4 Types of Cultural Practices

         Did you know there are 4 types of cultural practices in our societies that are practiced online? This last week of February and much of playing catch up game due to the crazy winter storm in Texas, we learned about these 4 types of cultural practices that we have seen throughout our lives. If you do know about them, then please keep reading and share your thoughts in the comments below!

To start off, there is emergent. Like the name, this is when something or someone emerges out of nowhere! For example, thinking about my old days, Justin Bieber kind of came out nowhere and took over many girls time and money! Looking further back, the group The Beatles has the same affect. They came out of nowhere and were there to stay. Lastly, a more recent example that can be considered emergent is the popular app, Tik Tok. This app took off steadily throughout the pandemic of 2020. Many who were stuck at home because of quarantine, sought out to Tik Tok for entertainment to pass the time.  Either to create their own content or just sit back and enjoy the ride. There is no pressure of being active and creating videos so it truly is an app to pass a good time. 

            The second type of cultural practice is dominant. This one sounds very familiar to emergent in a way. However, the difference for dominant type is that this thing or person(s) takes over every generation mostly. Not just one generation or one age group. An example of this could be the Netflix series, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. This show became very popular at the beginning of quarantine in 2020 among each generation. If you didn’t watch the show then maybe you saw the woman, Carole Baskin, dancing on Dancing with the Stars, on the television. If you didn’t get a chance to see that then maybe you heard the song, Carole Baskin Killed Her Husband, on social media. As you can see, this show and the product of some actions that were done resulted it to spread everywhere. It became a dominant practice for many people from each generation. Another example of dominant was pagers. Before there was even flip phones, the Razor or Blackberry, there was pagers. The younger generation wanted them to look cool and send cool little messages to them. The parents wanted them to communicate it with their jobs and family and the grandparents liked to have them because they were convenient. Pagers became something popular among everyone not just one age group!

            The third one is called residual. When I read this word I think of recycling or rescuable and it kind of lines up with what residual means. Residual means when a generation is obsessed with something from the past and it becomes dominant again. A fashion sense of this that spread was scrunchies, high waisted jeans, mom jeans, crop tops, some tennis shoes like Rebooks, high-top converse, and mid-thigh shorts for males.  Another thing one can think about is video games and specifically Mario Brothers. It launched in 1983, popular for about 10 years or so, died down and came back strong when technology had advanced. Gen X and millennials specifically were excited for this comeback since they experienced its first released and got the experience of the game in a new experience. Lastly, the example the book that we read gave the example of vinyl records. I found this very true as many people especially music lovers enjoy purchasing these. Then there are the people who just enjoy the aesthetic from them and like to decorate a space with a couple of them or a lot of them!

            The fourth cultural practice that we learned is called archaic. This one in the most simple way to say it is, this thing or person is gone, there is no coming back for it. One of the first things that I thought of when thinking of what is archaic from my childhood was group forwarding chain text messages. I don’t know who started them but I would receive this long message of a scary story or something nice like “if you get this message, this person loves you”. Then it would threaten you at the end, “if you don’t send this to 10 or more people, the dead lady will haunt you tonight” or “if you don’t send this to 10 or more people, something bad will happen to you tonight”. It’s a rough draft but I still remember getting them and trying to think of what 10 people I could send them to! Another thing that I thought about was CD players. I don’t see these things coming back at all, even for the aesthetic vibe like vinyl records have to them. It was just something necessary at the time to listen to music on the go or in the car and was just simply replaced by smartphones and Bluetooth. 

            In conclusion, much of these types of cultural practices happen right in front of us and if we don’t pay attention they zoom by right in front of you or come back and give you flashbacks of the past.