Re-writing Prose's Prose

Reality TV is a parody of the democratic society we live in and of ourselves. It's a showcase of social darwanism on display for TV watchers across the country every night of the week. Beyond simply being a passive form of entertainment, reality TV affects its viewers in the way they percieve ordinary situations--creating a false sense of a competition where there can only be one winner. Viewers learn that the only way to make it is to look out for oneself and to trust nobody. It's straight out of Hobbes.

Images From The History of Popular Culture

Human beings become obsessed with everything: other people, ideas, books, fantasies, emotions, works of art, even themselves. Then, when the fascination culminates and a new obsession emerges, the old subject is relegated to being a thing of the past--even though it may still be around! 

• The images included in the reading are symbols of manias that consumed the entire nation for extended periods of time to a point where it would have become impossible not to be aware of it.  
  
• These images do not just represent American popular culture.  They were so talked about, so closely scrutinized, so ingrained into society that they are pop culture.  The values represented were imitated by the masses therefore breeding American culture itself.
  
• As inevitable as it is that one compulsion will die, a new one will be there, waiting, to take its place--so goes human history.  

Remember when Gone With The Wind was the Greatest movie of all Time?  Or when every movie was in black and white?

• From Judy Garland to Britney Spears and from the silver screen to the computer screen these images demonstrate a changing of values and technology over time.
• They are milestones of change.  Elvis brought "sex" to TV sets in every household.  The Beatles changed what music could be.  Britney Spears told millions of 8-year-old girls that they could be sexy school girls.  
• Youtube brought this: 
• How could that have possibly become part of American popular culture even 10 years ago?

Here's a new one to add to the list: