Week 1 REVIEW: THE SUPERMAN DANCE

Week 1 REVIEW: THE SUPERMAN DANCE

Some people have asked what an example of Popular Culture would be today.

When you are able to identify a new trend that is sweeping the country, and millions of people from different walks of life are all doing the same action, like a new dance, and posting it on You Tube...just because...you have successfully found an example of Popular Culture in action!

In September 2007, an American Rap Group released a song called Crank That Soulja Boy. Within a few weeks, people of all ages and from different parts of the Country, videotaped themselves recreating the dance performed in the groups' video for the song with the catchy chorus.

While many people wondered why this song in particular struck a chord with people all over the United States, the song climbed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and has officially become an artifact of popular culture.

As our course material states, "culture is learned, meaning that culture is not necessarily determined by race, but rather by how one acquires the arts, institutions, and practices of a given culture." The artifact that I analyzed is the perfect example of popular culture because like the definition of culture states, "The Superman Dance" is not determined by race even though the stereotypes associated with Hip-Hop music would lead one to believe that only Black people would be doing it. Instead, "The Superman Dance" is an artifact of Popular Culture that has been acquired by people young and old, and from a variety of backgrounds. This is why I added the videos - to demonstrate that not just one type of person is doing the exact same dance. It was actually very difficult to find more than two videos from the same state.

Check out what all the talk is about below:









Source: Soulja Boy. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulja_Boy