Pop Culture Artifact

What is popular culture, and what does it mean to you?

Pop culture is a culture of things that is enjoyed by a majority of people. Pop culture is not just limited to one area of life, but all facets of it. Music, movies, memes, gadgets, sports, and television are arguably the big ones, but there are certainly plenty more. If something comes along that previously people either did not know, or did not care about, causes a huge amount of people to like it -- for example, Psy's smash hit Gangnam Style -- then it ends up a part of pop culture. In the case of Gangnam Style, so many parodies have spawned on YouTube while many people even imitate the dance with their friends in real life.

To me, pop culture is something that reflects the time period. Obviously, things like internet memes, YouTube, and smartphones are examples of pop culture of the time period we are currently in. If we step back 20-30 years ago, though, we would see many different things that define pop culture for those given time periods.

Why is an understanding of popular culture relevant to you in a business environment and in your present and future career?

 Understanding pop culture has a multitude of benefits in business. Firstly, pop culture influences people. As such, by understanding it, we can get to know the people we work with better, and hopefully, have better teamwork as a result. Secondly, pop culture can affect how we communicate with the people we work with. Once upon a time, a person would have to call someone's home to get a hold of them if they needed them for something urgent. If they were unable to get a hold of the person, then that makes the urgent situation much more difficult. Nowadays, nearly everyone has a cell phone, so communication is significantly easier. Any urgent matters can be responded to and resolved quickly because of cell phones becoming mainstream.

What would you consider to be an example of a popular culture artifact? And why would you choose it?

 Perhaps one of the biggest pop culture artifacts of our time has to be the iPhone. It not only showed the world that technology didn't have to be complicated, but that you can have a phone that does everything -- listen to music, browse the internet, view and send e-mail, play games, etc. -- without having the phone be the size of a concrete block. The iPhone ushered in the wave of smartphones, as within a few years not only did a majority of people have one, those that didn't wanted one. With so much information available at a person's fingertips, it became illogical not to have a smartphone.

That is ultimately why I chose the iPhone as my artifact. Back in high school, I was one of the few people that actually had a cell phone, and it was a flip phone. All you could do was talk and send text messages. If I went out somewhere and had to wait -- like the doctor's office or to get a table at a restaurant -- passing the time became a drag if I wasn't with somebody. With a smartphone, I am now able to surf the internet, watch movies, or play actual video games while I wait. If I need to know something, the internet is right at my fingertips, so I can instantly look it up.