The Pop Culture and Futurama Essay

Introduction

Popular culture may have different meaning based on the user of the phrase or the contextual application. However, it can be defined as the cultural practices which are considered popular by society within a given duration (Negus 3). The society embraces the practices and performs thebym the public. For instance, the dress code, the slang, foods, and greeting rituals are all examples of popular culture. Therefore, this culture is based on the interaction activities of people. These activities reflect the immediate aspects of the contemporary lives of people in a society. These aspects are bound to change regularly which also affects the popular culture. For instance, the technological advancement and social media help to model the pop culture. The pop culture becomes a part of life, and members of the society make decisions by considering its provision. For example, it determines the kind of fashion in clothing or taking that people will utilize while socializing with others. Currently, despite the popularity of the Nike products over many decades, their air max sneakers have become part of the popular culture for the youths and sports people (Hockey, Rachel, Victoria and Alexandra 25). Through advertisement, the media take the popular culture to the society and glamorizes it to influence the masses to embrace the new trends. Hence, popular culture becomes of expressions or products that are widely appreciated by the members of the society at a particular time. This culture enables a mass of heterogeneous people to identify as a group. The people also act consistently as per the definition of the particular culture to acquire its identity and stand out from the members who do not subscribe to the popular culture. However, it is a personal decision to take part in popular culture activities, those who do not associate with the culture are sometimes considered conservative or laid-back.

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The mass media influence on pop culture

Mass media refers to any form of communication that targets to reach a vast audience. Examples of media that are accessible to many people include magazines, movies, radio, and the internet. With technological advancement, new forms of mass media are being created, for instance, the video games where people socialize and have fun in the process. Such technological platforms allow the rapid sharing of messages across to many people within a short duration. Thus, a trend on one corner of the earth may be replicated in another within a very short duration. Currently, the electronic and print media are the popular platforms for sharing information with the large masses (Graziani 5). These platforms are consistent with people at all the time, for instance, the radio and television they are all over from home while driving to the various destination, at school, and the workplaces among other. Also, the magazine, the internet such as Facebook and Twitter are constantly sharing information that is meant to influence the thoughts and action of people within the society at a given time. When the new media selects a story to share through their platforms, they monitor the opinions of the audience which is a reflection of the public interests. Hence, if the public show more interest, coverage on the issues will be extended to meet needs of the audience. Hence, the media platforms disseminate news from a business perspective and not on the need or quality of the information. A study on the amount of TV watching in American revealed that an average person watches at least 4.5 hours and two of these represents the prime time (Potter and Ik 315). These findings were an improvement from a 1995 to 1996 report on the watching trends of TV in America.

The cultivation theory states that "the types of TV viewing we watch accumulate within us and impact our worldview. In other words, if we only watched crime, detective, and forensic shows we would have the additive effect of these shows on our perception of how the world really is" (Lau 14). Thus these shows passively and persistently shape the view and perception of the people towards the world. This is the reason for consistent advertisement of products on the Televisions to influence the decision of customers and sway the undecided masses. Hence, the trends that are highly promoted through social media and subsequently accepted by the majority of the target population becomes the popular culture. Additionally, the mean world syndrome, which refers to the tendency to view society as being meaner and more violent than it really is because of the violent and harsh TV shows one has watched over the years (Klinkenberg 2). For instance, if a person consistently watches soap operas, he/she is likely to have a romantic worldview which reflects the themes of the shows on the TV. Hence, since watching soap-operas is mostly associated with women, it could be said it is a popular culture among the female gender. Thus when the TV consistently airs soap-opera shows, they aim to make them popular and acceptable to the public as part of life. Hence, the media platforms could either promote negative or positive popular culture by consistently promoting the respective ideas. For instance, the idea of plastic surgery and using implants such as those for breast enlargement has been a trend among women to meet the image of the ideal female shown by the new media. Such media reveal that some forms of appearance are not good and some are good without considering their effects on people. For example, skin lightening is a predisposing factor for skin cancer, but still, people do it since the media has not emphasized on the side effects but the business concepts (Street, Karie, Kelly, and Michael 50). Therefore, the use of these harmful substances have become popular, and no serious stories have been created to discourage people from the use by telling people to accept themselves the way they appear.

