Heroes and Celebrity's 1-4-4

My popular culture topic for this week is one hero and one celebrity.  For heroes I pick US soldiers, and for celebrity’s I picked Channing Tatum.  Pretty much all the theories from this week’s readings support both of these pop culture topics.

Like I said, I picked US Soldiers for modern day heroes.  They show tremendous courage every day.  They stand up for people who can’t or chose not to.  They selflessly serve every day to protect people they don’t even know.  They are brave, strong, and most of the time loving.  I picked Channing Tatum for my celebrity because he has gotten very popular lately from his movies.  He has played in a lot of love stories and action movies like GI Joe, where he plays a soldier.  Girls love to look at him, and men want to be him.  People pay to see him act, and also pay for him to be on posters and other things like that.  He is a celebrity because people watching him made him a celebrity.  People showed their interest in him and his career skyrocketed.

There are many insights I take away from applying this week’s theories to my topics.  I find it crazy to think that an actual US soldier that fights day to day and supports our country doesn’t get as much attention as a celebrity like Channing Tatum, who just pretends to be a soldier in a modern day movie.  It really makes you think about where people’s attention lies. Don’t get me wrong, Channing Tatum is a great actor and very attractive in my eyes, but does he deserve more attention than a 18 year old boy overseas?  That is just my thought.

               

                

Ear Stretching (Written Analysis 1-4-3)

The pop culture topic I chose for this week is ear stretching, or as a lot of people call it, gauging.  This has become a popular trend now a day, especially in the younger audience.  Theories that apply to this pop culture topic are rituals and stereotypes. 

                Some Indian tribes stretch their ears as a rite of passage.  They start when they are young adults and continue to stretch their ears throughout their life.  This goes into the category of rituals.  These tribes do this to their men tribe members and teach each generation to do it.  Indian tribes believe stretching their ears gives them special abilities or keeps their tribe safe.

                In the modern community a lot of people, mostly young adults or pre-teens have been gauging their ears.  This is a very popular trend now and isn’t categorized as a ritual, but these gauges do cause a lot of stereotypes.  Some jobs find these ear rings nonprofessional and make employees take them out.  A lot of people look at kids with gauges and categorized them as punks, or unprofessional.  This is unacceptable, it is just a trend that has caught on and in most kids eyes it is just a form of fashion.

                When I started thinking about this topic and put it in perspective it really made me think.  People judge to quickly and put people in a certain stereotype.   I personally have gauges in my ears and have been judged to be a punk.  But in reality I am a full time student, a loving mom, and serve the country in the Army.  So people should think before placing people in certain categories. 

1-4-2 Analysis 1

The iPad 2 could have been considered a myth 20 years ago, but today it is just considered an icon in popular culture.  20 years ago our computers were still huge, and the thought of a handheld tablet doing the same thing as huge computers and more was just unrealistic.   I remember my dad always saying when I was young “In the future we will be driving flying cars, and carry around computers like on Star Trek.  Obviously this myth back in the day has become a reality, and is now an icon in today’s world.

I think the myth’s back in the day about a so called handheld computer is why we have the iPad 2 today.  Someone had to dream about it before it could become a reality.  In today’s world we have surpassed some expectations, but we also don’t have flying cars yet.  With the iPad 2 you can have all your information at your fingertips and this icon has become a huge “want” by many students, teachers, and professionals.

When I think back to when I was young listening to my dad rabble on about the future, I always thought he was being ridiculous.  I always thought it was a myth that something like the iPad 2 would ever exist.  But now that I am alive while a tablet PC has come out and works very well, I can see how easily a myth can become a current day icon.

ICON ANALYSIS

The 3 contemporary icons I chose are THE Ohio State University, Lady Ga Ga, and Twitter.  THE Ohio State University is a college like any other but is huge around Ohio because of its sport teams.  This University teaches classes, has dorms, like any college but because of their sports teams, especially football, their school logo can be found on pretty much anything now. The next icon is Lady GaGa, she is a highly popular singer now and sings for her own personal beliefs.  She wears crazy meat dresses, and has song lyrics that catch people by surprise.  But she is a huge icon now-a-days.  The last one I picked is Twitter.  Twitter is huge right now, people constantly updating what they did or are doing.  They even set it up so Twitter posts automatically go to Facebook.  Half of the websites you visit now, you can always share with Twitter.

I chose these 3 icons because they are all very different, but are all very popular at this time.  It is crazy to look at three different icons, and look at how different they are but know that they are all part of pop culture.  It is crazy to think that maybe one day Lady Ga Ga will sing at an Ohio State football game and people will Twitter about it.

THE Ohio State means a lot to me because my family has always been huge fans of the football team.  If you even mention Michigan in my dads house, you might get kicked out.  Lady Ga Ga has gotten me through a ton of rough times because for some reason my 1 year old son will instantly stop screaming if I put on Poker Face.  Twitter is honestly a little annoying to me.  I feel like I can't ever get away from it.  Web pages are always asking me to share what I am looking at and Twitter. Blah Blah Blah.  Privacy is somewhat out the window with this one.

Popular Culture and the Ipad2

Popular Culture makes up a bunch of idea's, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images, and other phenomena that are preferred by most people in a given culture at any point in time.

Understanding pop culture is very important in any business or any of my future careers because it is what is popular.  People around the world want whats "HOT".  The new gadgets, the new music, people go out and spend money on these products.  If companies are on the top of what is popular, they will thrive within the economy.

An example of pop culture right now is the iPad2.  When these computer tablets started coming out people were amazed.  It made people think back to Star Trek, and when they had hand held computers.  But now is the time where almost anyone can own these great devices.  They can be used as traveling laptops, and are super light.  The iPad2 turns heads everywhere is goes.  That is why I consider it to be pop culture. It is new, and exciting, and tons of people would love to own one.