Global Citizenship

I am often confronted with the puzzling question "where are you from?" Hmm.. this seems like it should be an easy one, shouldn't it? I was born and raised in Doha, Qatar, in 1991. My dad was born in New York, moved to Canada, finished his last year of high school in Egypt, and came to Qatar, where he remains to this day. My mother was born in Qatar, and both of my grandparents have mixed national backgrounds.



I went to a British kindergarten, an American primary and secondary school, and an American Jesuit university. I speak predominately Arabic with my mom and predominately English with my dad, and travel often, exposing myself to different cultures and languages. So whenever I'm confronted by the topic in a conversation, I usually announce, proudly and with a sheepish grin, "I guess I'm a global citizen then."



People often discount such a statement as too cheesy or cliche; however, rare is it when an individual realizes the implications of such a statement. I'm not saying I'm profound or anything, I'm just a byproduct of this global culture, of the phenomenon obsessively termed globalization by the masses. It connotes Western ideological domination over the East and Northern economic supremacy over the South. However, in his book Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, sociology professor Roland Robertson, described the process of globalization as "the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole," and sociologists Albrow and King define globalization as "all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society." Waters concedes that it is a "social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly." I see this everyday in Qatar; expatriate, or non-Arab/non-Muslim kids saying insh'Allah or getting karak,



or a Corvette with an American flag bumper sticker driven by a young Qatari male, or a non-married Arab couple walking and holding hands. More and more everyday cultural norms are readjusted and boundaries redrawn. The sheer proliferation of mixed-sex education in the Middle East shows the ideological rearrangement between what once might have been mores or even taboos (such as having Qatari men and women in the same classroom socializing outside of an appropriate cultural context). The fact that I sit in the atrium of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, where education based on the Western Jesuit experience is imported from the United States of America to Qatar, writing on a laptop that was manufactured in another part of the world, wearing clothes from designers that claim to be Italian but have factories in China and India. All our societies are connected on a microscopic level, and our ancient cultural heritage, although to be held with pride and regarded as majestic, has slowly changed and molded itself with the proliferation of mass media and travel, exposing a majority of people in all corners of the world to an ever-flowing milieu. For our last class, on Wednesday, we discussed functionalist theory, which views that different social environments maintain an orderly and consistent status quo, where people actively endeavor to maintain stability and order. David Grazian believes that popular culture is functional for society, acting as an agent that maintains stability the systematic nature of social worlds. Popular culture, accordingly, includes rituals and totems that are shared across the world through the appropriately titled "popular culture." Rituals are cultural acts of solidarity, social cohesion, and rebellion, according to Grazian, and that they enable groups to gather and enforce their collective identity. Through globalization and mass media, especially through popular mobilization media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, we see people that would never otherwise have met build relationships and experiences vicariously. They become desensitized and their sense of understanding of the world they inhabit expands outside their immediate national sphere of influence, and a supra-culture that transcends national or regional boundaries is developed. Popular culture, as base and denigrating as it can get in some cases, unites people through ideas, songs, dance, blogs, personal pages, and other forms of expression, forming a massive culture paralleling the consumer culture, although more and more we are connected by ideas in lieu of commercial products.

Bibliography Robertson, Roland. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992. Waters, Malcolm. Globalization. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2001. Albrow, Martin, and Elizabeth King. Globalization, Knowledge and Society: Readings From International Sociology. London: Sage Publications, 1990.

The million dollar question

Last week I visited the Art Institute in Chicago, I came across some of the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen. They were a variety of paintings by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.



After reading Grazian’s theories about popular culture and what makes objects significantly more popular than others however, my perception of the paintings before taking those theories into consideration was completely different than what it was after I put that theory lens on.

Artists like these are legendary. Their works of art are sold for millions of dollars. A regular person may think that that’s due to the fact that they’re brilliant artists and they produce beautiful paintings. Thinking with a sociological mindset however, I know that that’s not true. A piece of art, any piece of art, is admitted into the pop-culture category based on its perceptions from the consumer. A work of art is considered an object of popular culture once it gets recognition, whether it was positive or negative.

