Influence On Pop Culture Essay, Research Paper

Influence of Pop Culture

Over my last nineteen years, I have not noticed how much pop culture influences the youth of today. I have always thought people did what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it, not because of the way the society imposes a way for people to live. Pop culture is the culture is the way of life of the youthful generation of that particular time and era. In addition, many things influence pop culture. However, the two most influential things are television and music. And since this is assumed true, pop culture changes constantly. Pop culture has had a huge influence on the younger generation of today.

The culture we live everyday is influenced by the mass media. In addition, we, the people that want to listen to the media, influence the mass media. The influence has a negative and positive effect on the youth of today?s generation.

Television has a major influence on the way of life of today?s younger generation. Television over the years has given the younger generation more of a group behavior rather than individual behaviors. For example, a student reading a newspaper in a professor?s class. The student needs noise to concentrate; the noise would normally be a group of people. This new behavior comes from the trained behavior of reading studying with the television on in the background (Common Culture 1998). Television has made the people who live the pop cultural life of today more like “couch potatoes” (Common Culture, 1998). They sit in front of the television set and watch the tube for the reason that television takes them away from reality. This behavior makes people more anti-social.

The anti-social behavior comes from the fact that people fear what is really out in the real world. Therefore, they shy away from reality. They fear crime, disease, and the unthinkable happening at the most inopportune time. People also watch television because, to quote Barbara Ehrenreich, “fear brings us a world in which television does not exist”(Common Culture,p. 160). In other words, television lets us see what we really want to see. And television shows the ideas of the generation that influences the pop culture of today( Culture Wars, 1991).

Music has a large part to do with the culture we live also. It influences people in so many different ways. Music influences us to do certain things, for example, music makes us want to dance sometimes. Emotions are influenced by music. Whether you are happy, sad, depressed, music can influence your mood. In other words, music speaks to us( Common Culture,1998). Music can change you mood one verse. Music can influence you by telling what you are going through. (Culture Wars, 1991). Music influences a person in so many ways to accomplish so many things.

Music inspires a person to accomplish a certain feat. Music also helps them relive a past experience. Music can influence a person in so many different ways for the reason that it is involved in our every day life( The Closing Of the American Mind, 1987). Music is in our lives from our home to our work. And from our home to our schools, we have to have music. Music gives the people of today a passion to live for. For the reason that we interact with music so that, we cannot accomplish everyday task without it in the background. Music says what we are feeling down deep inside but do not know how to say it aloud, so we have it in the background to help us in our mood( The Closing Of the American Mind, 1987).

Music also has a bad influence on the youth especially rap music. It shows the degrading of women in many of the songs written. In addition, many rap songs are talking about drinking and doing drugs. The ideas portrayed are pushed onto the younger generation and gives them a false belief in the way life is supposed to be like(Rap, 1999). The use of profanity is overused showing that the artists do not have respect for themselves or the people they talk about, mainly women (Rap, 1999). Rap music is one of the strongest voices in the music world. Rap has been proven to go to extremes and that is dangerous for the young listeners (Rap 1999).

Overall, there are many things that manipulate the way e live, pop culture, in our particular time and era. Television and music are only two, but they are two of the most important. Overall, they have some of the most influence in our culture. The reason why is because music and television gives us, the people a voice that we did not have before. They speak out and say how we feel and what we think about all areas of our lives. So to control the influence due to these major points is to fully understand what they are all about. This in the end will help limit the amount of influence.

Reference List

Best, S. & Kellner, D.(Spring 1999). Rap, Black Rage, and Racial Difference. Retrieved December 5, 2000 from World Wide Web: http//www.uta.edu/huma/enculturation/2_2/best-kellner.html

Bloom, A.(1987). The Closing Of The American Mind. New York:Simon &Schuster.

Hunter, L. D.(1991). Culture Wars. New York: BasisBooks.

Petracca, M. , Sorapure, M.(1998). Common Culture. Upper Saddle River, NJ. Prentice Hall.