Studying “popular culture” is deceptively tricky. After all, the term itself is a kind of trap — we all know what popular culture means: it’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe and K-Pop and the Kardashians and Lil Nas X… right?
Not so fast, my friends.
Both “popular” and “culture” have their own definitions and we must first analyze those in order to properly then construct a conceptualization of this thing we call “popular culture.”
What is “culture”?
Without getting too far into the weeds, there are generally three main ways in which we can think of “culture”:
“A general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development.”
This is probably the most common usage and refers to common art, philosophy, famous texts, religion, etc. Think of the phrasing “the cultural development of the United States.”“A particular way of life, whether of a people, period, or group.”
In other words: lifestyle. This definition is great because of its scalability. A country of 300 million people can have a lived culture just as much as a classroom of 30.“The works and practices of intellectual, and especially artistic activity.”
These are your signifying practices, often stylized with a capital-C, or called “high culture”: opera, art, poetry, wine, that type of stuff. There’s a great book that really deconstructs the artificiality of “high culture” — Highbrow/Lowbrow by Lawrence Levine. Check it out.
What is “popular”?
Similar to “culture,” the term popular can be broken down into a variety of meanings. With these the focus is on the relationship with production.
Mode of production
Things that are “popular” are physically produced by common people, not by skilled specialists or the elite. Think of a factory worker versus an artisan. In reality, those common people are almost always working on behalf of a corporate interest, again separating them from the artisans/elite working for themselves.Intention of production
”Popular” items are meant to be well-liked and mass consumed. That doesn’t mean it is well-liked, but the intention is for the product to be well-liked. Compare this to things specifically not intended for mass consumption. A crude example, but: your diary is meant to be private, but your Bigfoot romance novel is meant to be #1 on Amazon. Both things you write but with two very different intentions.Reception of production
When the thing is well-liked it’s “popular.” Pretty straight-forward. In capitalism we show our approval through consumption, so mass consumed items are by definition popular items.Comparison of production
Which brings us to the use of “popular” as a judgment. Popular items can be inferior or superior depending on the point of view and type of argument being made. For example, how do you regard “pop music”? Is it better or worse than classical? How about jazz?
What, then, is “popular culture”?
With these possibilities and definitions in mind, we at least now have the components that might lead us to an understanding of just what the heck is “popular culture.”
Production: Culture from the people for the people.1
Quantity: Culture that is mass produced.
Reception: Culture that is mass consumed.
Quality: Culture that is not elite or folk. (Subjective judgment.)
All of these definitions work together; I don’t want to give a false impression that these are all silo’d apart. In your brain, when you hear the term “pop music” you automatically think of music that has been mass produced by corporate interests for mass distribution and mass consumption. You may think this is a good thing or you may think this is a bad thing. You’ve now hit all four parts of our definition without even knowing it.
Popular culture can be anything that fits these criteria, and it’s an exhaustive list to be sure. Entertainment (movies, music, etc) is most often aligned with the term “pop culture,” but politics, religion, material culture (toys, clothes, furniture, etc), oral culture (language, sayings, #phrasing), and now the myriad of subcultures that have developed from the internet all qualify.
Somewhat paradoxically, we refer to all of these parts of popular culture combined as Popular Culture, as a singular entity. This is the cultural hearth to which I refer when discussing “the lore of popular culture.”
We’re going to analyze this all in much more depth as time goes on, but it’s important to make sure we’re all on the same page. Out of Popular Culture, lore has emerged.
What is lore? So glad you asked…
For this phrasing, you might do well to remember the immortal words of one Willard Romney: “corporations are people, my friend.”
Would you say that pop culture is generational? As a boomer, I am finding that things are happening so quickly I often feel in the dark. For example, we’re watching American Idol. Most of the songs these young people are singing are unfamiliar to me, as are the artists. I used to be on top of “popular music” but not anymore. Fashion is cyclical. Bell bottoms are in; bell bottoms are out. That I can keep up with. Technology is another. I pride myself with being current with technology, but I don’t understand all of social media and this “hashtag” thing although many have tried to explain it to me. In this age things happen fast and quickly becomes a thing. Thank you for the great article.