What would you say is the most important popular culture event the last two hundred years (or so)? You may even make your own list!, and you don’t have to argue too much about your choices.
Mine would be Elvis on national TV 1956, especially doing Baby, Let’s Play House, because that changed just about everything (in pop culture).
(This is inspired by a radio show in my home country which got it all wrong and I’m curious what the educated mass would say.)
Other contenders:
The Beatles appearing on Ed Sullivan
Woodstock
The last two hundred years? 1807 to present? Since the first hundred years predates movies and radio, it would have to focus on print, opera and theatre. Sadly, I couldn’t tell you what was “hot” in say, 1867.
The televised moon landing.
Assuming that that qualifies as pop culture by whatever definition you’ve chosen.
Failing that, I’d say Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds.
200 years is a long time. It would have to be the invention of TV itself, if that qualified as a pop culture event, as it was the opening of the door to all pop events. I am not sure if we could even talk of Pop culture before that (although War of the Worlds is right there to prove me wrong)
200 years? I can’t see Elvis being it. Invention of photography? Music makes it to the radio? The Jazz Singer? Publication of the Communist Manifesto?
Our American Cousin was a hot play in 1865.
Wouldnt it have to be the work of Guglielmo Marconi, in that without his work, much of what we call “pop culture” would never exist…
Of course, much later, video came along and killed it.
“Do you believe in miracles? YES!”–may not have the historical oomph of Woodstock, the moon landing, or the JFK assassination, but it was one hell of a morale boost for the country.
Ding! I’d say that was the first in a string of inventions (sound recording, motion pictures, cheap consumer photography, radio, computers, television, Internet) that made the phenomenon of pop culture possible.
Artistic works used to be created with an expectation of permanence; to create something ephemeral, pleasing but not deeply meaningful, was inconceivable until recording and distribution technologies got sophisticated enough, and economical enough, to produce a work cheaply and quickly, then get it to a wide audience. The technological advances that have enabled pop culture to exist are the ones that allow a performance to be viewed by pretty much anyone who wants to see it, without them having to be physically in the presence of a live performer.
The meeting of the sperm and egg that became Thomas A. Edison.
The telephone certainly deserves mention.
My birth.
Any more questions?
The beginning of radio networks, circa 1926. For the time, millions of people across an entire continent were experiencing mass media simultaneously.
Well, television was around before that. And the craze that movies created in the tens and twenties, is surely a better contender than tv.
However, I wonder if it wasn’t general public education and unions. Leaving the masses with more free time and the large working class better educated (so they could read the latest installment of Dickens).
If there is a truly interesting social phenomenon that emerged during the 20th century, it was boredom for many (and not just the nobility, idle rich) and massmedia filled that void.
Abraham Lincoln gave the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin credit for starting the American Civil War.
Anything starring Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, or Mary Pickford was considered an Event, in the Silent Era.
King Kong was the first F/X blockbuster.
Ahem. My only claim to fame, at least in my own fevered imagination, is that I was born on that very evening.
Whoever started the commercialization of Christmas had a huge impact on society and the American economy IMHO.
I don’t think that drew much of an audience; most likely, just two people. I’d say the Pixar version in 2003 got a few more viewers, but it didn’t do well in the ratings.
The most important popular culture event, to me, would be the first person to become a global star due to music or movies. Not sure who that would be; Eve, you out there? Valentino, maybe? The whole concept of a performer who would be idolized by people all over the planet was invented at that moment, and from then on, anybody who has any claim to fame in the pop industry has to have national recognition, at the bare minimum, to qualify as anything more than a nobody.
Speaking of which, I heard a good definition of what a true celebrity is:
When everybody everywhere kknow who the person is, just by heariing the name.
On a global scale, that narrows it down to precious few people, escpecially still living. On a national or Western Culture (whatever that is) scale, the number expands. My mom know who George Clooney is, because he’s been on E.R. but to her is as big a star. And she wouldn’t know about Bradgelina, even if they showed up and started slapping her with dead ferrets.