What I Think About Pop Culture

BLOG 1:

Lauren Kruger-Patchin

My thoughts on the class and pop culture

1/15/2012

What is pop culture? That is a very complex question. We will be learning about pop culture the entire semester. There are many aspects of pop culture to study. However, I can admit that after the first week in this course, I have already learned the basics of pop culture, which I did not fully understand before this course.

            Rhetoric in Popular Culture by Barry Brummett (in our course packet), explains the basics of pop culture. I learned about rhetoric, artifacts, text, index meanings, iconic meanings, symbolic meanings, cultures, and more.  I’m not going to list out what all of these things mean, because they are in our text. However, I do want to discuss how I feel about pop culture and what I look forward to in this course.

             I would describe pop culture as the things most people are doing and understand. I am very interested in learned more about pop culture and analyzing different aspects of it in different cultures. I do believe that different cultures have different pop cultures, because what is understood and popular can vary in different cultures. Let’s remember that a culture can be a lot of things.

           

            I am a part of many cultures. I am a part of the American culture, the Ball State student culture, the Christian culture, the female culture, the Grey’s Anatomy culture, the Breaking Bad culture, The Walking Dead culture, The Big Bang Theory culture, and more. Cultures can be big or small. Cultures can be as specific as what clothing you like or what shows you watch. The cultures you are a part of shape who you are as a person. 

            I hope that by the end of this course I have an even better understanding of pop culture. I want the better understanding to help me better understand the people around me who may not be in most of the cultures I’m a part of. I also look forward to discussing some of the articles in the course packet that I have seen. I think there will be some interesting topics brought up in this course and I am anxious to hear different opinions on some of the issues that will be brought up. I am a very opinionated person, but I love hearing a good debate and hearing arguments on a topic.

           I really like when we discuss celebrities and television shows in class. The Jersey Shore and Snooki references never get old. The video clips that are shown are also very helpful examples, and they are entertaining.

            My future blogs will have deeper thoughts and examples of pop culture. This first blog was rather general, just to introduce some of my pop culture thoughts. I’d like to end on this note: I love how much our class enjoys Breaking Bad.