What is popular culture to me?

Popular culture reflects the products and activities that are commonly enjoyed by the majority of a particular population. It’s all the things that we see, hear, taste and do on nearly a daily basis in (particularly) American life. The general population is typically influenced by mass media, and so therefore, we see a great deal of advertisement of these mainstream commercial products through television ads and even pandered on TV shows themselves.

My job is analytics, and one area we use it heavily is in marketing. We build statistical models which will predict customer buying and attrition behavior. Therefore, understanding how people are influenced by marketing and advertising is extremely important. Even more important is understanding the emotional triggers for people and how those influence their loyalty to a particular brand. 

I think an example of a pop culture artifact would be Facebook.

I chose it because it seems to be an example of how people are becoming more connected electronically but less connected physically. People would rather communicate electronically or virtually than face-to-face. Kids text or message rather than even speak to each other on the phone, let alone be in the same room with each other. Even at work, people will join a conference call rather than go two floors up to join a meeting in person in a conference room. Understanding this helps to understand how people might rather purchase products or work with a representative from my company during a service call. It also shows that forming an emotional attachment with my customer base is more difficult because the human connection is lost.