Popular culture is the here and now lifestyle of our generation, and the things or people within it serve as a basis for what it's all about. When things get popular people use them; and likewise, when people are popular other people look up to them. Looking more specifically at some of these people, such as sports figures, they appear to be so popular and so much better than us that they deserve special treatment and attention. Why are these sports figures perceived as such celebrities and given such treatment? How do they get to be put up on that pedestal in the first place? And do they actually deserve it? I am proposing this debate in order to see if these sports figures of today are truly that much better than us that they need to be given this high status and this special treatment by the everyday common person. With the help of John Storey's "What is Popular Culture?", Dwight MacDonald's "A Theory of Mass Culture", and Garry Whannel's "Media Sports Stars", we will try to further understand why these sports figures are what they are in today's society. Also, it will give us more insight as to if they really deserve all of the credit they get for what they do. Overall, I think it should instill a better understanding as to how sports stars as a whole should be seen in our society.
             Long before I was born there were sports stars winning over the hearts of millions and becoming even more well-known throughout the early mass media. To find the first traces of a sports star, we have to go right to the very beginning of the nineteen hundreds when there were certain things which sparked the first stars. "Just as the period between 1880 and 1914 saw the emergence of modern mass media, so it also was the period in which modern spectator sport was established and consolidated its position" (Whannel 81). When modern media finally emerged, it gave a starting po...