DoDoes pop culture manipulate your mind and tell you what to listen to and what to wear in pop culture? That is the question that has been on my mind for ages now. I now share with you my shocking truth.

The other day, I was in the car, listening to NY's top most listened radio station, z100. After "Bleeding Love" ended, "Shake It" by Metro Station started to play. My heart froze. Now Metro Station in pouring into pop culture. On the ride home, my heart was still in shock.

Monday in school, my friend was looking through her songs on her iPhone using the album cover flow thing. I see Metro Station's album cover on there. I steal her phone and check that song, and it's "Shake It"! I asked her when did you start liking that song? She replied, "I heard it on z100 and fell in love."

I argued back. "But I showed you that song months ago, and you hated it!" She gave me a face.

"It wasn't my kind of music then." But the truth is, it was. Every song on her iPhone was songs that were either on iTunes top 10, or were on z100, being played over and over and over again. I shook my head, and the bell rang for lunch, and I left.

The truth is, radio stations and music shows like TRL manipulate our minds into thinking this kind of music is the right music to listen to. If they told us to listen to rap one day and tell us country is horrible, we'd believe that. If the next day they told us country music is the way to go and that rap is horrible, we'd believe that was true. If hollister told us to jump of roof tops because it was cool, half of teens would be dead.

Pop culture has a way of telling us what is cool or not. They know the way to manipulate our growing minds into thinking that if we don't have this song on our iPods, not Zunes, or if we don't have this article of clothing or we didn't go to the big sale at the mall that weekend that we are loosers. That if we didn't go out that weekend that we were uncool. Back in the 60's, being different was the way to be cool, or maybe that was the normal. Maybe being different, wasn't different at all, just different to us. Rebelling against high authorities, different to us, but was the main picture of the 60's. Today, if you rebel or you are "emo", or you dyed your hair blue or you shop at a vintage shop you are labeled uncool and social loosers. But, if pop culture told us hopping at vintage stores and dying your hair blue was the new blonde, people would go out and buy all the blue hair bottles on the shelves. Being blonde would be uncool. If they told us being "emo" is the new preppy, people would start being "emo".

What I'm saying is, pop culture can take over our minds if we let it. Don't let it. Be yourself, that's what gets you noticed in life, being a blue in a crowd of yellow.