Contents What Is Popular Culture A Turbulent Decade Movies TV and Home Entertainment Online Pop Culture The Age of Celebrity Music Design and Clothes The Printed Word Pop Culture Turned Upside Down What Did the 2000s Do for Us Timeline Best of the Era Notes on Sources Find Out More Glossary Index
What Is Popular Culture In June 2007 a line of people snaked around three sides of a city block in New York City It was a diverse group of people Many of them had waited for hours or even days Many had traveled from other countries to join the line At 6 p m on June 29 the doors would open and the throng of people would scramble to get their hands on the object of their affections 1
Sydney Australia celebrates on January 1 2000 People around the world celebrated the start of a new millennium with optimism about the future but few could have foreseen the changes that would come in society and culture What were they waiting for Was it a rare appearance by a film or music star or a scramble for tickets to a one-off show or sporting event that they could not possibly miss The fact that many were clutching laptop computers gave passersby a clue These people were waiting for the launch of the iPhone the latest must-have gadget from Apple They had to get there ahead of everyone else even though the phone would be widely available and over the following years millions would be sold In the twenty-first century gadgets like the iPhone have become part of pop culture Just like reading the latest best-selling book or seeing the current blockbuster film many people seek to own the latest technology Pop or popular culture includes anything that is designed to entertain or enrich the lives of as many people as possible Pop culture includes films music magazines and even advertisements Even the design styles of products such as cars and mobile phones can be part of pop culture because they are produced to appeal to people as being desirable as well as useful objects Time of change The early twenty-first century has seen massive changes to popular culture with the Internet revolutionizing music books
and the way people interact creating whole new forms of pop culture and ways of making it instantly available to millions of people Many of these changes began in the 1990s but the pace of change was even more astonishing in the first decade of the new millennium The Internet explosion Internet use increased dramatically around the world after the year 2000 In 2000 only about 6 percent of the world’s people were Internet users In 2011 the figure was 30 percent The change in some regions of the world was even more dramatic More than half of the Internet users in 2000 were in North America and Europe In 2011 there were almost one billion people online in Asia making up almost half of the total 2 The way people used the Internet also changed More people had high-speed and wireless connections so they could be online at any time anywhere in the world
