Even if this part is not taken seriously, it gives a first draft of the idea behind the rearrangement this essay could probably do to POP. A very tragic one. To be more precise, a historic view on the concept of popular culture is helpful.
First the term popular culture was used for myths, narratives or songs, which arose from the center of communities to stabilize their structures and keep them together. It preserved their values and cultural imperatives. The cultural products from the popular culture of these days, helped the people to give the world and the things in it meaning. #Philosophy

At the beginning of the 20th century, this traditional sense of popular culture changed. One might say, this change happened earlier, when romantic literature was published and sold widely, but Pop as a term, as we talk about it today, came up when some followers of Dada in New York started to celebrate Jazz, commercials, the passion of sports fans and magazine covers as a new „folklore“ of modern times. Jazz especially had a important impact on the youth of the 30´s and their avantgarde, the hipster. Jazz with its unique combination of musical elements, new rhythms and new dances, broke with traditional styles and naturally became the music of the young generation. So Jazz could be named the first Pop music and the reason why the term Pop is connoted with adolescence.

In another way, this was the beginning of questioning the mechanisms behind the consequences of a culture which is produced, under industrial conditions and distributed by mass media, in order to make money. The exceeding number of released music titles is underlined by what is called mass-culture. In 1900 the Gramophone Company advertised 5,000 records and in 1998 there were 52,000 CD titles released. By questioning and discussing the development of popular culture there comes criticism.
One of the most famous and cited achievements in this theme is „The Dialectic of Enlightenment“ by Adorno and Horkheimer, published in 1947. They describe the change from an autonomous emerging culture to become heteronymous and how this influenced the substance of our culture. For the so called mass culture, they established the term cultural industry. The products this cultural industry fabricate are rated as niggling and trivial. Authentic and spontaneous arts do still exist, as an antagonist to the fully commercialized one, but it has a marginalized role on the cultural market. And while participating in the market, even the arts will adopt the logic of what it means to cut it short, that the utility value will fall apart in favor of the exchange value.

The main point of their criticism is, that the cultural industry doesn’t provide people with ideas that go ahead of the existing reality and therefore support human progress. Culture with the characteristics with good, distribution by mass media turns the people of it’s audience into customers instead of enlightening them to become conscious, creative and righteous civilians. The industry produce artwork that is easy to consume and does not force the customers to think.
Pop has been seen as the avantgarde of this business. Since the 60´s it seems to be a concept without a critical voice, with just the message of being young and having fun. While the cultural industry is seen as an instrument of the capitalistic elite, Pop is refused of being an authentic expression of the people. It is always made to reproduce existing order.

Besides the critical assesments of POP there is another perspective which enables a more positive view on it. First, the critical perspective claims the audience to be totally submissive to manipulating mass media and commercials, reproducing the lifestyle of consuming on and on. This just simplifies the act of making cultural artifacts ones own. It is and will be a very individual and active process to give things meaning. It is connected with someones biography, ones cultural, ethnic and social background and ones very own experiences. So that in fact, for every cultural, even if they are very trivial, there could be as many symbolic reprimands, as many meanings to them, as there are recipients. #Philosophy

In addition to this, there had been a tremendous technological progress, which eased the access for participation of the production of cultural content to a wide range of social classes. A few examples from the progress in music production show the rising opportunities for self-expression and artistic work. In 1953 the first consumer-model tape recorders made it possible for more musicians to record their music. Apple brought out its desktop-computer in 1977 which allowed one to work on programs, to play and produce music in a private, non academic, space. 1990 computer hard-disc-recording made recording and computing possible. This progress is definitely related to the prosperity of the liberal capitalistic western societies like the concept of POP is, as described before. For the purpose of this Essay, I want to point out that the production of cultural artifacts becomes democratic instead of being in the hands of the companies of the cultural industry. #Participation

The internet as a part of the digital revolution came up as the medium of the 21 century. Now its not just the production which is democratically organized, but also the distribution can be made independent. Platforms like youtube or soundcloud for example, allows artists to publish their artwork with very cheap costs. Social media platforms such as instagram, twitter or facebook open up spaces to create, constitute and express the image of an artist without the perfectionism of professional marketing. In other words, these platforms open up a space for spontaneous, authentic expressions of the people again. #Participation