My name is Nick Viol and I was born and raised right here in Oregon state. This is my first year at PSU after going to PCC for the start of my freshman year, I’m majoring in psychology. I consume popular culture everyday and like many others can barely recognize when I am. Some of the ways I do consume Pop culture is through things like listening to music, podcasts, and watching popular TV shows and movies. One of the largest contributors to pop culture consumption is through the efforts of marketing, most of pop culture is sold through things like advertising where they will purposely try to associate the brand with a certain lifestyle or certain values. This is used on the consumer to make them feel that by buying or watching a certain thing it will have an effect on the way they are living their life. While living in a consumer culture has its upsides such as options when it comes to buying, better quality of goods, etc. it also has many downsides such as creating mass production of plastic or other cheap materials into products that will eventually just end up in a landfill or in the ocean. However, this culture isn’t new but has been around since the industrial revolution and continued into the modern day, America in particular has always made consumerism one of its cornerstone values especially in the midst of the Cold War. For example the idea of the American dream is built around the notion of being able to get a job and buy more than your parents had. However, this is not to say that popular culture is the problem and in fact is most likely the solution. The thing about popular culture is in a relative sense made for everyone, and therefore cannot only reach more people but also be used as a way to support causes that would otherwise not garner such notice, an example being popular artists such as Queen and U2 and the many others who put on Live Aid to help the Ethiopian famine. That’s only one great example of how popular culture has been able to show society a problem that it would have otherwise let go unnoticed.
Nicks blog 