A product is not the work of one person; these paintings are not just works of art from the artist. There's an entire production process that delivers these paintings from the artists canvas to our museums. There's a whole procedure that starts from the person buying that plain white piece, to the artists who paints, to his manager who sells it, to the producer that auctions it off to many different museums, and finally to the museum that displays it for us beautifully under the illuminating lights.

Why are these pieces of art considered magnificent million dollars works, while graffiti is considered vandalism? Graffiti can be beautifully genius sometimes. Who’s to say one is better than the other? Who defined one as professional and the other as amateur? One can put graffiti in a frame and call themselves artists. If only graffiti artists would go that production process.

Why is this considered vandalism?



While this is considered a million dollar piece of art?



What defines an objects status in society isn’t its quality, but its perception by the consumer. All art is a form of expression. They’re all equally culturally significant no matter how ridiculous or obscene one of them is thought to be. But when a certain producer wants to make a sale, they can change the objects image in the consumers’ minds. A splash of paint on a plain white canvas can be sold for ten million dollars, while a message about society or oppression expressed through graffiti is considered "garbage".

Can't Escape Advertisements!

We, the consumers, are the victims of corporate conglomeration. Corporate conglomeration means when one company owns a number of smaller companies that are being controlled and operated independently, but are all managed by the main company. Therefore, corporate conglomeration has taken over every aspect of the world economy, from soda to food to hotels to gas. Our money is wasted on fuelling the businesses of corporate conglomeration. Media and film production companies ensure their success by using a variety of risk reduction strategies to make the most money from the biggest hits. David Grazian, the author of the book Mix it Up, argues "that decision making in the media industries is primary driven by the minimization of risk," (Grazian, 113). He highlights in his chapter six the strategies of risk reduction which include using as secondary market in way to generate profit from a cultural product beyond its domestic sale in its original format and using product placement as it happens to be a type of advertising but placed in a place we don't expect to see it. There are also other interesting risk reduction strategies, but this time I'm focusing on other risk reduction strategies that I found in Villaggio's cinema. Since thousands of people go to watch movies weekly in Doha, the cinema has become a perfect location for some businesses to advertise about their products and services. For example, Dr. Hassan Al-Abdulla, a well-known dermatologist doctor in Qatar, has placed a poster of his clinic in Villaggio’s cinema right in the center of the main entrance. So, that as customers walk into the cinema before even getting they’re snacks, they could stop and read about the services that he offers at Dr. Hassan Al-Abdulla Dermatology & Venereology Anti Aging Laser Center. There are also advertisements placed around the top of the wall. Cadillac, an American luxury type of car, has also placed an ad to advertise about their cars in Doha. You can’t escape looking at all sorts of advertisements when you’re in a movie theater. I recently went to watch a movie in Villaggio’s cinema, and as I was watching the commercials before the movie started, a Pepsi ad played. It was my first time to see Nicki Minaj’s Pepsi commercial. Nicki Minaj is an American rapper/singer. I must confess that I once heard her song Moment for Life, but when I heard her song again in the Pepsi ad, I liked her song more. Nicki Minaj’s song was played in a Pepsi ad; therefore it must be a form of using product placement. According to Professor Harkness, product placement is “a form of advertising where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads,” (class notes 02/18/2013). I found out from my online reading that Pepsi is doing a campaign called Live For Now “to amplify the company's longstanding ties with pop culture, said Brad Jakeman, who oversees the creative strategy for Pepsi's carbonated drinks around the world,”(Huffington Post). Pepsi decided to use a popular singer like Nicki Minaj to help flourish the brand’s name and gain it’s popularity back. Pepsi hopes to be number one on the beverages list, but Coca-Cola still is the top soda. The advertisement in this case is promoting both the singer and the Pepsi company. Maybe the song Moment For Life will gain more popularity because of the Pepsi ad, and maybe a lot of people will feel like having Pepsi after watching this advertisement.

