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Originally Posted by Charlatan
The media does not create popular culture. From what I can see, most popular things start out as "alternative" things. It is those that seek to be "individualistic", "cutting edge", etc. That set the trends. The media just follows along for the ride.
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I believe that the commercialization of trends is their modification into things which can be used to reap great profits. However this is something I assert from my intuitive experiences, so I have nothing to back up this claim- I don't ask you to take my word on it, but I'm letting you know that I'd have to do research before I can verify it as fact.
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The media does not force anything on anyone. The media does not create culture. The media is a part of culture.
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I disagree. With the tacit capacity of the evolving media conglomorates to dictate which trends fall through the cracks, the media creates the "acceptable spectrum" of culture within which we live.
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I know it is trendy to point to people who enjoy or particpate in pop culture and call them sheep, but I see nothing prodcutive in this. If you truly want to step out of pop culture loop... the only way to do so is to conform. The more you try to be an "individual" the more you feed the machine.
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I would never do that for the sake of appearing trendy, I just wish to derive at a reasonable conclusion of why things occur the way they do. I'm also having a hard time understanding what you mean by "stepping out of the pop culture loop by conforming" and how exactly that would be done.
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With that response, I'd like to point out again what exactly I believe could be done to make a 330mpg vehicle popular. We would have to first be honest about and highlight the negative effects of low mpg vehicles. The indirect effects are quite dire:
1. We consume more fuel, therefore require more fuel.
2. The energy policy must be constructed in a manner to provide for the demands.
3. Since the energy sources are found most abundantly outside of North American borders, the energy policy will effectively also form the foreign policy.
4. The foreign policy will be built in a manner to acquire all such resources in order to meet demand.
5. (And this is where it gets ugly) The current foreign policy is a policy of economic sanctions, followed by state-sponsored coups (sometimes even via terrorism) and also military interventions.
If there was a concerted effort on drastically reducing the popularity of vehicles with high fuel consumption, eventually the populous will start subscribing to the newly popular vehicles which have comparitively very low fuel consumption. The demand drops, and eventually dependence decreases until we find a more permanent solution.