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Thread: The use of popular culture

  1. #21
    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    Grph. I remember the switch.

    Cultural trends are cyclic - usually from generation to generations. Mustaches and beards go through four generation cycles.

    Popular culture follows similar trends. TV and movies haven't been around long enough to see more than one cycle but the characteristics of the early popular media was escapism. Viewers didn't want to see reality - that was in their houses. It made them uneasy. Now people want to see hyper-reality. They want to be consoled that others are worse and they can be better.

    Even Superman and Batman have become more "realistic". They didn't use to kill people. Of course, if it wasn't human - it better hide.

    I'm amused by all the people that thrill to the exploits of heros and I'm thinking, "Guy! You live on your couch."
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.


  2. #22
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    I think McGyver was so popular, in fact surviving the Apocalypse and Zombie hordes is so popular, is because so many people truly believe than in a pinch..."yeah, I could do that". Not me, brother. I'm sure I'll just be another shadow on the wall of the atomic blast. Look for the one clicking his heels. I'm at least going to trying and go out with style.

  3. #23
    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    Honestly, McGuyver was a lot like Paladin Press. I used to buy the books for entertainment purposes but I had enough background knowledge to know that, if I tried half the projects, they would (nt "might" - "would") blow up in my face.

    But you're very probably right. I hope I don't make understanding popular culture sound simple. There's a lot of factors that play into why people like the entertainments they like.

    Ever see Prometheus? When the scientists were in the cave playing with the cute little thing that would end up eating them, I was howling with great, good humor and delight for the same reasons I love the Darwin Awards.

    Frankly, Rick, I want you folks with me. Apocalypse, I'm convinced, could be a real blast.
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.

  4. #24
    Senior Member Wise Old Owl's Avatar
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    Just an observation and I am not about to argue, but did it occur to you that popular culture borders on schizophrenia?
    “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

    Theodore Roosevelt 1907

  5. #25
    Senior Member Antonyraison's Avatar
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    popular culture has always been a thing, people have always been influenced by what seems Popular at the times,
    I think just with the advent of technology those trends are pushed out much faster and more readily accessible.
    There is a saying, there is nothing new under the sun.
    I suppose even going against the grain so to speak you will still likely find a small group of people that would fit your new "trend/culture"
    Not sure how or why this is a problem.
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  6. #26
    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    Owl, of course. They started talking about the insane society back in the 60s. Why do you sound like I disagree with you? I just don't think griping about it is going to do any good.

    Anton, I agree, there is nothing new under the sun (that matters). But old trends are exponential and, with time, can become dangerously steep.
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.

  7. #27
    Administrator Rick's Avatar
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    I would imagine Grog and Rog complained when those crazy kids lashed a stick to a rock. How could that be any better than just a rock? Just a fad.

  8. #28
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    Quote>


    The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.<
    Socrates (469–399 B.C.)
    ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L. Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277 (1953).

    This use prompted Malcolm S. Forbes to write an editorial on youth.—Forbes, April 15, 1966, p. 11. In that same issue, under the heading “Side Lines,” pp. 5–6, is a summary of the efforts of researchers and scholars to confirm the wording of Socrates, or Plato, but without success. Evidently, the quotation is spurious.

    But sums it up......Can't say...wasn't there, but heard it from "Guy at the saloon"



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  9. #29
    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    Actually, we might not know anything Socrates said because everything we know about it is what was written by Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophone, and they had ulterior motives pretty much like all the "historians" from modern times back.

    Rick, you're right. There's been a lot of change since....well, since it all started. But, then, on some levels /we/ haven't changed at all since we've been "we". The biggest change is that there's a lot more of us now then there used to be.
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.

  10. #30
    Senior Member hunter63's Avatar
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    I guess I should have used bold on the line....
    Evidently, the quotation is spurious.

    But does illustrate these thought have been kicked around for a loooog time.
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  11. #31
    Senior Member WolfVanZandt's Avatar
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    It's not too terribly uncommon for people to express the idea that fiction is a "lie" but I think that's an oversimplistic view. Plato said that imaginative poets should be excluded from his utopia for that reason.

    Fiction, though, is a form of communication that's, in many ways, different from regular dialog.

    My culture is very different from Mainstream culture to the point that people like me have a hard time getting our points across to Mainstreamers. But there are languages that can convey ideas that are "ineffable". Music and poetry, for instance, conveys emotions using rhythms and intonations with or without accompanying words.

    Movies and other fictions are in the same family as fables.

    A modern movie that conveys a powerful and important message is The Fountain. The protagonist is tying to find a cure for the cancer that's killing his wife and it takes up all his time. In the end, his wife dies and all the time they might have had together is lost. My father worked most of his life and, in his culture, that was his part in the family - material support, but until after high school, I didn't much even know him. He worked so hard, he was barely even a part of the family. Someone can say, "It's more important to build a relationship than to support it with material things," but the movie brings it home in a powerful way. It's only a lie if you mistake it for a literal, factual account. The movie doesn't purport to be that, though so it, itself, isn't the lie. The lie is only in the person who makes the mistake.
    True enough, my final home is still out there, but this is most certainly my home range and I love it. I love every rock I fall off and tree I trip over. Even when I am close to dying from exhaustion, a beautiful sunset doesn't lose it's power to refresh and inspire me and that, in itself, is enough to save me sometimes.

  12. #32
    Senior Member Phaedrus's Avatar
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    The Fountain was a haunting, beautiful film! Good point. Some people spend so much time making a living that they scarcely get to live.

  13. #33
    Senior Member Wise Old Owl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hayshaker View Post
    what ever happen to wholesome televison, you know
    the andy griffith show
    the waltons
    little house onthe paririe
    wow has this world gone mad
    You forgot one... The Bill Cosby Show... or just another Hollowood pedophile...

    And don't forget Rupert Murdock, Hugh Hefner and Woody Allen.
    “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

    Theodore Roosevelt 1907

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