Has Social Deviance Become Mainstream?

Societal norms are constantly changing as the world becomes more globalized and inter-connected. Even in such traditional societies as Qatar, pop culture has infiltrated youth expression though in a very “conservative” way. For example, at a high-level fashion event I attended recently, Abaya-clad young girls were wearing the multi-finger rings which were in earlier days worn by thuggish men and referred to as “knuckle-dusters” and are currently incorporated in current fashion and design and are a staple in hip-hop and rock videos.
Another trend that crosses global borders is tattoos. This “artform” was usually connected to images of brash, hard-drinking sailors, skin-head racists and men looking for fights in bars. It was considered anti-social and deviant behavior and fuelled many misconceptions about the wearers. Such societal pressure can sometimes have the effect of causing people to conform to the very same misconceptions leveled at them and often in extreme ways.
Women wearing tattoos were thought of as “bad girls” looking for trouble. Nowadays, everyone and his mother has a tattoo or 3 or 5, and more. The reality shows Miami Ink and LA Ink showed just how integrated into society tattoos have become – from perky girls and boys next door, to models, stay-at-home mums and corporate high-flyers – having a tattoo is clearly a must-have. Here in Qatar, tattooing is against the law. Many people disguise having one by using the traditional artform of henna-ing.
Just like tattoos, dreadlocks and “pants on the ground” were formerly regarded as socially-deviant and are now so much part of our daily life. In general, any behavior seen as different causes adverse reaction and comment from the “normal” members of society. However, It appears that increasingly, pop culture is looking less rebellious and more mainstream.

Language in Thailand

People don’t realize how valuable something is until it is taken away from them. I never thought of language as being that prominent in my life because every country I’ve lived in or visited know how to speak either one or both of my preferred languages, Arabic and English. Language is best defined as a symbol system involving the use of sounds, gestures, and /or characters to convey meaning.

This eid Al-adha break my dad decided to take us to Phuket in Thailand, where we could learn about a completely different culture. As soon as we landed the hotel driver, who only knew a few words of English, greeted us. On the way to the resort I saw many shops and landmarks that I was intrigued about but when I tried asking the driver about the English translation of each of the place I could not understand the sounds or gestures he was making. It was then and there I knew language was going to be a large barrier in Thailand.

Another incident related to language, was when we went elephant trekking, the people guiding the elephant barely spoke any English. The man then started humming a Lady Gaga song so I gestured to him with my hand if he knew who sang the song; he screamed out “Lady Gaga” and started making crazy hand gestures to indicate how “different” she is. Even when I’m miles away music pop culture still haunts me, I guess there really is no escaping Lady Gaga.

When we were out shopping in the outdoor markets, the people in the shops would start yelling out "hello mate" in an australian accent because they are aware the largest percentage of tourists in Thailand are Australian so they assume it would attract many people's attention. They do try to put in the effort to learn a different language and identify with tourists, but their language plays a large role in their society and they consider it to be sacred so they choose to communicate in their native language, even the younger children barely spoke any english. I found this to be really interesting because in a lot of arab countries the younger generation speak more in english than their first language.

Another very evident trait I noticed about Thailand is that people either live in extreme wealth, with large villas by the sea and their own speedboats, or they live in absolute poverty, where they can barely afford a roof over their head and own a motorcycle as their source of transportation.

Regardless of their social class and status everyone was very polite and welcoming, I suppose it is the norm in Thailand to be hospitable and helpful with guests. The one language everyone understood was money and food, wherever you are in the world those two necessities’ are always going to be known worldwide. Because Thailand has such a large population of tourists, I assumed its residents would know how to speak more English or at least understand more of it. It was only when language was taken away from me that I fully understood the importance of it and how large its function is in our lives.

