A Pop Culture Theory

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In broad terms, I’m what you might call a pop culture writer.

Twenty years ago, it meant that I could seriously discuss any cheap and mundane cultural artifacts like it was art: Nirvana, Dawson’s Creek, Pop Tarts, etc. The only cutoff point is that it needed to mean something to a large enough number of people. In 2021, it means something completely different. Being a pop culture writer means having an obscene amount of knowledge about canonical comic books, Star Wars lore and whatever’s currently popular on television. It became an oddly narrow field.

The other stuff didn’t just simply disappear. Some pop culture elements were elevated to the rank of “real art” (music, popular cinema) and others were atomized by memes and other forms of internet culture. Discussing what Pop Tarts mean to people isn’t cool anymore, but making memes about it is. Popular culture underwent the same changes than so many professional and academic fields did in the twenty-first century: it overspecialized. But I still believe these things are all interrelated. They all belong under the umbrella of things we choose to entertain ourselves with between two shifts at work. 

So what is popular culture exactly and how do you know if a particular element of your day-to-day life is worthy of lengthy and passionate sessions of overthinking? I have a theory about it.

The popular culture mall theory

I want you to think of pop culture like it’s a mall.

The image might be counterintuitive to you, since malls have been dead and desolate places where older people roam around like zombies for years. But humor me. That mall doesn’t exist anywhere, but inside your mind. It’s what the twenty-first century did to malls anyway isn’t it? The services offered are all available on the internet now, but they still exist under the umbrella of products and services that once were available at the mall.

Anyway, it’s a movie mall. So, it wouldn’t really exist outside of your mind anyway. We’re going to take a virtual walk through it via one long, detailed establishing shot. 

Right now, the camera is jammed in the comic book store. It’s a pretty nice, large comic book store that has more or less whatever you want to read. If it doesn’t have it in store (let’s say you want to read an obscure manga), the employees know exactly where to order it. They also sell all sorts of byproducts ranging from DVD copies of film adaptations, to t-shirts by the way of cosplaying gear. It’s a pretty fucking badass comic book store, but it’s only one store in the mall. Slowly, the camera starts dollying back across the aisles and crane upwards to reveal complex rows of stores and entertainment modules. Some real Mall of America shit. 

Beside the comic book store is the Best Buy. When the camera dollies in, you quickly realize that every television on display is tuned to a different channel: one is featuring a college football game, one is featuring whatever swanky HBO series you’re watching right now, another is showing reruns of Jeopardy!, etc. There’s a long, seemingly infinite row of television which are each broadcasting something different. A handful are jammed on the lock screen of a streaming platform waiting for you to type in your ID and password. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Peacock, DAZN, ESPN+, you name it. While the camera is sweeping through that row, you can hear two employees fiercely debate the merits of iPhone vs Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Further along, two others are debating the importance of frame rate when playing video games. The PC gamer thinks it’s crucial and the console bro doesn’t really care as long as it runs smoothly. He claims not to be a pixel junky, bro.

Suddenly, the camera starts dollying back while panning across the sections of the Best Buy you haven’t seen yet: the DVD/Blu-Rays, the headphones, the terrified juvenile customer service representatives hiding behind the complaint/returns counter. Before you know it, you’re back outside, observing the calm, regular stream of people walking from store to store. 

Then it starts going through the mall a little faster. It sweeps through the bookstore, which holds not only a wealth of stories you haven’t experienced but more or less all the knowledge you can imagine in their non fiction section. But we’re going through it fast because lots of what you find in there is consecrated culture. The camera promptly exits after a quick sweep and suddenly lowers into the food court where Dominos and Papa John’s, Chick Fil-A and Popeyes, In-and-Out and Whataburger are all facing each other in a showdown for your taste buds. A constellation of dining tables lie in between, populated by people who can’t believe their friend or their lover chose one over the other.

Cut to the record store, which sells commercial stuff on the ground floor and all the weird, niche material you’ve ever dreamed of. From Japanese bootlegs of Iron Maiden shows to obscure power electronics bands. Cut to the DVD store that sells everything from your favorite childhood TV shows box sets to those of cheap reality shows that play on a loop on shady cable channels. You can find Fellini and Kurosawa films too, but you have to ask for it. Cut to the clothing stores There ARE clothing stores in this mall, but what they sell is dictated by who people are: jock store, goth store, geek store, outdoorsy guy store, etc. 

You see where I’m going with it. No need to pursue this exercise any further. Culture is how we interact with the world as a society. It’s who we love, what we buy, what we choose to spend our time on. Who we choose to spend it with. It’s the stuff that doesn’t seem important, but that if you treat it as such, it’ll help you invest your time in things that matter to you.

Why is this important? Why am I reading this?

Valid question. It’s because these decisions are being taken for you most of the time. If you open social media, everyone you keep contact with is going to hurl at you the topics you should care about and these will be similar to one another because we’re all prisoners of algorithms that know what we react to the most. And I’m sure you’ve guessed it, because I write the word pop culture at least once a day, I am getting pelted with comic book stuff. 

The way we choose to spend our time is important and it’s going to dictate how we spend our time in the future. So, it’s important to understand that… you know, let’s say Han Solo shot first. Don’t judge me for taking a Star Wars reference, it’s easier to take an example everybody knows. It’s one thing to settle that debate. It’s another to understand how you feel about it. What kind of person does it make him to you and (even more important) what kind of person does that make him to society at large? Why is he revered by men between 30 and 50 for doing so? What the fuck does it mean about us?

Never forget that you’re in the mall and that the fact that you live in that mall is more important than whatever merchants have to sell. Popular culture belongs to us because it is us. It is the sum of the decisions we constantly make about how to spend our personal time. Even if progress is doing its best to “streamline” these decisions, they are still yours to make even if it doesn’t consciously feel like it. 

Never forget that you’re in the mall. What you choose to do out there is not THAT important, but it tells a lot about who you are.

Disclaimer: This essay was originally published in my April newsletter.