Category talk:Topics in popular culture/Archive 1

See also Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles, Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles and Wikipedia:Trivia.

The purpose of this category

The secretly true purpose of this category of articles, of all of these articles, is to keep trivial garbage out of their main articles. Take any well visited article, which we'll call fooo, and before long it will begin to amass a long section of useless crappy trivia. No matter how much effort you put into removing the trivia, it keeps coming back. So you create fooo in popular culture, move all the trivia there, and suddenly the main article is bright and shining and free, while the "in popular culture" article contains all the useless info about Simpsons and videogames references. --Xyzzyplugh 17:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

You got it! Did you know this category was once mentioned in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? –Outʀiggʀ 20:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I love this discussion. So true. I'm a veteran of minor "edit battle" at Orang utan. The solution was a seperate article.Merbabu 03:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Let the pop culture accumulate long enough and you might buff it up into a featured list: Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc. Durova 21:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Is creating separate articles really the solution? If they are garbage and unencyclopedic as parts of larger articles, then surely they are just as useless on their own? And when they are no longer part of their main articles, they will typically not be monitored as closely anymore, and more and more trivial elements get added until you get some really long and hopeless "articles".

I really think we need a guideline regarding these "in popular culture" articles and sections. Clearly, not every topic X should have an "X in popular culture" section or article. But for many subjects, such a section/article is justified. The trouble is, as long as they are made in this list-form, it is way too easy to just add trivial points to them. A text on the general impact of the subject in question would be far better. What about a requirement that someone has actually written something about the cultural impact of the topic in question? Dr bab 06:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• As a note of interest, there is currently a (second) AfD for List of references to Lost in popular culture which may be impact similar discussions about articles in this category.--Leflyman^Talk 05:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Music in popular culture

Should musical groups and pieces that are referenced in popular culture (Rush in popular culture, The Planets in popular culture, etc.) be seperated into a sub-category for connvinence? Or perhaps more generally, should "In popular culture" be given a larger number of sub-categories? 66.24.236.62 23:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say yes to the music groups and pieces. Newly added: The Beatles' influence on popular culture. Pavel Vozenilek 11:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Beatles I can see, as they geniunely had a real impact on popular culture. Rush? The Planets? (Who the heck are even The Planets?) Most of these just need a good deleting, as they are substandard for even articles of this type. DreamGuy 22:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, Holst... boy that's a screwed up title... and not a very good article. Just trivia. DreamGuy 22:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Lists or articles

Most of these items are hardly encyclopedia articles but ad hoc unsystematic lists of american tv and film grabs - is anyone going to do an overview article or even attempt to take it out of some of the most problematic set of articles in wikipedia? featured list? hardly. SatuSuro 02:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem isn't that featured articles on the topics can't be made (and some have) it's just that the quality of editor most interested in this stuff is some 12 year old (or adult with like skills) who has no business editing an encyclopedia and who feels like whatever bit of disconnected trivia he can come up with should be listed. Until the good editors outnumber the bad ones and can smack down the bad ones, the best we can do is to move the nonsense off into another article. DreamGuy 22:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to delete all "In popular culture" cats and articles

I question the legitimacy and effectiveness of the entire Category:In popular culture and related subcats and articles contained therein. Having read the rationale above for the existence of this cat and related articles I think this The Wrong Way to go about removing uncyclopedic content, because these cats legitimise the existence of trivia, and are currently creating a string of Cfd debates. The creation and existence of this cat is verging on WP:Point.

Popular culture is seen as different to High culture. High culture is seen as involving literature, art and film, and popular culture is seen as pop music, fashion, comics and - again - film. So there is a blurry distinction in the very naming of the cats and articles, opening up potential disputes. With Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_1#Category:Wolves_in_popular_culture there is the question that does a mention of a wolf in one particular film constitute pop culture or high culture. Is Teen Wolf considered pop culture, while The Company of Wolves is considered high culture - and what about Dances with Wolves - would that appear in both categories? And in this section - Popular culture#Contested definitions of Popular culture - there is revealed some dispute about the very definitions of pop culture, thus revealing that the cats are already based on dispute and contention. Also, I dont see a Category:In high culture which might indicate a systemic bias.

This entire project is unstable, unsound and uncyclopedic. I propose that rather than the piecemeal debates and deletions that are currently taking place, that we rid Wikipedia of them all in one go. I am suggesting that this main cat, all the subcats and all the articles contained inside that contain the title "in popular culture" be proposed for removal. SilkTork 14:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Each "in popular culture" article needs to be judged on its own terms. Albinism in popular culture, for example, is a fairly stand-up article. Please also keep in mind that popular culture is a legitimate field of academic study. Ichormosquito 14:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Category cleanup needed

This category should really only contain articles that end with "in popular culture" "in fiction" or start with "Cultural depections of", or some variation of those. There are many things in this category that would fit much better in Category:Popular culture or one of it's subcategories. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 03:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)