Christian Living

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Unmasking Today’s Pop Culture
(By David Yuen)

I. Pop Culture: Then and Now

Over the past few decades, modern pop culture has been known to come in direct opposition with orthodox Christianity by constantly accusing it of being hypocritical, close-minded, and contrary to its own nature. But usually, it’s not that often that people actually consider the nature of pop culture itself and its own inherent contradictions. The point is, does today’s pop culture really have the right to point the finger at Christianity? Has pop culture really evolved beyond the point where hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness are just things of the past for it?

Whenever anyone thinks about western pop culture, what usually pops up into their mind? Celebrities? Stylish clothing? City nightlife? What’s in and what’s out? Models? Ads? Catch phrases? Overall, the concept of pop culture has been around ever since the idea of being in tune with the latest things, just for the sake of being accepted, came into play. Whether it was behind the walls of Babylon or in a medieval court, common pop etiquette was always something that defined the socialite from the commoner, the “sophisticated” from the “mundane”.

But ever since the fifties and the dawn of the James Dean era, along with the exaltation of teen-angst, rebellion against the norm has become the bread and butter of today’s western society. The idea of what was considered to be popular was now all about being different, radical, and extreme—standing against all the “evils” of conformity and the stiff-necked-white-collared establishment that profited off of it.

Nowadays, the typical image of those who were “in” were now those who supposedly stood against the hypocrytical-shirt-and-tie-corporate-CEO-who-opposed-anything-different-type of person whether through what they wore or how they carried themselves. “Cool” people, essentially, were those who were just way above the “fakeness” of society and the “fakeness” of everyone else who conformed with it. They were the ones “strong” enough to live by their own rules and independent enough to never allow anyone else’s to get in their way. They were extreme. And because of that, just being someone who was “okay” was no longer considered okay anymore.

But the truth is, today’s pop culture lives by a double standard. On one hand, the people that the pop-scene glorifies are those who supposedly rebel against commercialism and those who “stick-it” to the establishment. But on the other hand, if you look at any magazine, stare at any billboard, or flip onto any TV channel, it becomes painfully obvious that nearly all of society revolves around these people or at least their way of life. In fact, the truth is, these pop-icons aren’t really sticking-it to the establishment—they are the establishment. And, while sitting on their glitter trains, the commercial corporations and entertainment industries make the most money off of them—the very same corporations and industries composed of the so-called hypocritical-shirt-and-tie-CEO’s that pop culture supposedly stands against.

If the point of today’s pop culture is to stand out and be an individual, why is it that so many people, who are drawn into it, try so hard to be different that they all end up becoming the same? When I was in high school, I remembered how a certain style of corduroy pants suddenly became trendy and how within just a span of a few weeks nearly everyone in my school started wearing it. At first, it was always the most popular kids that get it just to be different from everyone else, like the models they kept seeing in their magazines. After a while, more kids wanted to be as different as the popular kids were and so, within no time, everyone else soon started to dress like them. And the most ironic thing about it was that, when this happened, the few kids who didn’t wear that same style of pants were slowly pushed away by everyone else, most likely for being too “straight” or too afraid to “rebel” against the evil conformity of society like the rest of the crowd was doing. Ultimately, the contradictory message is clear when it comes to the basic doctrine of today’s secular culture: “Do whatever you like and like whatever you do as long as you do it just like us.”

II. Business as Usual

When one looks at today’s pop culture, it is hard to deny how much commercialism and business play a huge role in how it works, despite the fact that many pop cultural ideals attempt to distance themselves from them. Take for instance, all the commercials you see on TV, along with nearly all of the programs and movies that are on it, especially MTV. And also take a look at all the music that comes out onto the mainstream. Each and every one of these things are at least sponsored by or funded by a corporation—a really, really rich and a really, really large corporation.

In order for a corporation to sell their products, they need demand. In order for them to know demand, they refer to what society demands, which is based mainly on its overall attitude at the time. Through that, the corporations then market the products that cater best to society through the media. Society, in turn, becomes influenced by whatever is most promoted by the media, which, in turn, determines the overall attitude of society in the long run.

A marketed product could be a piece of clothing, an attitude, or even a worldview. And the more people accept it and make it a part of themselves, the more popular it becomes. The more popular a product becomes, the more people demand it. The more people demand it, the more the industries know what to give people in the future, and the more the industries know what to give people, the greater a chance people would accept whatever the industries feed them. Ultimately, all it is, is a vicious cycle that many industries profit off of as people are influenced into thinking, acting, and believing a certain way—namely a certain way that stirs cash flow.

A couple years ago, Metallica, a heavy metal band, held a lawsuit against the online company, Napster, for allowing people to download some of their songs for free off the Internet. Within just a few days, many other pop artists followed, working through their lawyers and companies to shut Napster down. All in all, pop figures, like many of these artists, are singled out, raised above everyone else, and adored by western society for speaking out against the establishment or the proverbial “machine”. Metallica, along with countless other bands, constantly portray themselves as “raging” non-stop against the machine of commercialism and the worship of the almighty dollar. But if that was the case, why do so many of these artists flock to using the “machine” the very first moment they see that their money is in danger (even though they have so much of it to spare in the first place)? If these people denounce the establishment so much, why is it that practically all of their fortunes come from the establishment itself? During a music and Internet expo following the incident, Paul Unger, a leading entertainment lawyer, coined it best when he said, “It’s about the money. They (the entertainers) come up with theories to justify their positions after the fact.”

