Where Does Geek Culture End and Pop Culture Begin?

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well for a Wednesday. It's not as humid out today as it was yesterday and the day before, but it's still warm out. It'd be nice if we got some rain though. The reason I'm writing this today is because I've observed a trend recently with current movie and TV shows. Particularly with recent superhero/comic book based TV shows and movies, but also with animated movies too. That trend is that certain movies and TV shows get popular really quickly, but never trend on social media. Others trend on social media, but I don't see anyone talking about them. While others don't trend on social media and nobody talks about them at all. Which made me want to ask the question, where does geek culture end and pop culture begin? So let's get into it.

Personally, I see pop culture and geek culture to be two separate things. Occasionally, with things like Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, the MCU, Batman (in the 90s), Disney Animation (in the late 80s and early 90s), and Star Trek (in the 90s), the two crossover and what are primarily considered to be geeky franchises go mainstream and become full blown pop culture phenomenons. But, for the most part they stay relatively separate. Yet, what makes geek culture cross over into pop culture? I mean, Batman was well loved in the 90s, with the animated series, and the movies, plus lots and lots of toys. But, at the same time, in the 90s, Superman died in the comics, Warner Bros. tried developing a movie for him to star in, and he was the star of both a live action show from 1993 until 1997 and an animated series from 1996 until 2000. Not to mention his younger self, Superboy was the star of a live action show that ran from 1988 until 1992. Aside from his death at the hands of Doomsday in 1993, which made international headlines and made non-comic book readers freak out enough to actually go pick up a comic book, by the time I entered public school in 1994, despite Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman being on TV, my classmates were too focused on the upcoming release of Batman Forever, season 2 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and The Lion King to pay any attention to Superman. Same goes for Spider-Man. Kids were engrossed with the X-Men to pay attention when Spider-Man: The Animated Series debuted on Fox Kids in November of 1994. What does that have to do with the current status of pop culture and geek culture? Easy. It has EVERYTHING to do with it. For example.

 Superman & Lois debuted on February 23rd, 2021, with some attention to it, for being a fun Superman show, something we hadn't had since...well, since ever as Smallville was a Clark Kent show and Lois & Clark focused more on the Lois and Clark side of things rather than the Superman side of things. Which means that we haven't had a straight up Superman show in live action since Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves, ended in 1956. But that's it. While the show trends on Twitter every week, when it airs, hardly anybody is talking about it. Like I'm not being inundated with spoilers each week on Twitter, Facebook, or even YouTube.

On the flipside of that though, the first episode of Loki dropped on Disney+ this morning. However, it started trending yesterday afternoon because early reviews started coming in. But the show hadn't even dropped yet, and people were already talking about it!!! Which I just don't get. How can anyone be in love with a show or movie when it hadn't even come out yet? Maybe it's because I'm almost 35 years old and while I want to be excited for shows like Loki, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and whatever the next Arrowverse/DC Comics based TV show is going to be, especially since Supergirl is wrapping up, my constant disappointment lately with new shows and movies being not quite for me, aside for certain shows like Superman & Lois, and The Hardy Boys, I'm finding it more and more difficult to get excited about the shows and movies that I should be excited for.

Aaron and I have this argument all the time. Usually when he's telling me about some Science Fiction series or movie that came out in the 70s or 80s that I've never heard of before, but apparently was massively popular at the time it came out. Most of the time I end up thinking that the show or movie in question was liked by a solid, devoted fanbase. But just because something is liked by people, doesn't mean it's massively popular. Every piece of entertainment has it's fans.  For example, Horror is such a huge literary genre thanks to early pioneers like George A. Romero and Stephen King, but it's not appealing to everyone. Hell, I'd say it's not even as accessible to everyone, given how disturbing books and movies in this genre tend to be. 

Going back to superhero and comic book based shows, while WandaVision and Loki were highly anticipated, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier kinda just came and went quietly. It only trended on Twitter once, and that was the week the first episode dropped. And it mostly trended because of the reveal of John Walker in the Captain America suit at the end of the episode. Otherwise, I didn't see very much about it week to week. Which made it safe for me to wait until Friday nights to watch it instead of rushing to put on the episode right after breakfast to avoid all the spoilers like I've been doing with The Mandalorian since 2019.

 Back in 2013 Walt Disney Animation Studios released Frozen. Nobody was prepared for it, nobody had asked for it, but they'd released it because they'd wanted to do a movie based on Hans Christian Anderson's story, The Snow Queen, probably since Walt was alive. The movie blew up. It was bigger than any of the animated movies that Disney had put out in the early to mid-90s. It was bigger than Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King combined. And not only was it this huge pop culture phenomenon that put Disney Animation back in the spotlight, where it hadn't really been since the 90s, but it stayed a pop culture phenomenon until 2016 at the latest. Long after it's debut on DVD and Blu-ray.

Fast forward nearly a decade to this year when Raya and the Last Dragon came out back in March. It came and went with so little fanfare. Even when it went into general release on Disney+ last week, it came and went very quickly. As you know from my review of the movie, I loved it. But outside of the Animation fan community, it garnered very little attention in pop culture. Is it because it wasn't a Disney musical like Frozen is, and focused more on adventure, character development and world building much like The Rescuers, The Rescuers Down Under, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, and Big Hero 6 did? Or is it because a number of animated movies came out in March and people just didn't want to pay an extra $30 for the Premier Access of the movie, especially in countries where movie theatres still aren't open yet? There's no real way of knowing to be honest. I will say that people seem to think that Raya and the Last Dragon was a failure because it wasn't popular like Frozen or any of the movies from the early to mid-90s. That's simply isn't the case, I don't think. And it certainly isn't the case in Disney's eyes. Which leads me to the wildest speculation.

Do box office numbers and ratings not matter anymore when it comes to how popular a TV show or movie is? Is trending on social media more important? As I've said in this post already, it seems like the more often a movie or show is trending on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, the more popular it is right? Yes and no. I mean in terms of movies, they have to make money regardless of how much people like them, so how they make money isn't as important, especially in this day and age, as long as they make money.

So to get back to the question that is the title of this post, where does geek culture end and pop culture begin? Honestly, there isn't really a dividing line, because sometimes geek culture can become pop culture, depending on how well it's received by audiences. Also, it can be a subjective thing too, because one person isn't necessarily going to like what other people like, and sometimes someone will like a movie or show or comic or book or whatever it is that other people don't like. So it really just depends on a person's individual tastes. 

I think that's going to be it for me for now. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of the first episode of Loki. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.