As Jon Gertner explains in 'Futile Pursuit of Happiness', "Happiness is a signal that our brains use to motivate us to do certain things. And in the same way that our eye adapts to different levels of illumination, we're designed to go back to the happiness set brains. Our brains are not trying to be happy. Our brains are trying to regulate us." (Gertner 37) In my opinion a lot of what makes people happy (including myself) can be traced back to an influence in pop culture, even in the simplest forms such as: seeing a commercial for a Pepsi and then going to the fridge to feed that desire. As we discussed in class popular culture is everywhere in our everyday lives, even if we don't notice the connection at the time. Popular culture can make us believe that spending the extra cash on a Polo V-neck will make us more happy when we could just get the same off brand style for eight bucks cheaper at the Kohl's down the street.
This power that popular culture holds over us can sometimes be under-estimated. It can drive one to do foolish things that we wouldn't do by ourselves or do in a cold state of mind. We can more easily be influenced by a group of close friends just as easily as we can by people we see on the newest reality television that we have no relation to what so ever. I like to describe popular culture as a sort of forever constant type of 'peer pressure' with said peer being society.
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