I'd say I was pretty sheltered as a young, middle class, "average," Caucasian girl. I was kept in a metaphorical box of what was acceptable and "normal" according to my family's values and such. However, TV was HUGE in my household. (It still is for the rest of my family, but I've since moved out and somewhat away from television.) Anyway, I mostly watched children's television, and, as I recall, they all provided step-by-step plans/processes to a specifc solution, which resulted in the moral, message, etc. of each specific episode.
That being said, I realized once I grew older how many basic social skills I'd learned at such a young age. Those shows I watched as a child were specifically formulated to mould me into a person who could function in society. Sesame Street didn't just teach me the beginnings of basic colors, numbers, and letters; it also taught me about relationships.
Now that the study of pop culture has been brought to my attention, I realize that adult/PG/PG-13 programming continues the same type of process by giving the audience a more mature process to present and teach a certain and/or more complex lesson or idea.
In addition to television, I was also very into music starting at a young age. Backstreet Boys, Hanson, Nsync, and Celine Dion were my tops before I was a teenager, and then I grew to love all boy and girl groups as a young teenager. The only thing I ever really got out of my initial musical interests was that boys were supposed to fall in love with girls and vice versa. The specifics of the lyrics never sunk in other than that. Then people started talking about Lance Bass from Nsync, and his sexuality. Suddenly, as a preteen, I was introduced to homosexuality, and my ideas of relationships went further than the basics of the boy likes girl, girl likes boy lyrics I had spent my childhood listening to.
Until the Canadian show Degrassi, which is a show that pushes many social boundaries and topics, became a favorite show of mine, the Lance Bass controversy was the first major pop culture event in my life that took something I grew up listening to and took it out of the metaphorical "normal" box I grew up in. It was an eye opening, "Wait, I was listening to a gay male sing those lyrics? I wonder what he was REALLY thinking about the lyrics he was singing..."
Now, Lance and his partner, Michael Turchin are due to wed this December 20, 2014! When I first found out about his sexuality at a young age, it confused me and bothered me, but today, at 23, I couldn't be happier for Lance, and I think the fact that he started in a "boy band" is incredibly interesting and awesome.
Fast forward to the past few years. The Hunger Games! Not only are these books and movies sweeping the nation, but they are BEING PRESENTED IN CLASSROOMS! Teachers are finding the messages from the series relevant, especially to our society today, and, I've personally noticed, students are more willing to engage in discussions and assignments BECAUSE they're so current and relevant in pop culture. Not only that, but I see another revolution of some sort coming, and I think a lot of my generation does as well. The Hunger Games has a great deal to do with challenging the injustices of the system and making drastic change. With the current situations in society and changes in pop culture and what's become more acceptable, maybe not as DRASTIC as described in The Hunger Games, but movements are in the works all around us.
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