rainheart

Maybe, but no doubt whatever becomes popular culture is whatever gets emulated. Those in the population who are more prone to subscribing to the way of life that is determined for them by the media (who I would dare say are less intelligent, or at least less freethinking), those are the types of people who would be defined more by what is popular and would not be capable of creating what is popular themselves. If the relationship really is symboitic, then I would rephrase that second statement to point out that there are a much smaller number of people defining pop culture than there are people subscribing to it. I'd like to know what you think.

Charlatan

This I can agree with...

What I take exception to is this:
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.

There are a very limited number of people who are truly setting the trends. These are followed by early adopters who popularize something (by this time, the initial trendsetters are on to something new). Trends become normalized and absorbed into the mainstream.

The media does not force anything on anyone. The media does not create culture. The media is a part of culture.

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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Willravel

Charlatan, a few thoughts about your last post.

I also agree that the few define, and the many imitate. It's a matter of willingness to spend energy trying to define yourself as an individual, I suppose, but the fact is that many do not take advantage of their own personal growth potential in society. I suspect that if more people in the US were to drive those interesting cars, we'd see dependence on oil (and huge, 9 mpg SUVs dissapear). There has to be a degree of responsibility in the power of defining pop culture.

As for the question of who defines pop culture...this is more complicated. Yes, many things are simply a matter of someone really cool doing something new, people emulating it, and the media catching on and commercializing it for the masses. That is not always the case, however. There are also times when a media comglomerate sees that a particular trend would benifit them greatly. Often it is a matter of tweaking a current of continuing trend. Let's take entertainment insider television shows for example (a la Extra, Entertainment tonight, Access Hollywood, etc...of course there are older shows and news papers, these are simply the current manifestations). People have always been interested in entertainment, and there have always been celebrities of one type or another in society. Western culture often falls short in the production and distribution of the stories of heros and celebrities, so it was decided that glorifying modern story tellers would be benificial in that people would watch the shows, AND it would explore a new avenue of promoting a film. Why not promote a film based on the star power, not just the story? And maybe even the director? And why not the third boom handler? It's a matter of creating fandom in order to boost interest in films that might not otherwise have interest (Mr. and Mrs. Smith).

I WISH I could feed the machine. That kind of power would be amazing to yield. It's the tweaking after it goes into the machine and before it gets rereleased that worries me. I'd love to start a trend of smaller, european type cars that have better gas milage and are more ecologically sound.

Also, your new avatar gave me nightmares.

rainheart

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.

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.

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.

===
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.

Fremen

I've never heard of gravy & fries together.
I now have a rumbly in my tumbly.

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