The "FUTURAMA'

The FUTURAMA is an American science fiction comedy series based on the encounter of a 20th-century pizza delivery boy who works at the planet express, which is an interplanetary delivery company. He was making a delivery at cryonics labs when he was accidentally frozen for 1000 years and resumed life in the 31st century which was his future. After his awakening in the future, he is hired by a delivery company owned by his great, great..., great-grandnephew. The creator of the series was Matt Groening and was aired by the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series rotates around the main character, Philip j. Fry. Through the series episodes, various social, political aspects such as global warming and political bureaucracies across the world led by the USA have been revealed. The series has earned various awards such 17 and 10 Annie and Emmy awards respectively. Also, in 2010 it was awarded a Guinness world record for most acclaimed animated series.

The socio-political message of the "FUTURAMA.'

The science fiction Comedy series displayed various socio-political messages such as global warming, multicultural environment, political bureaucracy, and substance abuse among other issues. Global warming is among the threats of our ecosystem, but the series offers a sarcastic solution that to alter the progression of the disaster we should drop a huge ice cube into the ocean from time to time. To some extent, the idea makes sense as the greenhouse gases lead to an increase in the temperatures in the atmosphere which affects the ecosystem, hence the excessive heat could be absorbed by the ice cube and control the situation. To a greater picture, the comedy series revealed that human beings had destroyed the environment by excessive use non-renewable sources of fuel such as coal and oil which have impacted the environment. Also, the policies that have been established have proven less effective in putting the situation under control to minimize the adverse effects (Dobraszczyk 869). Also, the bureaucracy has been revealed in the movie where one world government has been appointed, and the USA president (Richard Nixon) is made the global president in the second season of the series. Such acts reveal the American state as a dictatorial government which uses its power to dominate. The acts reveal anti-modernization instead of promoting democracy where sovereign states have own national leader. Such kind of governance would be considered manipulative of the weak in the society and exploitation. Furthermore, Professor Farmsworth creates mutants with the aim of subduing humanity. This situation reveals how the popular investment in scientific investment is not meant to benefit people but to destroy them and meet the selfish needs of a few (Hoechsmann and Stuart 40). The postmodernism has been revealed as a characteristic of the future world where people will rely on simulation and will not principles to guide them or help them to identify what is real and not. Where people are seen as just vessels for passing information through the internet, magazine, social networking, and TV among other platforms. The series also showed that in the postmodern world the economies depend on services, images, and information instead of manufacturing of products (Cogdell 196). Hence, the people in the postmodern world are said to have lost touch with reality and shown a preference for simulated encounters and have unfortunately chosen the simulated experiences. Hence, the comedy shows that we live in a world where nothing is real but fabricated and human being has lost their purpose and humanity, where their morality is questionable. For instance, Bender is a character in the comedy and has been characterized as alcoholic despite being a robot. This shows that inanimate objects are taking the place of human beings and are being qualified by human behaviors hence making the human race obsolete.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the pop culture is the dress code or taking a style that a given society approves at a given time as appropriate. The pop culture gives people identity as a heterogeneous group tends to share behavior and other social aspects in public. The Futurama is a science fiction comedy series that was created to reveal the way of human life in the postmodern world. The culture of using internet, magazine, and social networking among people to share information was shown in the series and count be considered as part of the popular culture in the post-modern world.

Works cited

Cogdell, Christina. "The Futurama Recontextualized: Norman Bel Geddes's Eugenic" World of Tomorrow"." American Quarterly 52.2 (2000): 193-245.

Dobraszczyk, Paul. "Sunken Cities: Climate Change, Urban Futures and the Imagination of Submergence." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41.6 (2017): 868-887.

Grazian, David. Mix it up: Popular culture, mass media, and society. New York: WW Norton, 2010.

Hockey, Jenny, Rachel Dilley, Victoria Robinson, and Alexandra Sherlock. "'There's not just trainers or non-trainers, there's like degrees of trainers': Commoditisation, singularization, and identity." Journal of Material Culture 20.1 (2015): 21-42.

Hoechsmann, Michael, and Stuart R. Poyntz. "Media as public pedagogy." Media Literacies: A Critical Introduction (2012): 35-62.

Klinkenberg, Lisa. "Exploration of the 'Mean World Syndrome'in Dutch Older Persons." Student Undergraduate Research E-journal! 1 (2015).

Lau, Hey Yeung. "Cultivation Effects of Television Broadcasting and Online Media." New Media, Knowledge Practices, and Multiliteracies. Springer, Singapore, 2015. 13-21.

Negus, Keith. Producing pop: Culture and conflict in the popular music industry. Out of print, 2011.

Potter, W. James, and Ik Chin Chang. "Television exposure measures and the cultivation hypothesis." Journal of Broadcasting & electronic media 34.3 (1990): 313-333.

Street, Jalika C., Karie G...