This topic jumped at me while watching the movie 21 Jump Street How popularity changes with the times, it changes with pop culture. If you were popular in the 80s, with the same characteristics you might have not been as popular in today’s times.
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill play the protagonists in the movie. Tatum’s character was popular in high school, and Hill was not. Yet as they step onto campus as undercover cops, roles seem to change. The popular kids care about the environment, dress with a hipster style, and are more involved in the arts. This is different from what they are used to. They were probably thinking of the popular crew looking more like a scene from Mean Girls.
Things are the same with movies like The Breakfast Club and 17 Again and the like; most “popular” kids have money, nice cars, and big parties. The dynamic duo throws a big party in 21 Jump Street to gain favor with the popular gang, drugs and alcohol are definitely a part of this movie’s in crown too. Yet in 21 Jump Street they show that the kids like to hang out and sit around and play music too..
Tatum and Hill play undercover cops to stop the drug circulation at the school that they go to. Drugs have been present for a long time, but they drugs they have to run down are more synthetic. Drugs these days seem be more processed than before because of new technologies. Maybe high school students have more leisure in today’s times to use drugs. Or many that’s how the nation is changing.
Popularly changes with pop culture and culture itself.