Thank you very much, that was a very grand intro,
and no, I don't play the piano and surf at the same time,
I don't think that would work.
But it's a great morning, this morning, you're having a good time?
Audience: Yeah. PM: Right. That's good.
Because I'm going to need your help.
I'm going to start with an experiment. What I want you to do,
is to take out your mobile phones, please.
I'll give you a second to do that.
If you have them on you, of course.
Hopefully it'll be camera phones.
What I'm going to ask you to do
is to take a funny picture.
Can be of anything.
Can be of me, but
it would be so conceited to say that,
but a funny picture. A selfie, whatever.
The person next to you...
We're going to ask you to do that right now, please.
Okay, here's one I took
of my prospective audience earlier.
Brilliant.
Ok.
We're all there? Brilliant.
What I'd like you to do now
is to show that picture to the person on your left.
Some of you already are.
Ok? If you're in an aisle, just show it across.
Now I want you to also show that picture
to the person on your right.
In fact, why not show it to
everyone around you?
(Laughter)
Great.
This is like real-life social media in action.
Ok. Now bring it back now.
Ok. I need the front two rows now.
Can I ask the front two rows to stand up,
Including the people in the wings, thank you?
Now it's a bold experiment we're going to do
but I want the front two rows to decide
decide whose picture is the funniest.
Ok, whose picture is the funniest?
And I'm going to give you just 20 seconds.
So you might need to move around.
Work it out. I'm gonna give you 20 seconds.
So, off you go, now.
20,
19,
18,
17,
16,
15,
14,
13... Have we got a short list yet?
12,
11,
10,
9,
8,
7,
6,
5,
4,
3,
2,
1...
And they're still going.
Ok. Can you sit down if you've been discounted?
Sorry very much.
Do we have a winner?
Over here?
Is it... Sally!
Ok, fantastic. Can we have a round of applause for Sally, please?
(Applause)
Brilliant.
OK. So, Sally will probably sit down now
and probably what she will do,
she will go on to twitter and say,
"ha ha, just won TEDxWoking photo competition, aren't I cool? #irock"
But that was an experiment in the formation of popular culture.
A group of people bound by the same common rows
that they were sitting in, decided on something,
and that's how popular culture is formed.
Now if Sally does tweet it,
which she might do, -- go ahead! --
and you might now go along and retweet it,
and the image will spread, you might put it on facebook,
and it will spread even further. She's not doing it, by the way.
(Laughter) You should do it, it's a good picture.
Sally: It's a picture of him. (Chuckles)
But you'll probably say, "Phil, that's really interesting, it's just a picture."
What about if the picture said this?
[TEDxWoking]
Suddenly it's no longer a picture.
It's an idea.
And that idea spreads.
And what about if the picture said this?
[TEDxSUX!]
(Laughter)
It's an idea.
And when a group of people come together
with a common idea,
that's how popular culture is formed.
Now historically,
art and culture define popular culture.
And a mechanism was always needed.
Be it art, painting, or sculpture.
Modern technologies changed all that now.
Now a dad, in his Christmas jammies, on Youtube,
or even the way that you chose to support your local charities
is all available to us.
And instead of just voting with your sword or with your feet,
all you have to do now to agree
is Like.
[Like]
When certain ideas, interests or choices
reach a critical mass within a society,
they become widespread
and proliferate throughout that society.
A definition of popular culture.
[Google/to google]
But what happens when the mechanism
for the spread of popular culture
becomes part of popular culture itself?
Take Google.
It's a proper noun.
But it's also a verb.
And an intrinsic part of our popular culture.
Historically,
access to high culture, popular culture, was limited.
Access to painting was limited,
access to sculpture,
theatre audiences, by their very nature,
were limited.
But fast forward to
the invention of cinema,
the wireless,
TV.
Suddenly popular culture
is being beamed into our homes
every single day.
There's still the pop music.
[Elvis vs Cliff]
In 1956,
when Elvis Presley first entered the charts
and began his long-running battle with Cliff Richard,
you were either for Elvis, or you were for Cliff.
Some people may remember, not sure.
It affected the way that you spoke.
It affected the way you wore your hair.
It affected the way the clothes you wore.
I'm looking at it right here.
Audience: Yeah.
Elvis or Cliff?
(Answer inaudible)
But what happened was
fast forward through the charts.
Through the Beatles versus the Stones,
New Romantics.
Punk Rock.
Mods versus Rockers.
Pop culture became sub-culture.
And increasingly,
big businesses took over and became involved.
We listen to what they let us listen to.
