Editor's letter.(pop culture)(Editorial)

When it comes to pop, everyone has an opinion. I remember my mother admonishing me as a kid for reading Babysitter's Club books: "Bubble gum for the brain!" she said. But then the same year scientists declared: "Bubble gum helps you concentrate!" What's a girl to think?

Popularity popping, bubbles bursting, it's no wonder that for years bubble gum and popular culture have gone hand in hand. You can chew it up without even thinking about it; it inflates; it deflates; and then it can be quickly replaced when it loses its flavor. But if it's so tasteless, why do we keep buying it in packs? As Any Warhol said, "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."

And we all love plastic; that's the point. As Eddie Van Halen observes, "The word 'pop' is simply short for popular. It means that people like it." Formal definitions of "pop" are often violent--"a blow, knock," "a short abrupt sound of explosion," "a shot with a firearm"--but certainly none of them imply vapidity. Popular culture, like bubble gum, comes in many flavors, and where one person finds blandness, another may discover stimulation. We are constantly disproving the stereotype that popular culture can't be a vehicle for provocative and compelling ideas--anyone growing up in the last couple decades can attest to their Madonna, Benetton, WNBA, and Sex and the City-laden lives. As Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, muses, "When Nike says, 'Just Do It,' that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?"

This issue of iris speaks out of our own inspiration in the bubbly infusion that titillates our minds, ...