Popular culture can engulf many aspects in today’s society. According to the book “Common Culture” popular culture is the shared knowledge and practices of a specific group at a specific time (Petracca, Sorapure, 2007). To the general audience, including myself, popular culture is simply the “it” items of today. This could be an artist, a toy, a high tech electronic or even a popular television show just to name a few. Some people reject pop culture, deeming it cliché’ and are under the opinion that if they follow suit they would be “following the masses”. I definitely know some rebellious souls that take this opinion, but the truth of the matter is that you cannot deny the true genius in a Harry Potter film, the true talent of Lady Gaga or the way you feel when Coach unveils its latest handbag. I know this is stereotypical, but I don’t believe that anyone is completely immune to every aspect of pop culture. We all have to have some secret indulgence!
Understanding popular culture is relevant and important in a business environment for many reasons. It can help your company stay ahead of the competition in advertising, technological advances and even human resources. This definitely applies to my future career as I am hoping to acquire a job in a human resource department working specifically on training and development. Staying up to date on training trends, such as the current popular favorite of computer based training, is vital to offering the best in-house training possible.
The popular culture artifact that I have chosen is Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, Tinkerbell. This dog breed is known to be one of the smallest and in the past decade their popularity has exploded. A large part of their popularity can be attributed to Heiress Paris Hilton and her reality show The Simple Life. The show made her 2 pound Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, an instant hit. Today, breeders attempt to have each litter of puppies smaller and smaller, promising a maximum weight as they know that buyers are interested in the smallest dogs possible. This has gotten to extremes as breeders make unrealistic promises and ask unrealistic prices.
No comments:
Post a Comment