M
mark
Guest
culture of the USA? I am by no means an expert on popular culture, but I'm drawing my ideas about popular culture mostly from what I've seen in popular rock music and TV shows.
It seems like the popular culture of Generation X didn't involve emotion at all. Nobody cared about anything. It was cool to be snide, cynical, and unemotional. The rock music and the TV shows were just unemotional. People didn't need emotional connection to anything. Give 'em a beer and they were happy. I may be wrong, but this is just based on my own observations of popular culture over the years.
Anyway. it seems like all this has changed fairly recently.
Looking at popular TV shows and mainstream rock (like 3 days graace), they seem to appeal much more to emotion than they used to. Now introspection seems popular, and feelings are more prominent in our culture. Has anyone else noticed this?
As a specific example of what I've been talking about, take ABC's show True Beauty. I didn't care for the show much (for multiple reasons), but I watched it.
10 years ago, a beauty competition would probably be mostly about sex appeal. No emotion. but this particular show involves personality, which I think ties into what I'm talking about.
And then for a music example: DAUGHTRY. It's very mainstream rock (post-grunge), and every song seems to have an emotional element. The lyrics can be somewhat introspective even if it is quite commercial.
But rock 10 years ago wasn't like this.
I guess what I'm wondering is...why? I mean...most of us look down on pop-culture right? I mean...it's pop-culture. But the thing is, I have always been an emotional person. I still think and use reason (like I am right now), but emotion runs through my thoughts. I like to feel. Is that wrong? Is that just what is popular now? Is there anything wrong with not being a Vulcan?
And I'm not just talking about emotions like sadness over a break-up. I'm talking about deep feelings too.
But I don't get why this seems to be in popular rock and TV shows because it doesn't strike me as something that would appeal to the majority of our country. I still see people as snide, cynical, and apathetic. People can be downright cold. So why does it seem like emotion has become popular?
One possible reason:
It could be just because the stuff I have witnessed (TV shows I watch and popular rock I listen to) is stuff that I happen to like...probably because it has that emotional (feelings) element.
It could be that the more popular stuff that I have not observed as much of is unemotional. I mean from what I've heard from Brittany Spears, for example, there is absolutely no emotional element, but it's still super popular.
----
So, with all that said, anything you care to comment on? Does it seem to you like popular culture has utilized emotion to appeal to people more that it did in past years? If so, why? And why does it seem that people are still as uncaring as ever dispite emotion and introspection being more popular?
Or are my observations based only on the small slice of semi-popular shows and music that I like?
What am I wrong about, and what am I right about?
- Mark
It seems like the popular culture of Generation X didn't involve emotion at all. Nobody cared about anything. It was cool to be snide, cynical, and unemotional. The rock music and the TV shows were just unemotional. People didn't need emotional connection to anything. Give 'em a beer and they were happy. I may be wrong, but this is just based on my own observations of popular culture over the years.
Anyway. it seems like all this has changed fairly recently.
Looking at popular TV shows and mainstream rock (like 3 days graace), they seem to appeal much more to emotion than they used to. Now introspection seems popular, and feelings are more prominent in our culture. Has anyone else noticed this?
As a specific example of what I've been talking about, take ABC's show True Beauty. I didn't care for the show much (for multiple reasons), but I watched it.
10 years ago, a beauty competition would probably be mostly about sex appeal. No emotion. but this particular show involves personality, which I think ties into what I'm talking about.
And then for a music example: DAUGHTRY. It's very mainstream rock (post-grunge), and every song seems to have an emotional element. The lyrics can be somewhat introspective even if it is quite commercial.
But rock 10 years ago wasn't like this.
I guess what I'm wondering is...why? I mean...most of us look down on pop-culture right? I mean...it's pop-culture. But the thing is, I have always been an emotional person. I still think and use reason (like I am right now), but emotion runs through my thoughts. I like to feel. Is that wrong? Is that just what is popular now? Is there anything wrong with not being a Vulcan?
And I'm not just talking about emotions like sadness over a break-up. I'm talking about deep feelings too.
But I don't get why this seems to be in popular rock and TV shows because it doesn't strike me as something that would appeal to the majority of our country. I still see people as snide, cynical, and apathetic. People can be downright cold. So why does it seem like emotion has become popular?
One possible reason:
It could be just because the stuff I have witnessed (TV shows I watch and popular rock I listen to) is stuff that I happen to like...probably because it has that emotional (feelings) element.
It could be that the more popular stuff that I have not observed as much of is unemotional. I mean from what I've heard from Brittany Spears, for example, there is absolutely no emotional element, but it's still super popular.
----
So, with all that said, anything you care to comment on? Does it seem to you like popular culture has utilized emotion to appeal to people more that it did in past years? If so, why? And why does it seem that people are still as uncaring as ever dispite emotion and introspection being more popular?
Or are my observations based only on the small slice of semi-popular shows and music that I like?
What am I wrong about, and what am I right about?
- Mark