Dehumanization in the Music Industry

“So, you’re saying a machine can do what any singer or an artist can do?” that’s what Fergie said when will.i.am explained how this new device works. (picture below) “I input my voice,” he said, “high notes, my low notes, then the whole English vocabulary. What you’re able to do with that, because of this artificial intelligence, when it’s time to make a new song, I just type in the lyrics and this thing sings it, says it, raps it, talks it.” Don’t worry, that doesn’t really happen in the case of the BEP, it’s just part of the script in their infamous Imma Be Rocking That Body video. This concept from the video basically supports the Ideology theory of transhumanism, which means using technology to develop human capacity and intellectuality for a "better society". This isn’t happening. Instead, however, the excess use of technology is leading the human population to a mental throw-down, mind-control because of the absent mind of the consumer, and dehumanization.


That machine in the video is already supporting one of the dimensions of McDonaldization which is control. Just like how people lost skills in fast food chain restaurants just trying to take an order, I believe soon enough artist will lose their creativeness and talents because they will rely on a machine to do the job for them. How do we know it’s not already doing that when the music industry, full of many secrets, is doing its job behind closed doors? There are dehumanized vocals out there that can be easily detected and you can name a few artists, other than The Black Eyed Peas.
Forget Britney Spears, she’s a different case, but artists like the BEP, Ke$ha and Nicki Minaj seem to have the right package to fall under dehumanized vocals. In almost every Ke$ha song you can hear an autotune, greatest examples are her singles that reached positions in the top 10 Hot Billboard chart like “Tik Tok” and “Take It Off”. And you can’t deny Nicki Minaj’s awkward rapping style (such as in her debut single "Massive Attack") and almost expressionless face features. This is definitely part of a dehumanized image in today’s society and it seems to be increasing. What will stop it now?

“This machine will take the peas into 3008. This is the future right here.” Continued will.i.am, while Fergie is still being raged and she replied “Right. So, we’re just not gonna go to the studio and not sing. Then, it takes the soul out of it.” Will.i.am still tries to convince the other peas. “You’re still gonna go to the studio and check out what the machine does.” While he continues to be persistent about the machine, Fergie gets up to leave and shouts “We’re not robots.” Scary, isn’t it? So, it doesn't just exist in food culture, but also in pop and music culture.

(The photos below show the album covers for the first 4 albums and then the ones released 2010).

It's Fryyy-day Fryyy-day

It's Friday, Friday. You know you love it. And apparently the world agrees. 13-year-old Rebecca Black has come out of absolutely nowhere to become the biggest YouTube sensation of the moment, demonstrating the power of social media. She's already got more hits than Lady Gaga's latest song.

I can't decide if I love this or hate it. The inane lyrics ("gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal"), the cheesy video production values, the overuse of Auto-Tune (for "singers" who can't sing in pitch), the earnest performance, and even the way Black sings the words "Friday."

Sure, it's grating and annoying, but it's also goofy and winning. It's easy to hate and hard to hate, all at the same time. To quote Black, it's fun, fun, fun, fun. Sociologically, you can go in a million directions with this. It certainly demonstrates the democratic use of the Internet, the power of social media (the song went viral in less than a week), the sexualization of young girls, the media's ongoing fascination with youth culture, cyberbullying, the infectious thrill of corny-yet-awesome pop music, the explosion of the prosumer, and the fact that industry manufactured stars like Beyonce may not be offering what people really want. Opinions are decidedly mixed, but you have to admit, this is a darn catchy song. Play it once, you'll probably play it again -- whether you want to or not.

Like all viral videos, "Friday" immediately spawned a host of parodies, covers, tributes, and other hilarious responses. This one is particularly great.


And if you hate that, there's always the super slowed-down version that sounds like some art-rock madness cooked up by Radiohead.


Or the chipmunk, fast version. Aw yeah!

Use your finger to stir my tea, and for dessert I’ll suck your teeth.
Be too sweet and you’ll be a goner, yup, I’ll pull a Jeffery Dahmer.
Listen to the track on the official Kesha channel on youtube.



