Thursday, August 2, 2012

Popular Culture and Facebook: A Summary


            When thinking back on all of the theories of popular culture and how they relate to Facebook, I decided that Rituals and Stereotypes probably play the biggest part in how Facebook is used.  This has been the week of the Chic-Fil-A controversy.  Unfortunately, I have discovered via Facebook, just how biased and closed minded that many of my friends are.  There has been a lot of name calling, criticizing, arguing, and plain rudeness all over Facebook this week.

            In my original paper on Rituals and Stereotypes, I defined a stereotype as the act of “to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same” (Stereotype, n.d.).  It is very sad to me that people can’t see each other as equal, that religion or sexual orientation truly do not make a difference, and should not make a difference in how someone is treated.  I keep hearing that this is a “Freedom of Speech” issue.  I keep hearing that it is a “gay rights” issue.  What I have learned about stereotypes after this class is that people seem to think that there is no middle ground.

            The thing that I found most interesting was that I was able to apply all of the topics to Facebook.  I had only ever thought about Facebook a place to go and unwind by playing a game or two, or catching up with an old friend, or spying on my kids.  I never realized how much popular culture had to do with Facebook.

            I am not sure that I will change my views of Facebook after taking the class.  I might be a little more cognitive about the themes or topics when something gets posted on my wall, but I will continue to use Facebook as a place to unwind, catch up, and spy.



References
Stereotype. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2012, from Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype

1 comment:

  1. This Chick-Fil-A incident has sure brought out some of the worst in people! The problem with FaceBook is that people do not think before they speak and they feel protected that they can speak their mind without any consequences.

    ReplyDelete