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:
someone said, or perhaps wrote:
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?
*I* used to be a front high unrounded vowel. *You* are just an accidental diphthong.
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?"
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.
zompist wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 6:08 pm
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.
alice wrote:
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.
jcb wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 2:41 am
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.
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?
*I* used to be a front high unrounded vowel. *You* are just an accidental diphthong.
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.
Last edited by jcb on Sat Mar 22, 2025 6:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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.)
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
Last edited by jcb on Sat Mar 22, 2025 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
alice wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 3:40 pm
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?
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.
isn't mythology just... pop culture but with inferior IT ?
i don't think there's a very strong divide between mythology and popular culture. sure, sure, we mean different things by them, but are they really that different? i've always been kind of oblivious about pop culture, both western in general and chilean. sure, i know very famous people by name... i know there's a bunch of kardashians with alliterative names, i know kanye's kind of a nazi, i know karol dance came from some reality show or other, but i don't follow the stories. but there are stories, there is a following to these people, just like there was with premodern famous people... the buddha, jesus, that guy mani from the middle east... famous poets and philosophers and stories about them, some fake and some true of course. There's also famous songs everyone knows in the premodern world and amongst premodern peoples, we just know very few of them... the most spreadout, probably, but there's bound to have been people in 14th century bohemia talking about did you listen to Henry von Skalitz's latest song? it was scandalous! i know, and he's courting the daughter of the old master of the mint, no less.
and there has to absolutely have been annoying, extremely dedicated fans of painters, writers, sculptors, people getting into fights over Aristophane's last play or whatever, and how the fact that these dreadful gothic pointy things are barbaric departures from proper romanic architecture, and how that meant the woke, or the jews, or whoever, were getting their way with the monarch. it's just writing was too time-consuming and expensive for a lot of people to document the minutiae of the gamergates and the will smiths slapping the chris rocks.... unless they got really heated, i guess?
pop culture's kind of a snaky subject: but don't we mean something like, to use dreadful influencer talk, the media most people consume? if we consider live performances media, and we must, and probably even if we don't there was media before broadcasting, just... less of it? but there's paintings with distinct styles and musical themes and stories people told over and over again... we just call it folklore
Torco wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:06 pm
and there has to absolutely have been annoying, extremely dedicated fans of painters, writers, sculptors, people getting into fights over Aristophane's last play or whatever, and how the fact that these dreadful gothic pointy things are barbaric departures from proper romanic architecture, [...]
Of course there were arguments, but was that popular culture? All those arguments were among the educated elite. And yeah, not all of them were worth saving, but there are exceptions: we have quite a lot of Cicero's complaints, for instance, and infighting between pre-imperial Chinese sages.
We're probably on firmer ground with gladiators and other athletes, as hwhatting pointed out.
There's plenty of folklore, but before printing, popular songs and stories were usually anonymous, and subject to heavy revising or re-creation by the performer.
That's what I mean. When it comes to the past, we generally hear about the culture, popular or otherwise, or people who leave writing behind, so it's like with exoplanet detections: there's more non-hot-jupiters than our available data would suggest. Authorship would somewhat dilute in oral cultures, but we have examples of low authorship environments creating things much like smaller popular cultures... for example, memes.
I have trouble believing that the insult contests people had around the world was a highbrow entertainment. Isn't the highbrowness an excuse to stir up the equivalent of internet drama? Wikipedia says Kavigan originated with the rise of a middle class.
In India, I know that everyone in the village who could afford it attended traveling plays and recitations of epics.
In the past, normal life was so boring that people saw religious worship as a form of entertainment. The availability of entertainment is the reason why irreligion is growing.
My impression is that large scale public athletic matches were specifically a Greek and Roman thing. I suspect that in most other places, famous dancers and prostitutes had more of an influence on mass culture.
rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 7:55 pm
My impression is that large scale public athletic matches were specifically a Greek and Roman thing. I suspect that in most other places, famous dancers and prostitutes had more of an influence on mass culture.
Horse races were also popular in nomadic cultures like among the Arabs (there, also camel races) and the Mongols; in those cases, it was the mounts and their owners that were celebrated, not the jockeys.
hwhatting wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 8:43 am
Horse races were also popular in nomadic cultures like among the Arabs (there, also camel races) and the Mongols; in those cases, it was the mounts and their owners that were celebrated, not the jockeys.
Interesting. How large scale was it? I know Bedouins raced horses and camels, but I don't know if I'd describe tribal entertainments as mass culture. In Europe, there were jousts. In the Indo-Persian sphere, wrestling existed. Martial arts in widely varying degrees of practicality were practiced in China and Japan. The public sometimes attended these events, but I have doubts about the scale of public involvement compared to gladiator fights.
