Rozhovor s Američanem Donaldem, který se dlouhodobě zabývá pop kulturou. Jak moc nás populární kultura v našich životech ovlivňuje, až už tím, jak se oblékáme, jakou hudbu posloucháme, jaké filmy sledujeme nebo jaké technologie používáme? A proč jsme celosvětově fascinovaní právě americkou pop culture?
Rozhovor s Američanem Donaldem, který se dlouhodobě zabývá pop kulturou. Jak moc nás populární kultura v našich životech ovlivňuje, až už tím, jak se oblékáme, jakou hudbu posloucháme, jaké filmy sledujeme nebo jaké technologie používáme? A proč jsme celosvětově fascinovaní právě americkou pop culture?
Welcome to the English team at this hall. My name is Pavlina and every week I will talk to my parents from all over the English language world about different interesting topics, and that's all from me from the beginning. Thank you very much for watching this channel and we can start. And if you like the podcast and would like to support it, you can go to my Patreon page. So hi everybody, and welcome to today's episode. I'm super excited to welcome my guest for today, donald Salski, all the way from Jackson, michigan.
Speaker 3:Hi Donald, how are you doing today? Really good. How are you doing I'm also doing really good. It's sunny in Sweden today, so perfect. It's sunny here too, but it's not sunny outside. I'm excited to be here. I'm really bad at that conversion.
Speaker 2:I'm always trying, but it just never works out well.
Speaker 3:Anyways. So today we have a very interesting topic to talk about.
Speaker 2:I think I'm not sure if you can hear me, but I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm, not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. It's a very interesting topic to talk about, I think, and that is pop culture, and you are an expert, so I hope you're excited.
Speaker 2:I am excited. Experts are really a fantastic term. I don't know about that.
Speaker 3:Well, you've run a podcast called the Escape Pod where you talk everything pop culture related. Am I right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so well. Pop culture is just all around us, from the way we dress, the technologies we use or the movies we watch, the music we listen to. So how do you think that we could actually define it?
Speaker 2:Well, pop culture is essentially anything from art, literature, fashion, what we see on television, what we hear on the radio, and now you have to also take into account the social media aspect, everything that we're getting from memes and we're getting from Twitter and TikTok and all of those places that all is now starting to seep into the greater culture. But really the thing that makes pop culture special is how those art forms interact with the way people feel in a given moment. You could introduce the same thing in the United States in the 1990s. If you were to bring that into the culture in the 2000s, it would just fall dead. It's not written in the voice that speaks to the time. So what makes it pop, what makes it pop culture, popular culture, is that it fits with the sensibilities of the culture at the time.
Speaker 3:And so, as we said, that you host a podcast about pop culture. So what is it that fascinates you really about it?
Speaker 2:About pop culture or about podcasting in general. Well, pop culture about input.
Speaker 3:Well, you can, you can respond to both.
Speaker 2:The thing that I personally and really my partner, we've talked about quite a bit, brady that pop culture gives us a community. It gives us a thing that we like with a group of people, a commonality, if you will, and we use that commonality to create bonds with our friends and our peer group, like, for example, me and Brady became friends because we love Star Wars and another friend of mine also loves Star Wars. Well, the three of us were tangentially friends when, when my friend passed away, then me and Brady immediately picked up that bond, that that love of Star Wars, and we built an entire friendship on it. Now we do a pop culture show, so that what it what fascinates me about it is, is its way to get behind your walls and your barriers, to make you part of something that you didn't know you were going to be part of.
Speaker 3:Well, that's an amazing story. And so what do you think would be the opposite of pop culture? Would it be high culture?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I guess it depends on what you're referring to as high culture. When you say something like high culture, I'm assuming we're talking about communities, universal culture, like their religious norms, their patriotic bonds, tribalism, things like that, the things that make a people a people, if you will. So I guess that I mean you could call that an opposite, but really those things are a collection of pop cultures from different times that have stuck with a community.
Speaker 3:I sort of may be more like you know, if we think of, let's say, pop music, for example, so would Oprah be considered high culture, and then would that be opposite to pop culture.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I guess that. Yeah, pop culture generally is something that is generally considered lesser than things like you know, classical music or or like you say, but like, like I was trying to get at, those things were popular in their moments. So there was a time opera music was pop culture. There was a time classical music wasn't classical, it was just music. But there was a time Beethoven was the pop guy. You know, you know I'm saying like We've, we, we build a reverence for those things as we look back. You know if, if you talk to some people about Elvis Presley, they'd say, well, that's, he's classic, well, that was pop culture, that was, he was popular, he was the thing at the time. Now we look back at it and we we consider that an American institution.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, that's super impressive, like super interesting and Well yeah. So I just talking about this. Like you know, sometimes I guess people think that you know. Anything that we put in this Pop culture category it's also poor quality or lower quality, as you said. So do you agree that this might be like a common perception in the society, or not really Well.