Those were words from the second verse of Ke$ha’s Cannibal from the Extended Play of the same name. Of course, after hearing the disturbing lyrics, ignoring the catchy beat, I decided to simply search this unfamiliar name. Of course, I understood the rest of the lyrics; she wants to eat boys for breakfast and lunch and she’s proud of calling herself a cannibal that she shouts "I am cannibal." That at first didn’t disturb me as much. On the contrary, I thought it was creative for the EP to be called Cannibal since it’s kind of a step higher in her diet from her debut album Animal, but that’s not the point. The point is that she used the name in her song and I simply had to Google it; Jeffery Dahmer.

It turns out that Jeffery Dahmer was a real cannibal, before he was ironically murdered in jail the same way her killed his fist victim. Enjoying his secret activity as a cannibal and a necrophiliac (someone who satisfies his pleasures over corps and dead bodies) and especially bodies he kills himself. With more research, I found out that there’s an influence from the surrounding society to this created monster. He grew up in this environment where he picked up the habit of dissecting dead animals when he’s young, and it’s only natural that he’d want to progress to something bigger as he grows old; something bigger here being the human bodies.



Now, I’m seeing that pop music is spreading things I didn’t know because with it I learned more about the cannibal culture, as an example. There are different movies and books which are inspired by real life societies and culture of cannibals. The scariest productions of all are TV documentaries about the real cannibals. There’s obviously a real social aspect and a taboo that can’t be denied, or where would those songs, movies and books have their inspiration from? And I guess the way pop culture deals with this horrifying act is by making it part of it. In Ke$ha’s case, she made this image of cannibalism somewhat acceptable. When something becomes part of the pop culture, even out of another culture, it seems familiar and therefore we’re not afraid of it anymore. Why? Because it connects to us and becomes popular within us as well. I’m not trying to say we’ll grow to be cannibals, but we won’t fear it until we witness it.

Read this blog post to see the association of pop culture and societies acceptance of taboos.

Hit me baby one more time?

Okay so mostly everyone living in the 21st century knows, or was once shamefully obsessed with, the one and only Britney Spears. Less than a decade ago she was a pop culture sensation and was known throughout the world for her talent.

Popular culture refers to the aesthetic products created and sold by profit-seeking firms operating in the global entertainment market (Grazian, p7). So technically britney is regarded as a "product" to be sold to the public, and profit is expected to be made out of her talent.

She started out as an innocent young country girl who just loved to sing but somewhere along the way she lost herself and became a lesser version of herself.

The worst part is that the whole world had to witness her breakdowns and her face was all over the magazines and tabloids.

Who could forget this phase of her life. The whole world witnessed as Britney went through a bad breakup and watched as her career went down to shambles compared to how it was before.

Enough about her past for now. What really got my attention this week was her new music video for her latest single "Hold it Against Me".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Edv8Onsrgg

I figured this would be the time for her to regain herself and maintain her initial claim to fame. The fame that came without the rumors and drugs; the fame that came out of respect for her talent.

But I couldn't be more wrong. The video was not the comeback we were all waiting for, it was more of a video promoting her products and enticing people to buy specific brands.

The video revolved around product placement. Each product was shown really quick but the audience could easily notice the brand and anyone would notice that it was no coincidence that the products were placed in the video.

Less than one minute into the music video Britney receives a perfume from one of the background dancers and of course it is "radiance" by Britney Spears, and the camera zooms in on the perfume and large bold letters are clear to the audience. She sprays some perfume and continues to look for other products to introduce next. Next there is a short pause on a make up packet, Make up forever, which she opens and applies to her eye lids. Then she is shown using the sony plasma touch screen, surfing the web on the the plentyoffish website, which was also seen in Lady Gaga's Telephone video (which is a whole other shameful story about product placement). After that there are plenty of other clips where the word Sony dominates the screen.

Even though the video looks like it would be a high budget project, I reckon it easily broke even and received profit from the ridiculous amount of advertisements in the video.

A Popular Culture within a Popular Culture

It is clearly obvious how music is becoming an essential tool in film production and in determining how appealing a movie would be for its audience in the last couple of decades. However, this doesn't mean that movies that play music in them are definitely successful, nor the movies that you barely hear music playing in them are extreme failures.

