Popular Culture

What to wear, what to follow?

What is most popular right now?

How many have you sold and to how many?

You see, I must love what everyone else likes.

I am an individual in that way

and what is advertised to me to arouse

a necessitated sense of inclusion, praised infamy,

I mindlessly and willfully purchase, celebrate and recite.

Only to forget the trends of today,

tomorrow.

The prevailing institutions of the hour,

in an instance, sour.

A simple culture trendy and borrowed

forged and hollow.

      I work in a sneaker store and there are two questions I am asked frequently, "what is popular right now?" and "what is your best seller?" I always think to myself when I am asked either of those two questions, "do you wear shoes because they're popular, because you like them, or do you like them because they're popular?" Of course, I don't want to respond with such condescending questions but Popular Culture functions in that capacity. Most people don't like something because it has some connection to their own personal sense of style or feeling. There is an absence of true judgement. There is no discerning filter of the art's content acquiesced by constant castigation of dissidence towards popular art. Popular Culture is a writhing example of the simple minded conformist society that the founding fathers of this nation (created) distrusted. I don't want this to seem like an indictment upon the art of Popular Culture because it is wholly art but at what depth of reasoning, logic, and understanding? Is the greatest art art that reaches the most people or is it the art that interprets the universe as something greater than simple dictums, that is superior? Does the art (music, film, painting, poetry, fashion etc...) peel back the layers of subjective differences in every persons' experience on this planet or does it trivialize life's experiences? Does everyone have to love, feel, and dress the same? Do we all love, feel, hate, and dress the same? I feel that Popular Culture only functions in that capacity. It is life insincere and credulous. Popular Culture is beautiful but plain and a poor interpretation of life in an infinite Universe that has no definition. Well, at least not a definition with the acclaimed simplicity of Popular Culture, hopefully.