Popular culture in historical times

[alice]

Dammit, this should have gone into the "Conlangery" forum.

This is a good subject for making your conworlds seem more alive. Consider the following remark, which one might use to assert one's presumed sociocultural superiority over another:

Why do you X Y? That is so lame! Anyone with any credibility X's Z! Everybody knows that!

A contemporary example has X = "listen to", Y = a popular musical artist, Z = a less popular but more 'credible' musical artist.

What would have been an equivalent in (for example) Roman imperial times, the Middle Ages, Elizabethan London, or Georgian London when consumerism had started to become common among the middle classes? I imagine one Roman one might have X = "follow, support" and Y and Z = two of the chariot-racing teams, where the relative successes of Y and Z have particular and possibly very sensitive connotations.

Or, in shorter form: what would be typical popular-cultural reference points?

[zompist]

I think pop culture is the offspring of printing and broadcasting. That isn't to say that there wasn't popular art, but the logistics weren't great for supporting the sort of fandom and snobbery you're describing. It's hard to say that everybody should see X when X is limited to certain playhouses or taverns or whatever.

You can find it, of course, in elite art (and elite art is pretty much all we have from all premodern cultures). Making fun of other people's tastes is an ancient pastime.

And of course there could be regional prejudices. One of the few jokes in the New Testament is Nathanael's reaction when his friends tell him the Messiah has been found in Nazareth: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

[fusijui]

"No popular culture before you have a populace," to very slightly rephrase something I was told as a child.

[sasasha]

A response re Elizabethan London off the top of my head that could no doubt be better researched...

I’m pretty sure there were rivalries between theatre troupes, though not sure about partisan loyalty to one or another.

From the POV of zomp’s metric, they had a pretty large reach ‒ in some theatres they played to hundreds at a time, both rich and poor, and played frequently. You could get through quite a bit of London at that rate.

Thinking about pastimes mentioned in Shakespeare plays and contemporary madrigals, normal(-ish) folk seemed to play outdoor strategy games such as (the big version of) nine men’s morris, and barley-break ‒ which became a euphemism along the lines of rolling in the hay. Aristocrats and royals, on the other hand, played games that required specialist premises (which weren’t just a field that you could modify quickly with a spade) e.g. tennis; by the time of James I London had 14 tennis courts (rather different from that of lawn tennis) and tennis comes up a surprising amount in the history of the era as there was what arguably amounts to a craze for it amongst the nobility. There’s also the apocryphal story about Sir Francis Drake being interrupted during his game of lawn bowls by the sightings of the Armada, and declaring there was time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards.

So there’s a bit of an obvious split with noble sporting culture = games with specialised courts and lawns, common sporting culture = games in muddy fields. And theatre was for everyone ‒ but what kind of theatre?

Shakespeare plays were sometimes ridiculed by contemporaries for not containing a lot of Latin. Of course that’s one reason they became so popular ‒ but you can imagine partisan lines being drawn around such factors.

I think fashion was another highly significant cultural battleground.

And then there’s religion! I reckon partisan attitudes to religion (that permeated all levels of society, many cultural spheres e.g. music, and produced staunch factions) were the Elizabethans’ best answer to modern pop-culture.

[hwhatting]

I think pop culture is the offspring of printing and broadcasting. That isn't to say that there wasn't popular art, but the logistics weren't great for supporting the sort of fandom and snobbery you're describing. It's hard to say that everybody should see X when X is limited to certain playhouses or taverns or whatever.

You can find it, of course, in elite art (and elite art is pretty much all we have from all premodern cultures). Making fun of other people's tastes is an ancient pastime.

Well. in the big cities of antiquity you had the masses and the mass entertainment needed for popular culture - chariot racing (Contantinople was known for the fierce rivalry between fans of different teams, which could lead to fights between their supporters spilling over into city-wide riots), there were famous gladiators, and playwrights and actors were celebrities (one source we know this from is the Church fathers fulminating against them). All that was more local than today, although the names of celebrities from a capital like Rome would probably also be known in the provinces, even if people wouldn't be able to see them perform.

[jcb]

What would have been an equivalent in (for example) Roman imperial times, the Middle Ages, Elizabethan London, or Georgian London when consumerism had started to become common among the middle classes? I imagine one Roman one might have X = "follow, support" and Y and Z = two of the chariot-racing teams, where the relative successes of Y and Z have particular and possibly very sensitive connotations.

Or, in shorter form: what would be typical popular-cultural reference points?

What about spoken traditions? I read the Ancient Greek "Argonautica" recently, and the protagonist Jason convinces many other men who are heroes in their own right with their own stories (such as Hercules and Theseus) to join his adventure to find the golden fleece.

It's basically the ancient Greek equivalent of a modern Marvel superhero crossover movie. It implies that the average Ancient Greek knew who these characters were without much introduction, in the same way that average modern American knows who Spiderman is.

