In Popular Culture
This American Life was referenced in the television series The O.C., prompting the character Summer to respond, "Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are?" and, with a dismissive snort, "Gawd!" This reference was itself repeated in a segment of the 2007 Live Tour episode, when Glass, a self-confessed shameless fan of the teen soap opera, described his experience responding to the aforementioned line.
The Onion, a parody newspaper, published a satirical story on April 20, 2007, entitled "This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence". The average age of This American Life listeners is 47.
In 2011, comedy writer Julian Joslin (with Michael Grinspan) released a parody of This American Life entitled "This American Laugh" on YouTube, wherein a fictional Glass makes a sex tape with Fresh Air's Terry Gross. The spoof was viewed over 100,000 times in one week but was met with a cool reception by Glass himself.
Read more about this topic: This American Life
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“The poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which he may work, and which, again, may restrain his art within the due temperance. It holds him to the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice; and, in furnishing so much work done to his hand, leaves him at leisure, and in full strength for the audacities of his imagination.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The first time many women hold their tiny babies, they are apt to feel as clumsy and incompetent as any man. The difference is that our culture tells them they’re not supposed to feel that way. Our culture assumes that they will quickly learn how to be a mother, and that assumption rubs off on most women—so they learn.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)