Going into this class, I did not know a lot about what popular culture was. My understanding of popular culture was that it was the younger generation’s (13-21) culture. Items that I thought popular culture was were hip hop music, the movies that are top sellers, and computers. While completing my first assignment I realized that popular culture changes over the years and it is composed of more than just one generation’s ideas; popular culture affects all aspects of everyone’s life.
Unfortunately, I have ideas about different races. I do not however, allow these stereotypes to pigeon hole the people around me; I try to keep an open mind. I realized throughout this course that stereotypes affect more than just race. Stereotypes can be based on a city that you live in, a store you shop at, of a job you work at. These types of stereotypes are what will affect my major and future career. My major is accounting. As an accountant I may be responsible for advertising in my company. Using stereotypes can help me identify where I want to advertise, how much advertising would be sufficient, and how I want to advertise.
Completing the assignments in this class has allowed me to study the values of our society. This is because part of popular culture is what society likes, dislikes, and in turn values. In assignment 2-2: Icon Analysis, I had to think about what some icons were in America. American’s icons are people who possess the values that they agree with. Through this analysis, I found that some values of our society are innocence, honesty, hard work, and heroism. I also found that Americans value fame and fortune. Other assignments that encouraged me to look at societies values were 1-4, where I did my weekly analysis on modern day heroes, and 2-3 where I did my myths analysis on the American Dream.
These values are implemented in people’s lives because they see them in their icons and heroes and also they are passed down in myths and in rituals. Innocence and honesty are seen in the icons of young children. I believe this, as well as from my family, is where I learned to value these traits. I want to be a hero to somebody, in some small way, because of the value we as a society place on heroism. Assignments that make people think about their values allow them to be aware of the values they want to have. This is how I will implement the values I learned about: by being aware that I want to have these values and change my behaviors to meet them.
