MTV and Pop Culture

MTV makes me sick. When I watch it, I see glorification of violence, objectification of women, and consumption as the source of all happiness.

This is a list of the effects of mass (or pop) culture, from sociologist Ernest van den Haag.

1) Life is reduced to a spectator sport.
See Tila Tequila, My Super Sweet Sixteen (Spoiled rich girls getting lots of stuff), The Hills, etc etc.

2) Mass culture appeals to base instincts, distracting people rather than enlightening them.
As above.

3) In excess, it tends to isolate people from one another, from themselves, and from experience. Real life becomes trivial in the face of vicarious experience.

4) Distracts people from their lives, which they view as boring and thus generate obsession with ESCAPE. This deprives them of autonomous growth and enrichment -- lives become even more boring and unfulfilled.

5) Mass appeal needed to make mass culture profitable deindividualizes people, seeking one artist to fit all consumers as the most profitable model.


This is disgusting. It is the homogenization and packaging of art.