Speaker 2:I think that some people view it that way. But if you think about, you know the quality of whatever it is it becomes. You know, like, once again, pop. You take, for example, like the Avengers movies. Those are popular all over the world and they're made of the highest quality by the top Directors and writers in the world. You can compare that to, let's say, kevin Smith's work like clerks that was made for $27,000, written by a first-time writer and director, and that is is very ingrained in United States pop culture. I don't know how much it is around the world, but I do know Kevin Smith has quite a following globally.
Speaker 2:You can take, for example, too I'm sure you're very familiar with a band like the Backstreet Boys I am. The Backstreet Boys were a group of singers young singers that Some agents got together and made what they call a super group, right? You take that that is a well-curated, well-polished, high quality group, right? Take that in comparison to, say, a band like Nirvana. Okay, I know, I'm sure you know who Nirvana is. That was a garage band in Seattle. That was just some guys sitting around jamming out, and they had just as much Influence on pop culture in the 90s as the Backstreet Boys did. So I, I don't, I think. I think the argument that Quality is is relevant to what makes something pop is probably thin, to say the least.
Speaker 3:And so you come from the US, as we said. So why do you think that there's just Such a mass appeal of the American pop culture around the world?
Speaker 2:You know, I'm from Europe and like we watch American movies, we listen to American music and yeah well, I think that a lot of it has to do with America being, or having enjoyed, a strong economic power for the last. You know 60, 70 years, as far as globally that that that economic prowess Allowed the people in the United States to spend more time creating art. Essentially, you know, all this boils down to art. You know whether that's TV or movies or music, or you know now, now, the things that people are doing all over the internet. Americans for the last I don't know three or four generations have been able to afford more or entertainment time, and I think that economic strength has also put us in a position where the things that we make here get pumped out into the world, and the more we send out movies and music, the more people go.
Speaker 2:Oh, american culture is cool. Then they travel here and then they pick up the things that we have here and they take them home and spread them around in their peer group. I'm like if you talk about Japan, japan loves everything that we made in the 1980. I have no idea why they think the 80s were the best time that ever happened in the United States history and they want a piece of it, but that that all comes from In the 80s, we were doing a tremendous amount of commerce with Japan. You know we were, you know we, we develop strong plastics and think and electronic chips and silicon stuff, and we were working on TVs with them and cars, and so we were interacting with that community like constantly, and so they picked up everything that we, we were doing and they emulated it with their own culture.
Speaker 3:And do you think it could also be because, you know, the American culture is a bit more like universal and maybe a bit more understandable to someone, let's say, living in any well anywhere? Really then, for example, the Japanese culture, for us it's still a bit exotic, if that makes sense well, I think that we are.
Speaker 2:well, we always strive to be a melting pot of cultures and I think that's what you mean, that it's very accessible to everyone because they can identify a piece of their own Culture and what they see us do over here yeah, sure, and well you know.
Speaker 3:Wikipedia says that the most common pop culture categories are Entertainment, which would be film, music, tv, video games and sports news, etc. What do you think would be some good examples of you know pop culture in these categories?
Speaker 2:Well, what I think of pop culture that has like a global influence, I always think of like musicians, like Michael Jackson, elvis Presley, madonna, you know, just there there's just been tons and tons of International acts that have come out of the United States, like I'm sure that you are familiar with, you to yes you know.
Speaker 2:And then with with film and stuff you know, you have things like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe and just about anything you can think of that Disney made. Disney can't make a movie that isn't almost universally beloved, no matter what kind of Iran.
Speaker 3:Well, you already said that you are a huge Star Wars fan. Do you have any other favorites?
Speaker 2:I'm a I'm a very big Batman fan. I like Superman quite a bit.
Speaker 3:I'm a Joker friend.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I'm. I like to joke her quite a bit now, my wife, she's very partial to Harley Quinn. Mm-hmm and we've actually named our boat after Harley Quinn and Batman.
Speaker 3:That's right cute.
Speaker 2:We have a boat named Harley's Bat.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, and what would you think are some positive and negative effects of pop culture?
Speaker 2:Well, like I brought up earlier, pop culture is a universally binding entity, I guess you'd call it. It creates community. So even when community doesn't exist, you know it makes common ground, you know, between people that have no commonality. I don't know if you've ever been to Comic Con. No, even if that's not up your alley, I think everyone should see one. It's amazing to walk into a convention center with thousands of people that love thousands of different things and the fact that they love all those things brings them together to be one group. It gives that. That membership in that group gives people a ridiculous amount of self-esteem when you can go, be in a group of people that you don't even know and your commonality and your love for something makes you feel free to express yourself. You can't buy that, but pop culture gives it to all of us.
