Fan and participatory culture is a fascinating evolution of entertainment and popular culture. When Trekkies and Star Wars junkies start recycling and creating their own stories, films and characters out of the original canon of material, a phenomenon is born and a cyclical relationship to the medium is generated.
When reflecting on this class overall, I believe understanding historical and contemporary culture is vital to understanding the individual, youth and contributors to our popular culture and world.
The church cannot remain in a bubble and ignore how the world has and is working. Too often, I believe the church tries to create Christian alternatives to culture, rather than embracing popular culture. And more often than not, the Christian product is crap. Christian media tries to package the crap to make it look and sound the same, but in the end it's still crap. You can't polish a turd.
Wednesday, March 12
Reflection: Week 10 [Wednesday]
Monday, January 14
Reflection: Week 2 [Monday]
I'm not going to brag... but our small group's definition of culture was clearly the best. Or maybe it's my perception that it was the best definition. [Eh, Group #4? Ya, I'm talking to you!] Nevertheless, our group [Denise, Harmony, Michael, Randy, and myself] came up with Culture: "A conscious or unconscious fluid dynamic of art, behavior, ideology, and signs developing organically within and characterizing a given society or subgroup."
It is interesting when thinking about the universal aesthetics of a current cultural canon and what would be considered the best and brightest pieces of art of our times. I'm afraid that popular culture would proclaim American Idol, MTV's Real World, or The Apprentice as the most influential media reflection of current cultural society. Personally, I'd lean towards the iPhone, U2 & the World Wide Web as greater cultural signposts. But people love to hear Simon bitch out a horrible singer and hear the Donald mutter, "You're fired!" [Sigh... I hate America.]
