The period we are living in is the post-modern period. What was regarded right or what people used to consider ethically correct in the society is no longer accepted. People in these modern days are living as per their instructions. They believe that there is nothing neither good nor bad. It all depends on what a person believes in. Due to this nature of life that most people are living, the culture that belonged to a particular group have been eroded away and people these days have a common culture based on the urban setting that they are in. The things that people do are based on the virtual world as compared to the real world. Most of the people these days live on social media. They spend a lot of their time socializing with people that are in different geographical location. It is even surprising to see these individuals ignoring the people that are around them and paying much attention to the people that they meet on the social media. Culture is cropping where people meet online, start dating online and even propose online when they have not come to meet the person face to face. This is contrary to the culture that was there in the past. In the past, people were required to meet, get to know each other person in person, meet the parents of both the couples before they could be permitted to go ahead to be coupled. This is just a perfect example showing how people have shifted from the traditional culture to this modern culture where the social media is the heart of everything. This paper will look into an analysis of three works showing the issue of popular culture.
In the book, the illusion of literacy, the author Chris Hedges reflects on the popular culture and the role of the social media in the creation of the celebrity culture. The book concludes to state how the mixture of these has combined to destroy the reality of life. Most people in the society are now conforming to the popular culture. They are shifting away from the culture of the elites. People are neglecting what the society regards as right and are now trying to see and imitate everything that they see in the media (Hedges, 17). A lot of studies have been able to show that millions of people or are addicted to the social media. Besides, most people these days own smartphones, laptops and other electronic gadgets that they can easily use to access the internet. The problem now is that most of these people want to live the life that they see in the media. This is very misleading because there is a difference between the life in the media and the life in the society. Firstly, the life in the media is not real life. It is the life that people post on the social media for others to see. Most people regard this as a way of showing off or just trying to post and brag about a new fashion trend. One may also want to just post on the social media to show off of some best place that he or she had visited before. Those are what is entailed in the social media pages (Deresiewicz, 9). They are not a true reflection of everyday person in life. These picture4s may make other people want to live the life that they see in the social media. They will forget the reality of life. They will in turn struggle so much to live the kind of life that they are seeing other people are living on the internet. The end product is that they will go to the extent of engaging in criminal acts such as stealing or prostitution just to fit in the social media life. When girls see their fellow friends on social media bragging how they were in expensive hotels or being driven in expensive cars, they will want the desire to live that kind of life. They will go for old men that will be able to sustain that kind of life that they see in the social media. This is a clear indication that the people are shifting from the reality life and trying to live the life in the media. It only causes continual of immorality in the life.
The celebrity culture is killing the traditional culture. The love that fans these days are having for their celebrities is increasing. People wish they could be living the life that their celebrities are living. It is only common and the nature of the celebrities to post their pictures on their social media pages of the kind of life they are living. In most of the instance4s, they try to depict a high-class life which may not be the case in real life. The4se celebrities are just normal human beings that are living normal lifestyles. However, what they depict on their social media pages is for the showbiz. Also, most of the people these days follow the recent fashion design that they see their celebrities putting in. What most of the fans do not know that it is part of their work to always be on the trendy clothes because they keep on moving from one place to the other. Furthermore, it will not be of essence to appear in the cameras every day with the same type of clothes. This is why celebrities are being paid huge amounts of money to help them sustain the kind of life that they try to post on their social media pages. This is creeping to the fans who want to be like the celebrities that they love. There are some people that toil so mu8ch to be in line with the recent trends that they are seeing their celebrities putting on. This again leads to situations where people go through miles such as stealing so that they can just afford the kind of life that they want. Besides following the celebrity lifestyle, the celebrity culture also entails people that wish to get to be popular and have a huge following in the social media. People these days get excited when they have a large number of people following them on the social media or when they get a lot of likes in the picture that they post on their social media (Fiske, 33). To gain the social media personality, one is forced to live a false life. One will try to live a life that is most expensive that they can sustain. These can lead to someone living in debts or live in stress just to maintain the kind of life that he or she is trying to portray in the media. Most of the youth out there are trying to be famous and popular. In this, they try to live the media life which is not a true reflection of their real life. William Deresiewicz in the book The End of Solitude has echoed this so much.
The new culture adopted by people, celebrity culture, has very little concern for the traditional values of community, compassion, honestly. The celebrity culture has a primary goal of ensuring that they win and succeed regardless of the route that it will take. This is very sad and calls for alarm for the youths to change. Most people in these days are living the life of wanting to get involved in what will make them accomplish their goal of becoming rich in life very fast. They do not care about the people that they will hurt or crossways with while they are trying to make their way to success. This culture encourages every possible shortcut that may be available on the path to success. The popular culture which is so common in modern societies is saying people away from the traditional culture that campaigned for unity and ensured that the societal morals are upheld.
In conclusion, it is evident that the popular culture that most people are trying to live these days is harmful. Most of the youths and other age groups are trying to live the life that they see in the media. What they forget is that the life in the media is always an exaggeration and not a true reflection of what takes place in the individual life. People try to imitate the life that they see the celebrities living in the social media which is always a show-off. The end product is engaging by any means that will make them live the life that they desire. This is against the ethics of any society.
- Deresiewicz, William. “The end of solitude.” the chronicle of Higher education 55.21 (2009): 6.
- Hedges, Chris. Empire of illusion. Alternative Radio, 2009.
- Fiske, John. Understanding popular culture. Routledge, 2010.