Cultural History Discussion

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Week8DiscussionPostAdditionalAssignment.docx

Week 8 – Discussion Post

For this assignment, view the two films in Week 1. The first is about what makes someone or something part of popular culture. The second is about creative people whose works support diversity rather than stereotypes.

For your main posting, please look back at American history from 1800 to recent times. Find a person, event, artifact, or movement/school/group/institution which fits into our two themes this week, namely that it is a part of popular culture and that it supports diversity rather than stereotypes.

Your main posting should have three paragraphs.  First, tell us what you chose and why it is part of popular culture. Second, describe how your choice supports diversity rather than stereotypes.  Third, tell us why you chose it?  Why did this attract your attention and also make it worthy of consideration in a course on the history of popular American culture?

Week 8 – Peer Responses

Each response should be at least 100 words

Peer 1

YouTube is very big part of popular culture. It has become a big part of our culture, and everyone knows about YouTube. It has created many famous people and given many people jobs and careers in their passions. You can upload anything and find just about everything on YouTube and is free to use with the occasional ad or two. Many people learn from it and have created communities on this platform. From kid shows like CoCo Melon to adult content like gamers and bloggers.

YouTube supports all communities and always posts ads and banners to support them and give those communities a spotlight. They do not allow use of slurs and disrespect of those communities and ban people for doing so. It really is nice to see them take stuff down faster than Facebook. They do not care who created something when it comes to racism and discrimination. They have 0 tolerance and will take a video down in minutes.

I chose YouTube because I watch it every night after work. I support many creators on the platform and love their content. I watch it like some would watch a tv series. I also use YouTube for other stuff like music while I am drawing or looking for a song to play in the shop. I also use YouTube TV which is like cable but better and half the cost. Lastly, I chose YouTube because everyone I know uses YouTube for tutorials and how-to videos. It is a very useful platform that has a lot of great creators on it that are great at giving useful tips and tricks to get things done. I like to call it YouTube University when I mention it to my friends when they ask how I learned to install things on my truck.

Peer 2

Charles Dickens

           Charles John Huffam Dickens was a English novelist in the nineteenth century. He was considered the greatest in the Victorian era. He was a very talented writer and wrote many books in his life. He was born February seventh eighteen twelve in Portsmouth Hampshire, England. He was raised by a single parent, his mother named Ellen Ternan. He had a rough childhood growing up in London with his mother. He pertains to American Popular Culture because he was known for his bestseller books. He wrote many novels that inspired novelists today because his work was interesting and everyone wanted to read his books. 

           Charles Dickens was no stereotype I do not think because of his impact on society. His father was in debt so him and his mother ended up going to prison because of how much debt they were in. Dickens started working at the age of twelve because his father could not pay off his debts. He was very observant growing up in the streets of London because he no one and literally really had nothing. In an article by Meir Kryger, she states “It is very likely that his experiences during this period led to his empathy towards neglected children, the poor, and disabled, and would drive him to describe the life of the poor in his novels, and later resulted in his being an activist and a reformer”. Clearly, since Dickens had nothing to do after work, he would wander the streets and observe everything and everyone. That is how he got his ideas and creations for his books. Also, he helped come up with homeless shelters for women and also the first British pediatric hospital. His work still lives on and influences everyone to this day. In another article by Philip Collins, they stated “The range, compassion, and intelligence of his apprehension of his society and its shortcomings enriched his novels and made him both one of the great forces in 19th-century literature and an influential spokesman of the conscience of his age”. Obviously, Dickens work is still going to influence people worldwide and will never stop being inspiring. Even in the future his work will still be remembered by everyone. 

           Dickens was brought to my attention because I was looking up famous people from the nineteenth century and Charles Dickens was one of the first to pop up. His work is just fascinating and the movies that were made based off of his books were awesome as well and no one can never forget them. Also, I chose him because of his impact on his society and his impact on the disabled. He treated everyone equally because of how he grew up and how he was treated as a kid. My little brother is disabled and reading stuff about Dickens who helped the disabled really inspired me and I would always be thankful for that. 

Works Cited

Charles Dickens | Biography, Books, Characters, Facts, & Analysis. (2022, June 5). Encyclopedia Britannica.  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Dickens-British-novelist

Kryger M. (2012). Charles Dickens: impact on medicine and society. Journal of clinical

sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep

Medicine8(3), 333–338.  https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.1930

Peer 3

The Animal Crossing New Horizons game from Nintendo is the latest in its series of games dating from the early 2000s. It has brought comfort to millions of players from around the world. This game has had lasting positive influences for combatting the collective mental exhaustion caused by the earlier days within the COVID-19 Pandemic. The game features an island in which you inhabit, can customize and curate to your favor, or communicate with friends and acquaintances to “island hop” and visit. The genre that this game falls into is what is known as a social simulation, which facilitates communication in addition to recreating real-life events and activities, as connoted by the word simulation or “sim” for short. ACNH (Animal Crossing New Horizons) amassed a player base from different walks of life looking for wholesome fun and comfort, and thus cementing its rise as a pop culture item.  

The latest game update 2.0 features new items, and the long awaited textured hairstyles for its BIPOC demographic. The game prior to this update did not have many hairstyles catering to its Black players, which is why it had been highly celebrated during its release addressing the problems of inclusion. However, aside from this new update, ACNH has sported in game items that come from the continents Africa, Asia, South America, or Europe to name a few. Some of these items were seasonal, meaning you were only able to obtain them during certain periods, some of which were holidays local to each of those specific countries. When buying these marketed items, there were always little snippets of information about what the item is called and what its use was or cultural significance, which further reinforces its attempts of inclusion—which is still changing and updating to this day.  

The game has a soft spot in my heart because it not only helped with my personal mental health, but that of my friends and family. It gave us an opportunity to bond together during a time where social interaction was restricted and ill advised. ACNH has a healing essence for its players that is indescribable. Not only is it a game to play, but it encourages a lot of creative freedoms and is what I would consider another outlet/media of art. There are pinterest boards, reddit threads, and even a website that emulates Amazon (Nookazon), which emulates an online marketplace for its players to trade around the world. It’s honestly an understatement to say that Animal Crossing New Horizons is solely a comfort game, when it is unequivocally a staple of mental health during this Pandemic—whether it was intended to or not. References

Yee, A. Z. H., & Sng, J. R. H. (2022, April 1). Animal Crossing and Covid-19: A Qualitative Study Examining How Video Games Satisfy Basic Psychological Needs During the Pandemic. Frontiers. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.800683/full

YouTube. (2020). All New Hair Styles | Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter Update | Inclusive Hair Finally! Acnh 2020YouTube. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbW2W61BkA.

MacDonald, K. (2020, May 13). 'It's Uniting People': Why 11 Million are Playing Animal Crossing: New horizons. The Guardian. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from  https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/may/13/animal-crossing-new-horizons-nintendo-game-coronavirus

Khan, I. (2020, April 7). Why Animal Crossing is the Game for the Coronavirus Moment. The New York Times. Retrieved July 12, 2022, from  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/arts/animal-crossing-covid-coronavirus-popularity-millennials.html