This paper examines the forms of pornification of culture and to provide awareness on the dangers those forms may bring to youths. One of the mediums of popular culture is media and it is divided into several types such as mass media and social media. Television is a type of ass media. Dahl (2003) mentions several benefits of watching television in his poem, “Television”, as it will keep the children busy and make them stay still, allowing parents to do their chores peacefully, but the major side effect is that it brainwashes the children on how they will perceive the world.
For example, many girls have considered and believed that backstabbing their friends and gossiping about other people are like a second nature to them, as if those actions are normal for girls at their age (Vincent, Olson & Draft, 2013). Popular television series like Revenge, displays a lot of those immoral ehaviours, one after another with realistic acting, thus developing a belief that women would do anything to achieve their own selfish goal. Islam strongly prohibits those bad deeds because if one were to commit such sins, they are given an impression as if they eat the flesh of their own brother (49:12).
In short, watching television has the potential to ruin the female teenagers’ mental image of the moralities that their society holds. Television still is the main platform for the advertising. Advertisements can vary from the most advanced technology like smartphones, to the smallest possible roducts, such as toothbrush. Advertisement is important as it can provide awareness to the community about the up-to-date products produced by the industries.
The experts in this field will definitely commercialize those goods in ways that would make people not able to divert their eyes from. Youtube is another platform for advertising but not every house has the connection to the Internet. The effects of advertisement have become a controversial issue when suddenly, a religious leader in England, Rabbi, has cautioned his community about the danger of extreme consumerism which has caused the ise of self-centeredness and breakdown in the family institution (Rabbi: Steve Jobs for… 2011 Since many teenagers do not have their own money to buy the trending gadgets, they often come out with excuses and lies to their parents so that they do not feel being left behind from the rest of the world. To sum up, constant advertising in the television makes people, especially teenagers being too conscious of the things they do not have instead of appreciating what they already have. The easy availability of the Internet is like a double-edged sword.
It can be either good or bad depending on the one who surfs it. Pornographic elements have becoming more visible and more explicit contextually due to the emergence of new technologies. Murali (2014) reports that a 32 years old mother had to witness a scene where her neighbour’s four-year-old boy was performing oral sex on her own three-year-old son outside her house and now she has to suffer from watching her son pleasuring himself when he is alone in the bedroom or bathroom.
Children below 13 are continuously being exposed to sexual images or videos and it is only natural for children to show interest towards things they have never seen before. Unfortunately, parents do not input proper guidance or explanation when their children bring up such topic because they find themselves uncomfortable to talk about it by unconsciously set in their mind that their children are still way too young to understand (Shah, 2014).
In summary, children today can effortlessly search about those explicit contents simply by turning off the ‘safe’ option and the damage it can bring them morally may be incurable if the parents choose not to take any action during the early childhood period. The effects of misusing the Internet have now become apparent to the xtent where terms like gays, lesbians, trans-people and other so-called perverts which were originally excluded from sexual self-definition, have found themselves surpass the traditional boundaries and private (Smith, 2010).
Homosexuality is definitely one of the effects that the breakdown of popular culture has brought and it does not only appear on the television screen, but the ideology is also widely spread all across the Internet. The impression left by the people who continuously expand this ideology has now made its mark on the society as others are slowly accepting the fact that veryone has the right to love and marry anybody. Last year, about 14 countries in total have officially provided a green light towards same-sex marriage and some of those nations are New Zealand, Uruguay and France (O’Carroll, 2013).
Some videos from the Internet are currently introducing the fact that for girls, having a gay friend is way better than a straight male friend due to the reason that when a gay is listening to their problems, he will truly listen and does not have any ulterior motive unlike a normal male. The thing that makes this matter even worse is that most of the feedbacks given by the iewers are positive. In conclusion, people who support homosexual relationship are effectively using the Internet as a medium to spread their ideology and this may have caused the society to accept same-sex relationship and marriage as norms which is terribly wrong.
Social media can also act as a medium for the pornification of popular culture. Modern digital tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Instagram have been invented so that people can communicate easier simply by having internet connection. There is no need for the youngsters to waste their credits to message and call thers anymore as both Facebook and Skype also have the capabilities to do so, in a more convenient way for the users. Since that they can text other people as much and as long as they want, this can lead to new form of texting; sexting.
Abbott (2013) describes sexting as a phenomenon when young people use text messages and to exchange sexually explicit contexts and images. Texting is considered as bad enough already when teenagers contact with each other using short forms such as “u”, “n”, “r” instead of “you”, “and”, “are”. Today, it has involved even further to the point where a new form as emerged which is sexting. To sum up, children may be exposed about inappropriate words and images of male’s and femal‚s private parts when they are sexting using social media then it may lead them to talk about those parts in their daily conversation with friends as if it is normal.
Either websites from the Internet or digital tools can become the main source of information regarding contemporary issues all around the world because new information is always constantly updated in both of them. This is very crucial for the students to collect data or to cite references from to omplete their assigned term paper but Asyraf, as cited from Hasan (2014) reminds the society on the role of the teacher to train the sensibility of students in a way that students do not succumb to propaganda and always evaluate the genuiness of a human condition with reference according to absolute norm of human conduct.
