Society & Culture / Culture & Ideas / Cultural Criticism & Analysis

Pop Culture Doesn't Exist: How Elites Invented It to Control You

Pospopulares

Pablo Alabarces

Everything you think you know about popular culture is a carefully engineered illusion. What you call street culture, authentic folklore, or viral hits were never truly liberated by the people. They were captured, filed down, and packaged by power elites to keep the masses docile and entertained. From legendary writer Jorge Luis Borges panicking over a university department studying television, to the total sanitization of street reggaeton into global pop commodities like Despacito, mass culture functions like an elite ventriloquist act. When the working class creates something raw, rebellious, and politically dangerous, the elite first mock it as vulgar trash. Then, the moment it becomes profitable or harmless, they gentrify it, slap a commercial label on it, and sell it back to you as national pride. Key takeaways unpacked in this deep dive: - Why intellectuals and states invented the label popular culture specifically to domesticate it. - How national myths in sports and music were built by exploiting marginalized creators while denying them real power. - The biopic narcotic: how films like Bohemian Rhapsody turn grueling collective labor into myths of divine individual genius. - Why channel surfing and consuming media was never a revolutionary act, despite what academics claimed. - The weapon of ridicule: why raw laughter and biting satire remain the only weapons elites cannot completely tame. About the Author and the Book: This analysis is drawn from Pospopulares by Pablo Alabarces, one of Latin America's most influential contemporary sociologists and cultural critics, holding a senior professorship at the University of Buenos Aires. In Pospopulares, Alabarces shatters romantic illusions about contemporary mass media, tracing how neoliberal market forces and state paternalism turn organic working-class life into depoliticized consumer spectacle. Once you see the invisible boardrooms behind your favorite songs, shows, and viral icons, you can never look at your feed the same way again. Learn to spot the hidden machinery of cultural power before you consume your next trend.