A Study of US Pop Culture: Comparing it with Chuck Klosterman's View

This essay explores the landscape of pop culture in the United States, drawing comparisons with Chuck Klosterman's viewpoints. It highlights how pop culture, heavily influenced by mass media, shapes societal practices, beliefs, and individual attitudes. The analysis reveals that American pop culture, while intended to be accessible to all, often reflects racial disparities, particularly in the fashion industry and media representation where white individuals dominate. Klosterman's perspective suggests that pop culture can be an emancipatory force against racial injustice, but structural limitations, such as media bias towards white individuals, hinder its effectiveness. Despite these challenges, pop culture actively promotes anti-racist messages through various channels, aiming to minimize racism and address discrimination against non-white individuals. The essay concludes that while pop culture faces structural barriers that perpetuate racial inequality, it also plays a crucial role in advocating for racial justice and delivering anti-racist messages through global media campaigns.

Running head: POP CULTURE
Pop Culture in United States Compare to Chuck Klosterman Point of View
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2POP CULTURE
Pop culture refers to the society, which includes a set of practices, objects, and beliefs.
Such beliefs and objects are dominant in a society. Pop culture or popular culture is highly
influenced by the mass media and it changes over the time (Ferguson et al. 2017, p.70). On the
other hand, individual’s attitudes are also influenced by the pop culture. However, American pop
culture is different from the other cultures. In USA the pop culture is accessible to the general
public and no higher education is required to consume this culture. This study deals with the
point of view of Chuck Klosterman regarding pop culture.
Chuck Klosterman is more curious to know about the people. From the study of Chuck
Klosterman, it has been received that politics bled into the pop culture completely. However,
there is a racial discrimination that affects the pop culture in the recent years. It has been
received that the pop culture has helped to develop much racial imagery with which the people
are familiar (Klosterman 2017, p.10). American pop culture highlights the difference between
the white and non-white people while according to the concept of pop culture it is accessible to
all. It has been found that in America the majority of the people in pop culture are white. This
leaves a big impact on the non-white consumers in pop culture. In the fashion industry, the
majority of the people who control the industry are white. The non-white consumers are affected
in due to the racial discrimination. However, pop culture is accessible to all people. This is the
main principle of this culture but due to the influence of the mass media, it is difficult to make
this culture accessible to non-white people (Kidd 2010, p.3). The majority of the people in pop
culture are non-white as a result it creates racial injustice for the non-white consumers. They are
resisted to involve them in this culture properly.
According to Chuck Klosterman, pop culture serves a truly emancipator force to deal
with the racial justice in the recent years (Kutulas 2017, p.11). However, due to the structural

3POP CULTURE
limitation, this culture fails to reduce racism. The mass media such as TV or film give their
preference to the white people. As a result, the pop culture fails to reduce injustice for the people
who are not white and who are not privileged enough to find common ground with the characters
of TV and film. Despite this failure, pop culture focuses on delivering anti-racist messages
through global media. Various channels of popular culture are used to deliver these messages.
The pop culture heroes are involved in delivering such anti-racist messages and by conducting
the Polish campaign the popular culture has got success to minimize the racism in America.
From the above analysis, it has been observed that the majority of the people are white in
pop culture, which creates the issue for the non-white consumers. Therefore, the structural
limitation is another barrier of pop culture that facilitates racism in America. Despite this, the
popular culture is involved in minimizing the racism by delivering anti-racist messages. This
leads this culture to deal with the discrimination against the non-white people.

4POP CULTURE
References
Ferguson, Christopher J., and Eugene Beresin. "Social science's curious war with pop culture and
how it was lost: The media violence debate and the risks it holds for social science." Preventive
medicine 99 (2017): 69-76.
Kidd, Dustin. Pop culture freaks: Identity, mass media, and society. Routledge, 2018.
Klosterman, Chuck. Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the
Early 21st Century. Penguin, 2017.
Kutulas, Judy. After Aquarius Dawned: How the Revolutions of the Sixties Became the Popular
Culture of the Seventies. UNC Press Books, 2017.