Why Pop Culture Dos More Harm Than Good

       Pop culture is everywhere from TikTok trends to celebrity scandals, but does it actually help us grow as people? Pop culture is not productive because it promotes shallow values, distracts us from real issues, and negatively shapes identity and behavior. Pop culture refers to the trendy ideas, practice, values, products, fashion, and entertainment. Pop culture is defined as what is popular amongst most people. I believe pop culture has its positive effects, but I do not think it is good for you. Pop culture often portrays what everyone is doing, leading viewers to believe that everything is good for them. However, it seems to bring more harm than good, preventing people from thinking for themselves or taking pride in their interests due to societal expectations. For instance, if something isn’t trending, people feel like they’re not cool. Pop culture presents a facade of luxury and unnecessary items, encouraging people to live beyond their means by taking out loans, credit cards, and other forms of debt to afford these perceived desires. Pop culture can be used as inspiration but nine times out of ten people just always want to keep up with what's trending. Pop culture has also taken an effect and a toll on politics. ‘’Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools’’ (Gladwell). One of the biggest problems with pop culture is that it encourages surface-level participation instead of real change. Malcom Gladwell (2010) in Small Change, explains that social media activism creates “weak ties”. Which lack the commitment and sacrifice for real movements. People join hashtags or repost content, but their actions rarely contribute to the root of the issue. Pop culture often pushes social issues into the mainstream. However, his accessibility makes people feel like they’ve done their part. Pop culture can inspire but also conditioned people to expect change to be as instant as a viral post. On the other hand, some people like Steven Johnson (2005) in his article Watching TV Makes You Smarter, claims that television makes you cognitively complex like following the plot of Game of Thrones. But it does little development to empathy, ethics, and meaningful knowledge. Instead of knowledge TV is more likely to provide trivia or characters that make audiences laugh. Pop culture may present itself has entertaining and trendy, but TV frequently relies on stereotypes or is an exaggeration and does not focus on our reality. To take it another step forward pop culture has lost much of its originality. Phil Miller (2015) in his TED Talk Pop Culture Is Dead, argues that movies, music and fashion have become repetitive and recycled. This recycling proves that even pop culture isn’t pushing society forward but about keeping us stuck in the familiar marketable patterns. But why does pop culture still dominate if it’s so harmful? Alexandre O. Philippe (2013), in his TED Talk Why Pop Culture? offers one explanation: pop culture reflects our need for stories and shared experiences. People crave narratives, symbols, and connections, and pop culture fills that role. Yes, pop culture gives us common ground, but the values it spreads, consumerism, shallowness, comparison, and distraction-harm more than they help. Pop culture is not good. It deters us form growth and recycles itself into meaningless repetition. Until we stop confusing trends with truth, pop culture will remain more of a trap than a treasure forever.