[Raphael]

What about spoken traditions? I read the Ancient Greek "Argonautica" recently, and the protagonist Jason convinces many other men who are heroes in their own right with their own stories (such as Hercules and Theseus) to join his adventure to find the golden fleece.

It's basically the ancient Greek equivalent of a modern Marvel superhero crossover movie. It implies that the average Ancient Greek knew who these characters were without much introduction, in the same way that average modern American knows who Spiderman is.

Good catch!

[alice]

(some stuff)

What about spoken traditions? I read the Ancient Greek "Argonautica" recently, and the protagonist Jason convinces many other men who are heroes in their own right with their own stories (such as Hercules and Theseus) to join his adventure to find the golden fleece.

It's basically the ancient Greek equivalent of a modern Marvel superhero crossover movie. It implies that the average Ancient Greek knew who these characters were without much introduction, in the same way that average modern American knows who Spiderman is.

Interesting. Are the any records of one ancient Greek teasing another for saying that Hercules was better than Theseus, for example, when it's obvious to anybody with half a brain that of course Theseus pwns all others?

[jcb]

(some stuff)

What about spoken traditions? I read the Ancient Greek "Argonautica" recently, and the protagonist Jason convinces many other men who are heroes in their own right with their own stories (such as Hercules and Theseus) to join his adventure to find the golden fleece.

It's basically the ancient Greek equivalent of a modern Marvel superhero crossover movie. It implies that the average Ancient Greek knew who these characters were without much introduction, in the same way that average modern American knows who Spiderman is.

Interesting. Are the any records of one ancient Greek teasing another for saying that Hercules was better than Theseus, for example, when it's obvious to anybody with half a brain that of course Theseus pwns all others?

Well, different versions don't even fully agree who was an argonaut. I suppose you could count how often a hero was included across various versions as a rough estimate of their popularity, in which case, if going by Wikipedia, Hercules beats Theseus, 7 to 3.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts ... ew_of_Argo

Edit: As Rotting Bones said, Hercules was renowned for his extraordinary strength beyond that of all men, so everybody would probably agree that he would win in a fight, but a popularity contest is a different question.

[rotting bones]

Medieval Bengal had a folk music tradition called Kavigan. It was something like rap battles or flyting. Insults were delivered, but the medium had to be devotional songs, and the contest was mainly supposed to be about the quality of the performance. Singers had to have studied the Hindu scriptures. There were famous performers like Bhola Moira. The discrimination faced by a non-Hindu who became a Kavigan singer is the subject of a classic Bengali musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep5VBZr0xOA (Disclaimer: The subs don't look accurate.)

[jcb]

Another thought about Greek mythology: Like any modern pop culture fantasy world, it's full of reboots (alternate versions of stories about characters that people already know and love), and narrative complexity that eventually creates contradictions in the timeline:
- https://youtu.be/iiFmRLc4FdQ?si=hrvzNZ-klhGdoU_W&t=159
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFnGjyPYxjM

Even better known is the Bible (essentially Hebrew mythology), which is also infamously full of alternate and often incompatible stories, because of how it was stitched together from multiple sources by different authors:
- https://youtu.be/wi1vuwGnKxI?si=mOqaTMpL3PgM6l1a&t=175

[rotting bones]

Interesting. Are the any records of one ancient Greek teasing another for saying that Hercules was better than Theseus, for example, when it's obvious to anybody with half a brain that of course Theseus pwns all others?

Does this stuff count? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ije2WDJttrc From what I remember:

• The gods beat mortals. Over and over in the Metamorphoses, like in the myth of Arachne: https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph6.htm
• The heros beat the commoners. IIRC in the Iliad, one Greek soldier says the rulers are oppressing them or something sensible like that. A hero bonks him on the head. A tear rolls down his eye, and everyone laughs at him. By the way, do you remember how the heros talk in the Iliad?
  

  But the son of Peleus again began railing at the son of Atreus, for he was still in a rage. “Wine-bibber,” he cried, “with the face of a dog and the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the host in fight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this as you do death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes from any man who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you are king over a feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward you would insult no man. Therefore I say, and swear it with a great oath—nay, by this my sceptre which shalt sprout neither leaf nor shoot, nor bud anew from the day on which it left its parent stem upon the mountains—for the axe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the sons of the Achaeans bear it as judges and guardians of the decrees of heaven—so surely and solemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall look fondly for Achilles and shall not find him. In the day of your distress, when your men fall dying by the murderous hand of Hector, you shall not know how to help them, and shall rend your heart with rage for the hour when you offered insult to the bravest of the Achaeans.”

• Generally, Herakles is tougher than the other heros.

[rotting bones]

The gods beat mortals.

However, the hero Diomedes beats Ares in the Iliad IIRC.