CuLtUrE sHoCk!

an online pop culture forum

an online magazine of nonfiction writing on popular culture created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students for the worldwide reading public to enjoy.

table of contents of MIT student essays
Pirates: File Sharing on the Internet
by Becky Romatoski
Click here for the essay.

"When we think of pirates, we see scruffy men with unshaven chins, a bandana, a gold earing, a black patch on one eye, and a wooden leg, men with guns in hand, riding the seas in their wooden ship proudly flying the terrifying skull and crossbones..."

Privacy?  I Don't Think So.  He's Always Watching.
by Scott Lazaruk
Click here for the essay.

"Don’t look now. Big Brother is watching..."

I Can't Stop Raving
by Jacob Gibson
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"It was our Friday night ritual. After school, after work, after the rest of the world started to slow to a halt, we would just be getting started. With our veins pumping nothing but caffeine and sugar, we'd shed our daytime clothes for neon in-your-face t-shirts and nylon pants big enough to hold a compact car..."

College Woes
by Anonymous
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"When I was in high school, whenever I talked to anyone about college, the thing I heard most often was, 'You should be looking forward to college!  It will be one of the best times in your life...'"

Culture: The West's Biggest Export?
by Alex Donaldson
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"I spent a month over the summer of 2002 trekking in Borneo with a team of 15 other boys from my school. This was the first time that I had traveled outside England, my home, to a destination that was not geared towards hosting tourists..."

How Investing Became Cool: The Emergence of Wall Street into Popular Culture
by Jacob Gibson
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"Bankers and stockbrokers are not generally viewed as the most exciting people in the world. Traditionally, they have been viewed as those guys who are always reading the Wall Street Journal or talking on their cell phones when they're out in public; they wear the same white shirt, red tie combination every day of the week, and there's no noticeable distinction between work and the rest of their lives. Not exactly the kind of people you'd want to invite to liven up a Christmas party..."

Virtual Against the Real: Computer Graphics in Today's Entertainment
by Joseph Cheng
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"Two men stand on the rooftop. One man, dressed in a black suit and black tie, shoots a penetrating look at the other through his dark sunglasses. With a quick flick of his wrists, the man in the suit fires a handful of lethal bullets. Time slows down as the projectiles float towards their victim. The camera angle changes as the man acrobatically bends back to dodge the rippling bullets..."

Those Earlier Teen Years: Growing Up Too Fast
by Becky Romatoski
Click here for the essay.

"My little sister's all grown up now, but she's only ten years old. She looks like a teenager. She thinks like a teenager. And you could say she acts like one..."

Spinning Misconceptions: A Look Into Break Dancing
by Joseph Cheng
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"The music pounded loudly on the dance floor as people stood in a circle. Nodding my head to the beat, I stepped out and did a few dance steps before I went down to the ground. On my hands and legs, I began walking rounds to the beat, throwing in a little bit of flare to it all, as much flare as I could think of. A few moments into the step, I jumped onto my hands and twisted my legs in the air..."

La-La Land: American Ignorance
by Ryan Huang
Click here for the essay.

"We pay more attention to football teams and other sports than to trying to listen to the grievances sought by the genocide survivors of Rwanda.  We are more concerned with buying that 72-inch Sony HDTV flat screen or filling our gigantic walk-in closets with more dresses from Gucci than there are days in a year than we are with North Korea’s militarization of its economy.  We want to watch action movies all day long, eat Ben and Jerry’s ice cream right out of the half-gallon bucket, drive fancy BMW sports cars..."

World Cup and Me: One Summer's Transformation Story
by Jin Kim
Click here for the essay.

"Never in my life before have I been so proud to say that I am Korean. I call myself Korean-American, but before I used to consider myself to be more American than Korean. I live in this country, speak English, and am fully immersed in American culture. America is my home, and I am proud of that. However, the same could not be said of my Korean heritage. I was never ashamed, but neither did I feel any particular pride in it. That was the case until this summer’s World Cup 2002, co-hosted by Japan and Korea..."