III. Keeping Up With the Vogue

Another aspect that makes pop culture both hypocritical and meaningless is the fact that it constantly changes, but still has the overwhelming tendency to repeat itself. For instance, a trend can be fashionable over a span of only a few months and then suddenly go out of style either when something new comes along or when people become tired of it or both. And in many cases a new trend that comes along could have been an old one that went out of style years ago. So one day, a person could be jeered at by his peers just because he wears something “out-of-date” or old fashioned and then the very next day he could suddenly become in-style and looked up to by the exact same people, just because some other person in top society, that none of them even personally know, begins to wear the same thing. Pretty sad isn’t it?

So badly is this need to be accepted that people kill themselves to compete with one another over these trends—trying so desperately to be unique and “different” by conforming to a trend that could have been abandoned two or three years before and laughed at ever since. To the secular culture, acceptance is only temporary, independence is only used to disguise dependency, and self-identity is only an illusion used to delude (even though secular culture tries to portray itself as actually having one!). Although pop culture establishes itself as being in the spotlight of the world, it is, by itself and within itself, a reality of empty dreams and broken promises.

When placing modern pop culture into perspective, there is, in fact, nothing modern at all about it. It’s just a system—a machine—that uses new ways to do old things, a business of buying and selling for those who exploit it, and an establishment used to superficially classify and alienate others for those who blindly follow it. Today’s society, as a whole, is just as shallow and superficial as it was thousands of years ago and will probably remain that way for many sad decades to come.

IV. Breaking Down the Machine

The very nature of today’s world thrives on a hypocritical system, just as it always did—one that disguises itself as freedom and liberation, only to imprison those who are led into its delusional cycle. Throughout the world, people have been known to kill themselves and ruin their lives in an obsession to keep up with it, while others have been known to waste their entire existence in trying to please or impress people they don’t even like. If today’s pop-based world really rebelled against the norm and the commercialistic “society” as it presents itself to, then Hollywood and pop-icons wouldn’t be making the fortunes that they’re making now. If popular society really embraced other people’s differences and accepted diversity as it proclaims itself to, it wouldn’t even be discriminating against or opposing anyone or anything in the first place (namely Christianity and the so-called “establishment”). And if pop culture really walked its talk, rather than just talk its talk, it would never make as much profit as it does off of people’s desperate need for acceptance.

The most disturbing fact about this is that many people do realize, deep down, the superficiality of pop culture and the hypocrisy that constantly goes on within it. But the problem is, many people feel that they don’t have a choice but to follow and live under the “pop” rules of today’s secular world. And because of that, too many people are driven into numbing themselves with fleeting happiness and the never ending struggle to achieve that “beer commercial” life that’ll never come no matter how much beer they drink. All in all, people don’t feel that there is any other alternative besides the one that’s being fed to them constantly through the TV, through the streets, through other people, and through the rest of the world around them. But the truth is, people do have an alternative—an actual choice that’s beyond the world itself and whatever it has to offer.

Unlike pop culture, Christianity does stand by what it teaches and teaches what it stands by given that its very nature lies in the fact that God sacrificed His one and only begotten Son for our profit, not His own, so that no one would ever have to suffer the emptiness of not being accepted at all. Unlike the secular world, the basic message of Christianity doesn’t change because God doesn’t change. His message is the same now just as it was since the beginning of time and beyond. And unlike top society, people don’t have to be strong enough, pretty enough, or cool enough to “deserve” to be accepted by God—He accepts and loves people just as they are as long as they’re willing to follow Him. In the Bible, one of the first group of people that Jesus reached out to were the tax-collectors (Luke 5:27-32); outcaste that no one at that time would ever expect a righteous God to ever reach out to at all. Christianity, as a whole, doesn’t sell anything to anyone—it isn’t here to sell people salvation, like the latest fad or gadget, because the truth is God already paid for humanity’s salvation in full. All that people have to do is reach out and accept His gift of salvation, accept His Son as their personal savior and that’s it.

V. Putting Christianity to the Test

Practically all of Christianity’s core beliefs, way of life, basic practices, and reasons behind what it practices are derived from and can be directly traced back to the Bible, even down to the very verse itself. It was like this ever since the foundation of the Church centuries ago and has always remained that way ever since. So if orthodox Christianity was hypocritical and didn’t practice what it held to be true, then how could it be able to trace back nearly all of what it practices to the Bible like it could now? If Christianity was supposedly a lot more close-minded than the secular world, then how does today’s pop culture get away with living the motto of “do whatever you like and like whatever you do as long as you do it just like us”?

Where pop culture hypocritically tells people to not be conformed to the “establishment”, the Bible instead tells people to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). If Christianity honestly didn’t practice what it believed and conformed to the secular world and to whatever popular culture wanted, then no one would be making such a fuss about it as some people are doing now.

The point is, the Bible tells the truth and nothing but the truth, especially when it says that pursuing this world and all of its fads leads to emptiness, since this world will always change and eventually pass away just like everyone else in the end (“And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” I John 2:17). People admit this, the Bible admits this, and Christianity admits this. Christianity doesn’t try to deny the truth or even try to sugar-coat it just to make it “feel” good, even when hearing the truth does hurt sometimes. The Bible wouldn’t proclaim something to be true if it wasn’t and Christianity, as a whole, wouldn’t follow something if it knew that it wasn’t true. If people really want to stand apart from the world, if people really want to not be fake, if people really want to have a choice—Christianity offers it all. Nothing more. Nothing less.
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Note: This article was originally published in the "Spring of Life" newsletter, in separate parts, in the following editions--Jan/Feb 2002, Mar/Apr 2002, May/Jun 2002, Jul/Aug 2002, Jan/Feb 2004.

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