BLOG POST 2
When thinking of what type of Popular Culture I consume I instantly think of cartoons. Growing up I was always very fond of cartoons, starting from the innocent ‘The Land Before Time’ to the more today’s cartoons of Family Guy – watching seasons and movies on repeat, was and still is a very big habit of mine.
But let’s back it up a little, what exactly IS popular culture?
Popular culture is a very vast term. An approach for any attempt to describe popular culture is to say
“popular culture is simply a culture that is widely favoured or well-liked by many people.” (Storey, 2015)
Popular culture allows for the collective identity of vast diverse groups of individuals. It plays an important role in society as it unites the public on standards of appropriate norms of behaviour. Along with forging a sense of belonging that connects individuals to a wider community. Perhaps popular culture tends to attract to us because it creates opportunities for both personal satisfaction and social bonding.
So fast forward a couple years and I’m still the same girl who LOVES cartoons. At the moment for the 4th time, I’m re-watching the SpongeBob SquarePants series and I’m loving it.
For those of you who aren’t too familiar with this popular culture…
SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated comedy television series produced for Nickelodeon by the late marine science educator and animator, Stephen Hillenburg. The series chronicles the adventures and activities of the title character and his aquatic mates in the fictitious underwater town of Bikini Bottom.
Moreover, with references to theories such as Globalisation, the understanding of SpongeBob as a popular culture becomes more obvious. The series interpretation on pop. Culture is corroborated through its key characteristics of globalisation –
“instantaneity, interdependency and interconnectedness” (O’Shaughnessy, 2012).
Through discussing globalisation, we can further expand on the concept of interconnectedness.
The series is popular all around the world mostly because of its cultural proximity. Cultural proximity is a multidimensional term that is most commonly used to describe audience preferences across national boundaries. It’s an important philosophical process for explaining the actions of the audience. The products and audiences in the “culturally linguistic” and “geolinguistic” domain, has to be the same for the SpongeBob content to best align with the cultural personalities of viewers. Meaning that – English as a universal language – the majority of the viewers would rather watch material such as SpongeBob SquarePants which was created in the United States over content that was created elsewhere due to language barriers.
Furthermore, vocabulary is no longer a barrier to the animated series since it has been aired in over 200 countries and translated in 50 languages, which helps it to erase limitations and become a world-wide familiar text that attracts audience attention who aren’t too familiar with the English language or any cultural context.
In summary, SpongeBob is fabulous in English OR in a choice of 50 other languages.
Storey, J., 2015. Cultural Theory And Popular Culture. [online] Google Books. Available at: <https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jgav8surlTIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR10&dq=cultural+theory+and+popular+culture&ots=nXkh0qY2L_&sig=WLBFhhfjfLXAlVd3qRRg7QluWLo#v=onepage&q=cultural%20theory%20and%20popular%20culture&f=false> [Accessed 5 September 2020].
The World from PRX. 2018. Spongebob’S Global Popularity. [online] Available at: <https://www.pri.org/file/2018-11-28/spongebob-s-global-popularity> [Accessed 5 September 2020].
Taylor & Francis. 2017. Cultural Proximity And Audience Behavior: The Role Of Language In Patterns Of Polarization And Multicultural Fluency. [online] Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08838150802205876> [Accessed 5 September 2020].
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