"Pop culture" is a relatively fluid term. It could mean a range of things from music to film to famous personalities and so on and so forth. However, I see pop culture as something much greater and more personal than just some large entity that looms over multiple facets of our life. It's the defining era our generation leaves behind in the small window of time we're allotted on this planet. It reflects our ideas, interests, attitudes, fears, art, and lifestyles. Pop culture may not always be a deep or insightful glimpse in to our human psyche, but it is a collective representation of what many people find important in today's world. Pop culture can be vapid and seemingly pointless at times but the historical and cultural relevance it breeds within itself is something to admire. It evolves with each passing generation and molds itself around our own distinct personalities.

I've been influenced by the broad reach of pop culture my entire life; many times, without even realizing it. I wore trendy clothes, listened to popular music, and talked with my peers about contemporary events happening around the world. We all participated in this "culture" and eventually left these symbolic pieces of our lives in the past, creating a trail of popular icons and media that we can ponder for years to come.

I admire pop culture because it identifies so much about the people and the events of that time. You cannot fully understand the historical context of many world events without studying the pop culture of that time period. For example, without understanding what the counterculture movement did to American society both politically and socially, it'd be difficult to understand the rise in left-leaning politicians in the 1970s and where their beliefs originated from. All in all, I believe that studying the pop culture of any society can give you a brief glimpse in to the everyday life of the people involved. It delves deeper than the political jargon and foreign negotiations that seem to riddle our history textbooks, because life is simply much more complex than that.

In the end, I don't believe pop culture is a concept we should lose ourselves in. I think it's something we should admire with a certain pensiveness. Something we should recognize and acknowledge as part of our identity while also working to understand the different pieces that comprise it. Pop culture itself is an icon that will live on, perpetually, in the lives of millions of people for many years to come.