Pop Goes the Culture

 

Here's the thing about culture -- it is shared. It is a set of values, experiences, signifiers and preferences that are common among a group. Yes, that's an off-the-cuff definition so excuse me if I missed something, but it isn't a bad start. The bottom line is that a culture is a unifying force that defines an in-group (and the out-group) by virtue of common qualities or ideas. Each of us is a member of many, many cultures simultaneously, some defined geographically, some via heritage or parentage, and some based in some other feature. I'm here to point out that one dimension which has historically defined a culture has disappeared so we need to start considering the implications, including the dissolution of the peer-group culture heretofore defined by that dimension.

I recall those halcyon days of college when all of us would assemble in a room and talk about, you know, stuff. Eventually, the topic of television would come up and we would compare notes on favorite memories and shows. Inevitably, people would start talking about "Saturday morning cartoons." Thing is, as an observant Jew, I didn't watch television on Saturday (the sabbath) so I couldn't relate to that subculture. Television, a central player in mass media in the days of my youth, helped separate us into various factions. It allowed us to see shows and movies that others had similar access to, and what each of us chose to watch became a variable which determined our place in and out of various groups.

Sadly, that boat has sailed. Television is no longer the great unifier that it was. With the advent of cable, the audience became fractured. Now with the internet and streaming services there is simply too much content from which to choose, so it is tougher to find the common ground that helps us label ourselves as members of a culture. Yes, we are "in" with others who have watched a specific show or movie, but the mass group who shared a trend is gone. And new material develops and disappears so quickly that it becomes difficult to figure out with whom we ally before that moment is gone.

The young people are driven by social media platforms and trends (personages, practices and presentations) that cycle quickly. It is hard for a non-young person to keep up with the various changes, but I have seen that even the youth, itself, is highly fragmented because each small group follows whom it follows and cannot then also follow the myriad other names and faces which supposedly have large audiences. There is simply no time. But because one can "follow" people without paying any attention and follow ones that might be (conceptually or in some other way, mutually exclusive), the celebrities of this new "popular culture" are fictions of the click. They don't really have large audiences, just the echoes of a passing interest immortalized by a digital fan base that is probably mostly absent at any given moment.

So what are we left with? The plethora of channels of content has made for a series of cultures of one. We are more isolated even though nominally, we belong to the same "group." Our "friends" and our "influencers" are no more than pixels as we slowly lose the ability, opportunity or interest in sharing with others, in our quest to experience for ourselves something new and different.