In today’s society, objects of popular culture (whether human or not) seem to receive more attention than they have ever received before. Musical artists, movie stars, athletes, distracting technology, and clothes are just some of the elements of today’s pop culture that epitomize a growing fixation with objects far from practical importance.
Celebrities like Jay-Z and Kim Kardashian have taken throne as the center of attention in the mainstream world. Athletes of popular sports have been characterized as heroes, with their fans espousing intense emotional attention to their occupational, economic and personal endeavors.
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have not only taken up a vast amount of people’s time, but have also disoriented them from important global issues. People focus more of their attention on egocentric concerns such as relationships, parties and sports.
Consumers of popular culture have also been instilled with the desire to obtain luxury clothing that exuberates far past the standard norms of necessity. The idea of purchasing $200 sneakers and $500 designer purses has become ordinary in oursociety.
With a growing fixation on the embodiments of popular culture, participation in matters of global and political significance dwindles, establishing barriers in the progression of our modern society. And with a new generation of young adults who seem to be increasingly immersed in this distractive popular culture, the future
of our society seems tremulous.
A recently released film named Paranormal Activity sold more than a million tickets around the country days before the movie was even available for screening at theaters. The movie raked in $7 million dollars over the first weekend it came out.
What’s troubling is that consumers of popular culture focus so much of their time and money on a movie that offers cheap thrills and offers little practical importance, instead of investing those efforts into the sustainability of a world losing political, social, and economic stability. Michael Moore’s latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, experienced far less commercial success than Paranormal Activity, while it investigates issues much more important and crucial to our society.
There should be more of a control on consuming pop culture rather than letting pop culture consume the public. We, as a general public, need to maintain a concern for important global issues and check our insatiable desire for pop culture. In order to do this, we must utilize technological resources.
The current generation of young adults is known to be more technologically inclined than previous ones. With this in mind, technology should play more of a role in educating and
informing students on global issues.
Utilizing technology proactively to further inform and allow students to become all consuming young adults, can create conditions that make it easier to inform a more globally
conscious public.
The bottom line is that pop culture should not override all other important issues. It should be something we recognize as a public, but not consume in its entirety. A better balance between significant current events and popular culture is necessary towards developing a better future.
As young adults, it is important to embrace global issues and to be well informed of them in order to ensure justice and sociological progression. If not, complete disregard for political issues and social injustice will create an unfavorable future.
