What Is Pop?

A video essay about what “pop“ actually means. Produced by Matt Beat. Music by Patrick Patrikios. All images and video found in the public domain or used under fair use guidelines. My band: My other channel: @iammrbeat What is pop? Well, the conventional wisdom tells us that it’s just whatever is popular. As a younger man, I would smugly say “huh, ya know….pop is just short for popular, so if something enters the mainstream, it’s automatically pop.” But I’ve been thinking a lot more about this lately, and I think I disagree with my younger self, as I often do. Usually, the word “pop” describes not only art, but culture. More specifically, the practices and beliefs of society, and the people and objects dominant in that society. Pop culture refers to categories such as music, film and other mediums of video, video games, sports, politicians, technology, fashion, and even slang.