Different Generations of Pop Culture

Whitney Houston to Ariana Grande, Clueless to Mean Girls, typewriters to computers and “Friends” to “Grey’s Anatomy.” Over the years pop culture has seen some big transitions. Pop culture portrays the way we see the world and how society has changed over the years. Investigating pop culture may be a good way to see a new perspective of the world and better understand these changes.

After talking to a GHS Student, who wishes to stay anonymous, they said, “I prefer classical bands and singers such as Queen, Journey, AD/DC and The Rolling Stones over today’s music”. Many people now say that today’s music is making a turn for the worse and classical music is better than modern day music that is being played on the radio stations everyday.

Movie and TV shows have also evolved, the quality of the film, content, effects and overall storylines of today’s tv shows and films are more understandable and more interesting to today’s audiences. Back in the 1950s, most films were black and white and the quality of audio was difficult to understand. Back then, interests were subtle and vague. In today’s world, teens like action, sci-fi and adventure movies while back in the day movies about baking and romance were the normal genres.

Technology when our parents, even grandparents were teens like us was very limited or even non-existent. After interviewing my grandfather, he said “I had a small Tv with an antenna. I had a small radio in the house, with 2 dials that plugged into the wall and also a wall mounted circular dial telephone.” I also interviewed my grandmother and she said “I lived in the country on a little farm and our technology in the house was very limited. I didn’t have a phone to communicate with or even a television ‘till I was a senior in high school.”

News networks have changed too. The local newspaper and the United States Postal Service were the main ways news was spread around. Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was hard to afford a television for many families. Unlike today’s news, people in the older generations such as the 1950s didn’t have a variety of newspapers. They only had the local newspaper, they didn’t have the New York Times or other national newspapers. Nowadays we can pull up current events and news from the touch of a button on our cell phones or just turn on the TV and get several channels to get news from nationwide and worldwide.

Idols of pop culture were also different from today’s. Back in the days when our parents and grandparents were young the major icons of pop culture were singers like Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson because of their famous ways with fashion and musical entertainment, as well as actors and actresses like Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne. Nowadays, the major icons we look up to are people like Ariana Grande, Drake and Michael Jordan.

All in all, you can see that pop culture has changed over the generations. Change is not always bad though, even nowadays Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and other older icons are still loved and their legacies live on. Knowing how stuff like this was like in the older generations, we can most likely see that we in the modern generation have it easier. Our media is more accessible than it was back when older generations were born and growing up.