Writings of Collin McElroy

Pop culture, social media, and the like have long been a cause for debate. Many people argue over its importance or lack thereof. People argue over whether it is good or bad. While there are of course many good arguments on both sides of this debate, as any, in this case, I believe that pop culture is good for society, and its positive effects outweigh the negative. I believe that Social Media and Pop culture go hand in hand. Social media is not only a way of creating and communicating pop culture but has also become pop culture in and of itself. At its core, Pop culture is positive and has and continues to be beneficial to society. For those who believe the opposite, I would argue that it is how people choose to use the powers of pop culture and social media that creates this negativity, not the pop culture itself. In his TED Talk, Pop Culture is Dead!, Phil Miller (2015) defined pop culture as being “When certain ideas, interests or choices reach a certain critical mass within a...

            Literacy has always been a part of my life. Being born and raised in the suburbs of a “developed” country, my journey to literacy within the English language was pretty structured and common. This being said, my earliest memories in regard to becoming literate took place in the classroom of a public elementary school. Being in this type of setting, I was not only encouraged, but it was expected of me to learn to read and write the English language proficiently. I remember being in kindergarten, sitting on the carpet in Mrs. Valentino’s room, looking up at the alphabet on the wall. We would go over one letter at a time, learning the sound it makes, and how to write it. One by one, we made our way through all 26. Each day we had class work and homework to help us remember everything we went over. Eventually these simple exercises in learning letters transformed into putting them together to learn words. Outside of school, all of this knowled...