In other words, students should not be easily swayed by the news regarding something or someone and the teachers play an important role to secure that. The major question with so many resources that can be taken from is without a doubt, its authenticity since that n some websites like Wikipedia, anybody can key in anything they want about something without bearing any responsibility towards what they have written.
The same applies with Facebook, where sometimes, a picture of a well-known person IS captioned talking about a very controversial issue which he did not actually say, and unfortunately the teenagers may be easily deceived by the false accusation. In short, those unauthorized information from the Internet and social media have the possibility of producing ignorance youths for the reason that if they blindly believe the information provided without nalytically and critically judge it first.
Without proper knowledge, this may lead to the downfall of a country since that the future of it lies on the next generation to hold the title as leaders to guide the citizens. Another medium of popular culture for the younger generation is video games. One piece of childhood dream may be fulfilled when the children manage to get their hands on the most latest and high graphics games such as Call of Duty: Advance Warfare, Far Cry 4 and GTA V on the brand new game console, XBOX One or Play Station 4.
Generally, playing video games is a good ime killer and a great stress reliever for the teenagers during their free time because it can make them totally immersed, temporarily diverting them from the harsh reality of the world but the side effects of playing it too much cannot be taken lightly. Tombokon (2013) mentions that one of the negative effects of obsession with video games will make the teenagers to spend less time doing physical activities, causing them to be less immune to diseases around them because they do not sweat which actually contains excessive toxins in the body.
This survey further supports the point that teenagers hese days play too much video games as youths at the age 8 to 1 8 devote seven-and-a half hours a day to entertainment media, a 2010 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (Norcia, 2014). In summary, playing video games has its own benefits but the overwhelming impacts of children’s obsession over those games is an eye opener and one of those impacts is it may lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. Another noticeable impact of playing too much video game is it can stimulate violent behaviours of the children, especially if they are to play violent video games.
Indeed, there are other factors that lead to violent ehaviours such as peer pressure, jealousy and stress but Carey (2013) emphasizes that frequent violent gaming makes teenagers behave a little more rudely than they would or at least, a few minutes after playing. Video games today teach children the art of mass killing and the joy of robbing a bank. The teenagers know the fact that in real life, they cannot steal or take another person life because they will be prisoned for some period of time if they get caught by the policemen.
They can truly enjoy the thrill of committing those bad deeds without any restriction in video games since that it is ‘not rong’ to kill others in it. Basically, this kind of games provides an outlet that satisfies the violent urge in some players. In this advanced world, it is now made possible to create a character with almost the same physical features simply by attaching a picture or an image of that person. Some players do that so they can take revenge on the people that they hate by killing or torturing that character instead.
In other words, this shows violent video games have become more realistic and bloodier than ever and it can cause the teenagers to act slightly more aggressive than those who play non-violent ideo games. Watching movies is a common thing that teenagers do with their friends during the weekends because every time they go to the cinema, there are always new movies with an eye-catching title and twisting storyline. Not to mention the futuristic elements in the movies that give away a preview of what the future may look like in 50 years to come.
Some movies tend to stay as close as possible to the real life conflicts so that people can relate those problems in their daily life. Regrettably, a number of those movies focus more on negative aspect of that particular society holds on only because the roducers can instil sarcastic and comedy elements in them. One of those movies is American Pie. This movie is described as a vulgar comedy about 4 high school friends determine to lose their virginity before they graduate and they find it more difficult than expected and they have to full use their last chance after the highly anticipated senior prom (Neenan, 2010).
From this, it gives the idea that all American high school students have the desire to lose their virginity as soon as possible and are willing to extreme measures to achieve it. In conclusion, some teenagers may actually be driven into that idea nd it can lead to many social and cultural problems in the society. Today, famous celebrities can be considered as an icon that children 100k up to. Wanting to be like their celebrity is a part of popular culture where they follow through their role model’s life style from fashion sense to personality.
A research from the University of Calgary shows that 60 percent of college students confessed a celebrity has influenced their beliefs, attitudes and personalities (Jacobson, 2013). Jacobson (2013) also mentions that a 2006 study by USA Weekend has found that over three-quarters of teens think that heir friends are likely to diet after a star loses weight. Female celebrities such as singers, movie stars and actors often have slim and tall body which every girl dream to have and they have to strive towards it to achieve it.
This kind of image makes the girls lose confidence in their appearance unless they manage to be as ‘perfect’ as their role models are. Some would go through extreme diet like not to eat rice for a whole week which is actually very impractical. If they are really determine to lose weight, they must first seek advice from the expertise in that field because different human bodies do not ecessarily follow through the same diet plan. There are also others who would go as far as fat removal surgery which costs a lot of money only because they want to have same face shape as their stars.
In short, celebrities have significant role in the children’s eyes as a role model that they can look up to but instead, those stars has caused the youths to feel the imperfection that they have in themselves only until they become just like their role models. There are many forms of pornification of popular culture such as television, the Internet, social media, movie and celebrity and the impacts that those orms can bring to the younger generation cannot be taken lightly. The society should find effective measures to counter against it but banning or censoring the information flow is definitely not an option.
