Popular culture, or pop culture, is an ever changing collection of ideas, culture, perspectives and attitudes. Pop culture is centered around mainstream culture and stretches globally. With the emergences of mass media, pop culture has entered a new period of constant flux and volatility. Everything changes from day to day and nothing can be certain. However, one thing has not changed, the utter corruptness, superficiality, and stupidity that comes out of it. Pop culture creates an image that can only be described as negative. Through the internet, social media has allowed for pop culture and its adverse effects to spread throughout our lives. Stepping away from the internet, pop culture has consumed our radios, TV’s, and everything in-between. Pop culture has created a growing trend that will only continue to slander our views.
Pop culture has ensnared itself deep within the internet.  Every social media site, newsfeed, and advertisement is slanted in some way to reflect pop culture. Whether it’s the latest sex tape or beauty product, whatever is popular is dispersed across the web. Advertisements, front page new, and everything else is tailored to what is perceived as “popular” with the goal of exploiting the masses and deepening their own pockets. Paparazzi break laws to get the best shot, celebrities lives are stalked, and we read about it. By doing this, we fuel the injustices being done and further the depth of pop culture. Only by ceasing to pay attention and follow these trashy topics can we fully rid ourselves of this cancerous information.
People have begun to be trapped in a bubble of filtered and tailored information. We see what we want to see, our views are becoming fogged and pop culture is one of the reasons. Important news is being pushed aside in favor of the latest trend or scandalous secret. Our view is becoming smaller and smaller, we are missing out on the entire picture. Algorithms are deciding what gets on our front page and what gets set aside. So, if you google a new phone, all you will see on your front page is about phones. No longer will you see what is happening overseas, just what cell phone you should buy. Image a news site that only pertains to you, global topics are irrelevant, all that matters is tailoring information so that they have a better chance of making a profit. And if you’re not looking at anything in particular, pop culture steps in and gives the website something else to shove down your throat. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with trying to make money, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.  Our information shouldn’t be so tailored that we are trapped inside a bubble, our informational horizon must be left in its fullest form.
When you decide to leave the virtual world and return to reality, pop culture still has a great influence on our lives. When you go to the grocery store, every “trash magazine” is put right by the checkout line. The important articles on world hunger or shifting political tides in nowhere to be found. All that’s there is “10 Ways to Look Younger”. For some reason, pop culture dictates that anything of value and substance is not allowed to be on display. All that’s allowed is degrading, superficial material that we would be better off without.
Another place where pop culture’s ensnaring vice lays is commercials. If you were to look at how advertisements change over the course of a year, you would be astounded. They change almost week to week to reflect whatever is popular at that given time. Commercials fully embrace superficial consumerism and bank on you doing the same. If we were to rid ourselves of pop culture, companies would have no idea what to do with themselves. They would actually have to come up with something original.
Pop culture has entered into every part of our lives. It engulfs every piece of information we consume and shrouds our vision. In the shadow cast by this monstrosity lies important information that we can no longer see. Its global reach ensnares our ideas and perspectives, and only by removing ourselves from its vice can we truly see the world in its entirety.