Pre Reading Blog #3

How do you perceive your popular culture? What does popular culture consist of in your world? Music? TV? The Web? Fashion? What attracted you to this particular section of popular culture? Why do you like it? How do you understand its history? Please end your blog with at least one good critical question.

So, i get from this that i am supposed to personalize popular culture. i thought popular culture was the culture applied to the general public for a specific generation/time period.

i will do both, just in case i am really bad at comprehension...

today's pop culture is all about what makes 'me' happy in the moment. what gives that feeling of bliss. i would say that popular culture here in california is very different from what would be considered popular culture in new york, or even colorado. fashion as a term and piece of the pop culture puzzle, differs around the world. some things remain the same, such as blue jeans, but the cut, style, and ways to accesorize the simple blue jean differ drastically throughout the world, and even the united states.

personally, my pop culture, things that make 'me' happy, would be fashion and the internet. i have many friends around the world, and the internet allows me access to them. i can talk to my best friend in scotland and check in on my buddy in paris. i can know what is going on in their lives, thank you facebook, without having to have a full blown conversation.

I have not always been such a label whore. but thanks to nordstrom, that all changed. I was able to work for nordstrom for two years, and i was unlucky enough to do my time in walnut creek. as a place to window shop and people watch, walnut creek is great. to be an abused employee is not. whoops. that was a bit of a rant.

anywho. lucky me, i was naive enough to give in to the temptation that is 7's for all mankind. i would like to say, it took me 8 months. i didn't actually buy anything from nordstrom, even though i had a discount, for five months, hooray me. but fashion, like heroin, is ridiculously addicting, and it happens fast. so now, although i have been in rehab for a year, i still love me some rock and republics and citizens of humanity. curse you fashion.

i am, however, quite good with fashion, it was a genetic trait passed down from my mother. my sister and i were both given the gift, she more than me (go figure). to be able to dress someone else is HARD. to be able to dress yourself is near impossible. thankfully, i can stumble across one outfit that works and just wear it time after time. my sister reinvents herself all the time. so, according to me, not everyone is given the gift of taste.

is pop culture dependent on society having taste? i don't think so. there is so much crappy music out there, but there is alway someone who thinks it is the bee's knee's, how sad for them. the internet is a gift and a curse. it is so easy to keep in communication with people and email is so fast. but so many people abuse it. pornography has become a hugely prevelant and readily available drug.

i was just now asked to go shopping because of what i am wearing. it is a drug. not only is it fun to have new things, but people praise you and tell you how good you are. like a dog waiting for you to rub their tummy. tell me how good i am! tell me how good i am! acceptance is the most addicting drug there is. and everyone has that addiction in common. so, for me, fashion is my pop culture drug of choice. i am accepted and wanted and get to be helpful because of it. i get to help solve people's problems. my personality depends on helping people. what better pop culture trend to follow?

I quite enjoy being able to see where fashion has come from, and to see influences of those era's in current fashion. the 20's, 30's, 50's, 60's 70's and so many more decades are influencing what everyone wears today. everyone loves a screen tee. they look old and worn like they were from past decades. i myself wear some of my father's tee's from the 70's. jeans, which appeared for women and men as a huge staple somewhere in the late 1960's i believe, are still influenced by what they first were. bell bottoms have become bootcut denim, skinny jeans are derived from cigarette pants. how often must i hear my mother say, i wore that back in the day. had i known you were going to wear it, i would have kept it.

i digress.

critical question of my day?

pop culture has a positive connotation. this is what the decade was all about. but, those things that made up the decade, did they really have a positive effect?