Celebrities and American Culture

Celebrities are different than regular people in several ways. Celebrities are seen sometimes seen by regular people on a daily basis in the media. Fans of celebrities keep up on their personal lives as well as their celebrity life portrayed in the media. Regular people feel as if they personally know certain celebrities because they see and hear about them so often. Celebrities can have a powerful impact on society because they are in the spotlight so often. Aside from having more money from the average person, celebrities can be outspoken and regular people are waiting to hear the next thing they do. Celebrities can have a large affect on American culture by what they do and how they portray themselves to the American people.

What's Hot in Pop Culture

http://www.apple.com/iphone/?afid=p238|sGb7nPCg2-dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_117729694927_&cid=aos-us-kwg-iphone-slid-
iphones are especially popular and have been for the past few years. Having the latest best model of iphone is what is popular now. This is a "insider" form of social currency because if you have this latest greatest phone you are part of the "in" group.

https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/videos
Another hot thing in pop culture now are those tasty videos that pop up on your facebook feed. I love those videos and I want to try all of the recipes, yet I have never tried one. These videos are "remarkable" because they look so delicious and grab your attention in such a short period of time..

 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33486177
A thid hot topic in our popular culture would be changing your diet to vegan or gluten free. It seems like a lot of people are doing this lately and not necessarily because they have to. It is the next latest greatest trend to be healthy by going gluten free or the paleo diet etc. I would say this falls into the "insider" category. You feel like part of a group when you chose the same diet as others.

Tattoos in America

There are definitely mixed messages in American culture when it comes to tattoos. Tattoos are portrayed as "cool" or the in thing to do when it comes to people in professional basketball or wrestling. The majority of these players have tattoos and we see nothing wrong with that. On the other side of our culture tattoos are still taboo and equal crime and prison. Even many people must cover their tattoos while at work. This is unfortunate because having tattoos does not tell you anything about a person's personality. It certainly does not mean you are a bad person if you have tattoos. Many people get tattoos only to have them in places where no one will see them. It seems as though in our culture it depends on who you are and what you do as to whether tattoos are okay or not.

Cultivation theory and Torture

In class we learned about George Gerbner's Cultivation Theory. George studied the affects of violence in the media. People are not more violent because of violence they see on T.V. but it is the exact opposite. The more violence people watch the more they think they will be the victim of violence. Although crime in the United States has actually gone down in the last decade, people are more fearful because there is so much violence portrayed on television and by the media that people think crimes are happening in large numbers all of the time.

We also watched a video on torture by John Oliver. In the video the use of torture to get information has been proven to not be effective. Even though it has been proven over and over that torture is not effective the majority of the population believe that torture is a good means for military/government personnel to use. I think that this indicates that our population is highly affected by the torture scenes we see on television and in the movies. This shows that George Gerbner's cultivation theory is true. People see these torture techniques work on movies and believe they will be useful in real life even after proven to be false.

I think it is very unfortunate the hold media has over our own personal thinking and society/culture as a whole. It is like the more television you watch the more ignorant you become to important issues.