My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.
Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.
It turns out that popularity is scary. I don't feel comfortable receiving so much attention from people; perhaps that's because I'm just a kampong boy.
it's all a popularity contest, which unfortunately often has more to do with good looks rather than actual talent.
Because homecoming came first, and there was the homecoming court. The five guys on homecoming court were disqualified from being in the prom court. So being prom king was being sixth most popular.
I was prom king. Which is actually saying I was the sixth most popular, because the five who were on homecoming were automatically disqualified from prom, so of course I have to look at it that way.
If you want to do something, then you do it. If you don't want to do something, don't just do it because your friends are doing it, or because all the popular kids are doing it.
I started out really into musical theater. So you can imagine I was super popular. I wasn't awkward looking at all.
When the American people elected Barack Obama and large Democrat majorities, the die was cast. ObamaCare was coming. Popular or not, constitutional or not, affordable or not, it didn't matter.
Quite a few operas are still being commissioned around the world, although nothing apart from audience popularity can ensure more than a few performances.
Certainly, because the computer and computer language was still not as common as it is today. That's one of the reasons I believe Tron wasn't as popular back then as it is today.
Something often neglected in popular accounts of the Wild West is the extent to which its dramas were colored by the politics and personal resentments left by the Civil War.
We're in such a volatile climate right now politically. I think they didn't want Assassins to not succeed due to popular opinion and politics, versus on its own merits. I can respect that.
You know, you can be really quite subversive in popular fiction, which is capable of taking on big issues of politics, war, the rise and fall of commercial dynasties.
This whole fuss did not only damage Fischer's image, but that of the USA as well. The way the Americans treated one of their most popular citizens did not make a positive impression worldwide.
I think the general public's response to my projects is very strong. You can be an intellectual and say that popularity detracts from architectural quality. On the other hand, you can see in the public's identification something very positive.
There's a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Desire and innovation will trump policy, the argument goes, as clever programmers circumvent controls.
It is popular to call it a crisis of the Western world. It is in fact a crisis of the whole world. Communism, which claims to be a solution of the crisis, is itself a symptom and an irritant of the crisis.
It is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular is easy... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.
Where I grew up, Bob Wills and his western swing was very popular. And western swing is not that far from jazz and blues.
The noun phrase straw man, now used as a compound adjective as in 'straw-man device, technique or issue,' was popularized in American culture by 'The Wizard of Oz.'
