that are popular. Basically this piece is just saying "the dominant (read: popular) culture in tech companies is bad" and they all have basically slight variations on this bad culture.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Its even more micro, the current on trend tiktok dance from the last 15 minutes that everyone is doing is what everyone is doing. Lemmings as a construct perhaps. Naive social media obsessed teens perhaps.
- bluetomcat 4y ago
  I am describing the transmission mechanisms of pop culture and what it's rooted in. It's inherently linked to consumerism, advertising, mass media and fashion. The currently popular music/movies/books are just a manifestation of that. Important scientific, political or philosophical ideas can also go "viral" among intellectual circles, but you wouldn't hear about them in an entertainment TV show or in an advertisement.
  - fullshark 4y ago
    Idk, I think what you're really talking about is just ideas going hyperviral in tech companies very quickly without adequete time to judge their merits based on historical comparison, or any meaningful debate. Then afterward any attempt to challenge the idea, the fact that the idea is so popular is used to defend it. "How can you think that when X on twitter said they agree! That company X is doing it so we're gonna do it." Kind of ironic for the innovation industry to just be a bunch of followers chasing whatever's popular huh.
  - entropicdrifter 4y ago
    >It's inherently linked to consumerism, advertising, mass media and fashion. Strongly disagree with this statement. It's currently linked to those things, but popular culture from even 300 years ago was not inherently linked to consumerism at all. It was more rooted in songs and stories that were performed and shared in relatively public spaces like taverns, schools and churches. What changed has mostly stemmed from the advent of the printing press and the subsequent creation of copyright laws. Nowadays popular culture is linked to consumerism, but that's because new cultural content is treated strictly as a product first and a common point of reference second. We have created these perverse economic incentives that have wreaked absolute havoc on the creative commons, which for the vast majority of human history included essentially all of "popular culture".

fullshark 4y ago

Not sure you are the author but I don't really think that's what pop culture is considered colloquially. And you're basically just describing any cultural ideas that can be considered "viral." I guess a sufficiently large number of people accepting that viral idea makes it popular but pop culture to me is just music/movies/books etc that are popular. Basically this piece is just saying "the dominant (read: popular) culture in tech companies is bad" and they all have basically slight variations on this bad culture.

shapefrog 4y ago
Its even more micro, the current on trend tiktok dance from the last 15 minutes that everyone is doing is what everyone is doing. Lemmings as a construct perhaps. Naive social media obsessed teens perhaps.
bluetomcat 4y ago
I am describing the transmission mechanisms of pop culture and what it's rooted in. It's inherently linked to consumerism, advertising, mass media and fashion. The currently popular music/movies/books are just a manifestation of that. Important scientific, political or philosophical ideas can also go "viral" among intellectual circles, but you wouldn't hear about them in an entertainment TV show or in an advertisement.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Idk, I think what you're really talking about is just ideas going hyperviral in tech companies very quickly without adequete time to judge their merits based on historical comparison, or any meaningful debate. Then afterward any attempt to challenge the idea, the fact that the idea is so popular is used to defend it. "How can you think that when X on twitter said they agree! That company X is doing it so we're gonna do it." Kind of ironic for the innovation industry to just be a bunch of followers chasing whatever's popular huh.
- entropicdrifter 4y ago
  >It's inherently linked to consumerism, advertising, mass media and fashion. Strongly disagree with this statement. It's currently linked to those things, but popular culture from even 300 years ago was not inherently linked to consumerism at all. It was more rooted in songs and stories that were performed and shared in relatively public spaces like taverns, schools and churches. What changed has mostly stemmed from the advent of the printing press and the subsequent creation of copyright laws. Nowadays popular culture is linked to consumerism, but that's because new cultural content is treated strictly as a product first and a common point of reference second. We have created these perverse economic incentives that have wreaked absolute havoc on the creative commons, which for the vast majority of human history included essentially all of "popular culture".