Lots of songs became famous simply because they were played in big movies. And again, not all songs in movies achieved such success, in which the ones that would achieve it were mainly theme songs of movies, or the song’s artist is someone who’s already famous in the music industry. For instance, all of us know how “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion became a huge romance hit once it was played in the movie Titanic. Till this day we listen to this song playing in retail spaces, especially the numerous instrumental versions of it in fancy restaurants.

[Above: the theatrical poster of the movie "Titanic"]

Apart from how movies can bring songs or artists to fame, the opposite process is not different. A song or an artist can bring a particular movie or a TV show into fame as well. Most of these motion pictures feature famous singers or famous bands having short scenes in movies in which they just appear in to sing. And if course, when fans know that their favorite artist/artists are featuring in a particular movie, they definitely watch the movie to anticipate the part in which their idol/ idols going to perform in. A lot of examples I can give to elaborate this practice. The movie “New York Minute”—starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen—featured the famous pop punk band Simple Plan performing an amazing song that didn’t feature in any of their albums till this day. The song is called “Vacation” and people can have it only if they would buy the soundtrack of the motion picture.

[Above: the Olsen twins and Simple Plan]

Another movie was “Hannah Montana: The Movie.” Although it was meant to be for kids, a lot of adults watched it along with their children because it features a young talented country singer that people are obsessed with: Taylor Swift. She is that singer who brought life to country music again and made it popular among young people too. She was featured in the movie singing a hit that isn't in any of her albums till this day as well. The song is called “Crazier.”

Below is a video I made that shows how second-marketing plays a big role in the popularity of some movies:

Click Here to Watch the video on YouTube

What does this tell us? It tells us that media companies often refer to secondary markets (in this case, being music and famous artists) to minimize the risks of grabbing audience toward their productions. To conclude, popular cultures often rely on one another to achieve success and obtain the validity and vitality of their productions.

Feels like Déjà vu

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Well, for the older generations it’s déjà vu. The teenagers and young adults today never watched 90210, V and Hawaii Five-O. Of course, I am talking about the original versions of these television shows which aired in the late 20th Century. It seems to audiences that Hollywood has lost it- or has it? After all, the media corporations are in the money making business, and what better way to make money than to retell old and highly successful classics? With the exception of Melrose Place which miserably failed due to the bad acting and Bionic Woman which only lasted a season. However, in Bionic Woman’s defense, the writers' strike was going on at the time and caused the series to go on a short hiatus.

As well as rehashing old classics, Hollywood is bringing in successful UK based television shows such as The Office, American Idol (known as Pop Idol in the UK), Skins and many more. As previously stated, Hollywood has not lost “it”. Media firms need to minimize risk. To make money, they have to go with what they know and adhere to the rules of the game. There are multiple ways to minimize risk, like using well known actors and following genre conventions.

As you probably guessed already, another method which is becoming somewhat of a trend is the remaking of old hits and the adoption of successful television shows from abroad. Basically, remaking pop culture hits- popular culture here is defined as culture that is well liked and which is demonstrated through measurable commercial success.

In the case of bringing back the old classics, the target audience is not only the young generation such as the teenagers and young adults, but also the older ones. This is because they have already watched the original versions of the shows and are curious to know how the new ones are. Some of the new versions even feature story lines from the old version to make the audiences of the original versions keep watching.

Appealing to international audiences is another thing that the media companies want to do- this is part of the secondary market. When bringing in television shows from abroad, appealing to the international audience is not as hard anymore because the audiences abroad, from which the television show is originally based in, would simply watch the show out of sheer curiosity.

With the recreation of television shows, many elements have stayed the same- like the type of car the main character uses in Hawaii Five-O. However, things such as cell phones and laptops an other products, which perhaps were not used back then are being integrated into the shows to promote products (product placement) and this is producing a materialistic culture in the United States and it is promoting consumerism.

