In talking about the way we define high culture and low culture and putting popular culture in the low category, I was left wondering who makes those definitions. Everyone responds and reacts differently to aspects of culture, and it should be for the individual to decide whether something is important or not. The one thing that seems pretty universal in defining the importance of pieces of culture is the aspect of time. Works of art that transcend time periods, like To Kill A Mockingbird and 1984, are important and influential because they shed light on a part of the human condition. Dr. Bezio talks about the importance of pop culture and the way it shapes minds and has more influence than facts, so what would make that not high culture?
She also talks about the way storytelling is at the core of leadership. The stories we tell, whether true or false, matter and have the ability to make change. The entertainment and popular culture show us what is important to us and what our society looks like, and it is this entertainment, deemed as low culture, that have the biggest impact. The podcast talks about Robinhood and its ability to transcend time, and it talks about the false stories created throughout history that have created revolts and upset people who then make change. This makes me think about social media and the way trends become popular and change the way people do things. In today’s world, one person has the ability to create a movement by reaching millions of people in a matter of seconds, and this is the difference between the way pop culture is today versus the way it was in the past. There is more pop culture now than there was in the past, and this is telling about the way our culture changes frequently and the way individuals are constantly moving on to the next exciting thing. For better or for worse, we all have the ability to make a change or start a movement. And we know what is important to people of other cultures because we are all so interconnected. The stories we tell have always mattered, but today there are more stories being told to more people, and this makes culture bigger than it ever has been, and potentially more important and influential.
I think your question of what makes high brow culture is really relevant. I know in sociology we talk a bit about how (in)accessibility and exclusion are super important in solidifying something as high brow. With the internet, a lot of things that might have been high brow are easily accessible, and so they are considered low brow. Meanwhile, you have to have additional training or cultural capital, or really access a work of Shakespeare, when someone of Shakespeare’s time wouldn’t have needed that extra context.
I really like everything you mentioned in your post, but I have to disagree a little with your last statement. I believe that the sheer amount of stories that we have today might end up drowning each other out. It is so hard to keep up with everyone’s lives and stories now that I believe that many will go unnoticed as time goes on.
I agree that pop culture is extrmeley important in the sense that pop culture allows us to make major change and start important movements. I also think that it is important to note that to your last point, we do not get lost in the shuffle with the number of narratives that are being created.