We just have to look at the Christmas Charts
of the last nine or ten years to see that control.
But then along came services like Spotify and iTunes.
You could listen to what you wanted to listen to,
when you wanted to listen to it
and wherever you wanted to listen to it.
It's great. And music was free.
But it became less of a group experience.
It was no longer about
sitting around the radio on a Sunday evening
listening to the Chart Show.
And watching TV on a Thursday night.
Watching Top of the Pops.
Showing my age!
Ok, talking of TV,
who here watches EastEnders?
Come on, don't be shy.
Really? No one? (Laughter)
Is that Sam?
Audience: Yes. PM: OK.
In the 2014 Christmas episode of Eastenders,
spoiler alert, close your ears now,
when Lucy Beale died,
8.39 million viewers.
Backtrack to 1986.
Christmas day.
When Dirty Den served divorce papers to Angie,
30.15 million viewers.
Now is it that the program EastEnders has gotten worse?
Possibly.
(Laughter)
Is it that just less people watching it,
it just doesn't relate to us anymore? Possibly.
Or is it just that the way that we view television has changed?
In fact, I can't remember the last time that I watched serial broadcast television.
I want to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it.
And video on demand has provided me that.
[Netflix 4.5 million UK subscribers 61% binge watch]
Let's look at Netflix.
There are 4.5 million UK subscribers in the UK.
4.5 million people who choose to watch their television in a different way.
That doesn't include BBC iPlayer
4od,
iTV Player,
all the other video on demand services.
But the interesting thing
is the stat at the bottom.
People don't just want to tune in to watch one program
when the broadcaster wants them to.
Actually, I mean, you know,
be it Breaking Bad, or
the Good Wife, at the moment
I want to watch more than one episode every evening.
In fact, when House of Cards, the last season, was released,
people literally watched it all day with minutes breaks in between.
I don't know when they went to the toilet.
(Laughter)
The world of today is very different to 40 years ago.
All these services.
In fact, if I had been stood up here 40 years ago,
I'd probably would have been wearing
a suit and tie, much like Ray!
In fact, probably everyone in this room would have been dressed
exactly the same.
The services like ASOS and Amazon
provide us a choice.
I can buy what I want to buy
when I want to buy it.
In fact, I challenge anyone in this room
-- look around, now --
to find a discernible fashion,
beyond the odd beard.
(Laughter)
Because there isn't one.
Because we're not beholding
to the highstreet anymore.
We don't behold in to go and walk down
to the local Debenhams
and buy whatever it is they're gonna sell you.
You can buy whatever you want now.
[10 Very Best Things]
Okay. Let's look at a survey.
So this is the top 10 Very Best Things
for under 10's.
It's from 2006 of the National Kids Day survey,
but it still rings true today.
Makes for interesting reading.
Number ten, Heaven God.
(Laughter)
Number nine, watching films. I think we'll all agree with that.
Number eight, nice food.
Number seven, friends.
Number six, family.
Number five, pop music.
Number four, being healthy.
It's good to see it in the top five, at least.
Oh, I can never get my kids to eat their peas.
Let's see what happens in the top three.
Number three, being rich.
Number two, good looks.
Number one, being a celebrity.
Kids under ten.
Popular culture has become
"popular culture".
Our children and by association, ourselves,
are obsessed with celebrities.
It's fed into our homes.
Endlessly, all day.
And this causes a problem.
This need for recognition.
This, 'See me!'
that social media plays directly into.
75% of parents think negative influences
from mass media are a serious problem.
75% think that the influences
from mass media are a serious problem
in raising their children.
Mass media like films, TV, music.
And the problem is
that now we've become voyeurs
into the lives of celebrities.
Of our friends, of our neighbors.
In fact of everyone.
Because cameras are everywhere.
This was our Christmas team photo.
Cameras are everywhere. You can take a picture whenever you want,
like we did at the start of this talk.
But this allows us to do different things.
Social media movements like Je suis CHARLIE,
like the Harlem Shake,
like the Icebucket Challenge,
are only possible because of what we carry around in our pockets.
But these social media movements are brief.
It's a wave that washes over society
and then withdraws quickly.
But it leaves a massive social media legacy behind it.
[So...is pop culture dead?]
So, back to the original question.
Is pop culture dead?
Has it been hijacked by mass media?
Are we being told what we should think now,
rather than developing it ourselves?
Or, are we actually creating popular culture,
now, ourselves, through social media,
every single second of every single day?
Popular culture as we know it
is probably dead.
But long live popular culture.
Thank you.
(Applause)