The other day, someone asked me why I care so much about pop culture.
It’s true, I do love pop culture; I plan my days around my TV schedule, I know the names of Britney Spears’ kids, and I’ve heard of almost every mainstream movie in theaters.
But I didn’t know how to justify my love.
What is it that makes me read numerous entertainment blogs every day? Why do I constantly go on a search for the newest movie trailers and the freshest news about new TV shows?
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and I’ve come to a kind of conclusion. Now I may be going out on a limb when I say this, but I think the reason I love pop culture because it’s what makes all of us American.
Pop culture is what we talk about at work, what we do with our free time when we go home at night, how we relate to other people.
My mind just has a predisposition for remember pop culture trivia, so it only seems natural for me that pop culture is the one area in life at which I can be an expert. It sounds slightly pathetic, being an expert in pop culture, but it really is true. I know trivia about TV shows and movies I’ve never seen. I’ve never watched “Prison Break,” but I know that Wentworth Miller’s character has a full-body tattoo of the way out of the prison and that Scofield is more than just the name of a local electrician – it’s the last name of Miller’s character. I’m not even a “Jericho” fan, but I know that fans of the show sent a ton of peanuts to CBS and that their efforts got their show back on the air.
These are the kinds of things that matter to me, and I guess it’s because I’m afraid that if I don’t pay enough attention to pop culture, I will somehow be less American. I’m not patriotic by any means, but I certainly like to feel that I’m part of the culture in which I live, and how can I be a part of this culture if I don’t consume it?
Thus, entertainment is my life, and I plan to make a career out of writing about it, despite the fact that people might not respect my decision to do so. I’m not going to become a member of the paparazzi – celebrities’ lives are not my interest – instead, my interests lie in movies and TV, with an emphasis on TV. Even today, in the era of YouTube, the television is frequently a unifying factor in our society. Show me a house that doesn’t have a TV in its living room or a workplace where TV isn’t the main watercooler topic.
Spending my time obsessing over America’s favorite topic makes me feel like I’m actually somehow contributing to society, as far-fetched as that may sound. If I have something to add to the intelligent debate surrounding popular entertainment, am I not somehow helping to make popular entertainment better, or at least better understood? I like to think so, but that could just be me being delusional.
And I guess deep down inside, a part of me just likes being the go-to authority on entertainment.