The recreation of television shows is sociologically intriguing because the cultures twenty, thirty or forty years ago and those abroad are significantly different to those currently in the United States. It would be interesting to study the different audiences and see how one television show affects different kinds of audiences and cultures.

On being a You-Tuber!



When the internet began invading our world, we started gaining and doing things differently. There is no doubt that the internet has shaped and changed our lives. So, instead of saying, "Look it up" We now say, "Google it" And  instead of saying watch it  we say, "You-Tube it!”

We think of you-tube as the ultimate multimedia website. The place where videos of everything exist, from education to meditation and entertainment. Many people now depend on You-Tube as their morning coffee! If you looked deeper into the meaning that You-Tube have, you would find many more other definitions than a multimedia web site. Simply, You-Tube is not a video site. You-Tube is the largest cultural community in the world wide web.

Some might say that You-Tube has the same effect of Facebook and Twitter on people, but there is nothing that influences people more than visual scenes and You-Tube provides it. This major web site allowed people to access many different cultures, through songs, movie trailers, vlogs, "How to" videos and sometimes even tutors that help you get your homework done.

You-Tube could be defined with the three definitions that Garzian used for popular culture. The reason is that, without a doubt, You-Tube is liked and successful and that successes is demonstrated by the amount of subscribers in the site. The second reason is that You-Tube has many popular, famous figures such as Dan Brown, Shane Dawson, Mitchell Davis and many others. Also, You-Tube is generated for the lowest common denominator which explains the verity of you-tubers.

The topics we search for in You-Tube, mostly don't exist in our country or society or otherwise we wouldn't have been searching for it. If you tried counting how many times you've searched for something in You-Tube that exists within your native country or society, you would definitely use your fingers to count them! Maybe that is the concept of You-Tube; to provide a dinner that through it we could get a taste of other cultures without the need to leave our rooms. 

You-Tube is a major community for cultural exchange known as "Cultural Diffusion." This great web site doesn't only hold millions of videos, it holds millions of subcultures. Personaly, I think that you-tube is more than a video site, to me, its a new world I enter just by clicking "Subscribe."

Are You Gaga For Pop Culture?

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Lady GaGa. No introduction needed. Just hearing her name brings to any reader’s mind garish images of her outlandish fashion choices, “Raw meat anyone?” After your mind gets over those recollections you are probably also beginning to hear echoes of all her catchy hits in your ears. Well, having gone through that archive of memories you’re probably not going to be shocked that she has created a pop culture wave teeming with opportunities for so

ciological interpretations.

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Alone, she has created a massive subculture of what she calls her "Little Monsters". These loyal fans come take admiration up to the brink of worship (young people are prone to overdoing it with infatuations). This adoration is expressed outwardly through clothing, as many social phenomena tend to be. They show up to her concerts dressed like her and have every song memorized to the letter. When these fans, or "little monsters" attend Lady GaGa's events, they tend to mimic her way of dressing - which is, to say the least, eccentric and peculiar.

The way in which her fans dress can be seen as a cultural symbol, because it means that they belong to the same subculture which GaGa has created. Their fashion sense screams out "Hey! I'm a Little Monster too!" It is a symbol of rebellion and anti-conformity; an ironic notion since they are all uniform within the same subculture. However, individual fans persist on thinking that they are oh-so-daring just because people do not usually dress in this way.

For the subculture she created, dressing this way is a cultural norm. However, in the pre-GaGa days, which believe it or not was less than three years ago, it would be considered a negative sanction. Okay, maybe if you wore the things she wears now in the pre-GaGa days you won’t get punished, but people would definitely look at you weirdly and consider calling the local police to possibly send you to the looney bin.

Max Weber, who is a well-known and well-respected German sociologist, stated that people look up to prophets and philosophers because they have the power to influence people into behaving a certain way and thus creating a culture, or subculture. This is exactly what Lady GaGa’s fans have done, they look up to her and she herself, can be said to be a cultural symbol of freedom and resistance to dominant cultural values.