Speaker 2:When you go to a concert to see your favorite singer, there's, you know, thousands of people to hundreds of thousands of people, depending on the venue you're at, that are all there because they love that person's music. You can't recreate that. That's a thing that is only given to us through art and, as far as like negative things, the only thing that I can think of that's negative about pop culture is it has a tendency to be the curated version of our culture. Our pop is usually got a pretty face on it, so I think that it has a tendency to make young people feel like they can't measure up to be. I don't know, you can't be Wonder Woman. You want to be Wonder Woman, but you know that. You know Diana is the most beautiful woman, the most powerful woman, and you know that creates a little bit of a well, I can't be that. But vice versa, it also inspires people to be great things. So it's hard to actually imply that anything negative comes out of pop culture.
Speaker 3:And well, this is just a thought, but do you think? Because, obviously, now that you talked about music, you know, I guess every musician is making music because they want to be heard, they want an audience.
Speaker 3:So, do you think when, let's say, like underground musicians would like what we talked about, you know when they would say that like pop culture is actually not like the quality that they're seeking and actually to be in this pop culture category or in this pop culture group, because that means that you're popular, right, and that just contradicts being underground, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Very much. That leads me back to a band like Nirvana. You know they were. They were a garage band playing a new kind of edgy music, and they did not want to be associated with, let's say, anything that was being played on MTV at the time. You know they didn't. They wanted to be grunge, they wanted to be their own thing, and they were. They were perfectly happy doing that forever. But once they became popular, then everyone else started to do what they did and then they became the trailblazers for a new thing. Nobody wants to acknowledge that the people who are on the top of their game are better than they are.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, and but once you become the guy on the top of the hill, you're more than happy to be there.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's exactly what I what I was trying to say, and would you also agree that social media is a huge influence on pop culture these days?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was thinking about that quite a bit. I think that social media has has is representing a shift in the way pop culture happens. It used to be curated by business executives at the record companies and the TV stations and the movie studios. You know they. They decided what we were going to see and hear and et cetera. And now, because of social media and and really the growth of the internet, those things are starting to be crowd crowdfunded Our crowds sourced, I guess, is a better word for it, grass roots, if you will.
Speaker 2:You know, people get their information from their peer group more than they do, say, a channel like MTV used to tell us this is good music. Well, we didn't really have a choice. That was what they played and they played it over and over again until we decided it was good music. But we don't have to do that anymore. Your friend tells you hey, check out this thing on my playlist on Spotify. They send it over to your phone and you listen to it a couple of times and if you don't like it, it just goes away. So what makes things pop now is they actually have to strike a chord with the people. So things that are pop culture now for the most part, I think, are grounded more in the way it used to be back in the 40s, 50s and such, where people heard something or saw something in their small group and it spread out from there, as opposed to coming from corporate America telling us what we're going to enjoy.
Speaker 3:Or now it's the algorithm telling you what you should enjoy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, algorithms now that's a whole other topic, but very much I think that the way it used to be is now the way it is again, and we've taken out a whole lot of the corporate overhead that told us what we were going to like for 20, 30 years or so, in the 70s, 80s, 90s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the way it's being consumed kind of shifted completely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm sure it'll change again, but for right now, social media is definitely it's given power back to the grassroots, the smaller creators, if you will. Like, I wouldn't have been able to have this show that I have 20 years ago because there would have been some gatekeeper out there that told me no, because it wouldn't have been the thing that they thought that they could sell, so they wouldn't have invested in it. Now I was like I could do this myself. I invested in me, and so now there's a show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And well, one last question, and that is do you think that there is a way to escape pop culture?
Speaker 2:I think the only way you escape pop culture is if you turn off the internet, the tv and the radio.
Speaker 3:And you live in the woods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could listen to the squirrels if you wanted to, but I just don't see a scenario where you'd want to do that to yourself, even if you don't like the pop culture of today. If you wait five years, the tone is going to be different. You know, there'll be something different out there that you never heard before, because somebody's going to take what they're doing now and something they used to do. They're going to mash it all up in a ball and say, here, look what I made, and you're going to be like that's for me Well.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, donald. This has been absolutely great and definitely gave us something to think about, so thank you so much for being my guest.
Speaker 2:Thanks a lot for having me on. This was really fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and thank you to everyone who has listened to this episode and, yeah, I'll see you next week. Bye.