Consumption Of Popular Culture Research Articles

Film and the stigmatisation of ageing female sexuality: consumer commentary of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

ABSTRACT This paper presents an analysis of macro-level discourses of age, gender and sexuality in a meso-level consumer discussion from social media revealing how gender ideology and power materialise in the consumption of the 2022 film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. We respond to the call to establish ‘how fictional representations in films…can be used discursively to understand market structure and consumption experiences’. We demonstrate the enduring value of popular culture as a window into understanding consumers. By establishing that postfeminist and successful ageing discourses are appropriated to inform consumption, we contribute to the theorisation of affective marketplace exclusion by arguing that these powerful ideologies weaponise stigma to marginalise and exclude, in other words, that the symbolic consumption of popular culture informs marketplace gendered and sexual politics.

팬덤의 시대, 대중문화에서 정치까지

This study examines the attitudes and strategies of the generation that internalized fandom culture and practices during their adolescence in the 2000s to engage with Korean society as a whole. This research was conducted by analyzing prior research on how fandom works and its significance, as well as attempts to change the discourse. Fandom, which had been dismissed as star-obsessed individuals began to be recognized as an organized consumption entity and subcultural groups that combined and created various cultural significances since the mid-1990s. This made academics take interested in fandom. Once defined as a form of adolescent peer culture or popular culture consumption, fandom gradually evolved into a life-course practice. Studies have revealed that the fandom experience of creating and maintaining communal relationships through subcultural practices, challenging, and conquering existing power and authority, plays an important role in members’ lives. For them, fandom is a long-term and important reference point for identity and value. When the generation that has become adult with internalized fandom culture demands changes in across political, social, cultural, and economic domains, taking fandom’s way is a natural strategy and outcome.

DECODING INDIA’S POPULAR CULTURE. THE ROMANIAN WOMEN VIEWERS’ GAZE

Our article starts from the assumption that the ingredients of success in the case of the Indian cultural products are based on their “cultural value”. India’s value of cultural products is multidimensional and it does not strictly reside at the language level known by the public or by just part of it. Our analysis shows that the success of India’s popular culture is based on the perception of Romanian audiences of them as a cultural “mix” between the “local” (that is, Indian) elements and the appeal at a set of “global” (universal) values. More precisely, in the case of Romanian audiences for India’s cultural products (TV series) there was a validation of theories regarding the cultural hybrid motivations involved in media consumption, theories about the importance of cultural proximity in the consumption of popular culture’s products and theories emphasizing globalism and of these cultural products, making them desirable and wanted world-wide.

Editorial

This editorial contextualizes the main themes covered in the articles of this Special Issue ‘Fashioning Girlhood across the Media in the Mid-Twentieth Century’. The themes involve the real and imagined experiences of girlhood, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. The influence of Angela McRobbie on research in girls’ culture runs through many of the articles. McRobbie worked with girls’ magazines and comics to analyse how they might have impacted on girls’ consumption of popular culture. The articles in this issue analyse the significance of cross media promotion in the ways girlhood is experienced and reflected in film, fashion and stardom. The issue contains articles offering new insights about Jackie magazine, representations of the ballet body in girls comics and film, Vogue Italia covers and female Bollywood stars.

Digital Media-Driven Korean Popular Culture Consumption among First-And-A-Half Generation Korean Immigrant Children

ABSTRACT Using photo-elicitation interview (PEI), this paper demonstrates how twelve first-and-a-half generation children of Korean immigrants in the U.S. engage in digital media-driven Korean popular culture consumption, which underscores their ethnic identity formation. The result shows that frequent cultural interactions via digital media help them maintain their ethnic distinctiveness. Thus, the findings of this study support claims by segmented assimilationist scholars that adopting American ways of life and learning to identify as an American is not inevitable for all immigrants and their descendants despite their long residence in the U.S.

“Their skirts are too short!” and “He’s gay!”. Backlashes on Transnational Popular Culture Consumption in BlackPink and Bright’s Case Studies

The internet era has facilitated online streaming and social media platforms to burgeon, causing the flow of transnational pop cultures across regions and also offering diverse consumption of media content from around the globe. In Indonesia, the discussion on pop culture has often been centered on the proliferation of K-Pop's popularity among local audiences. Besides, the Boys Love (BL/Y) series from Thailand has also gained considerable interest in the last couple of years. While the consumption of K-Pop and Thailand's BL series in global mediascape is widely accepted without much controversy, incongruous feedbacks are present among Indonesian audiences, particularly pointing at the clash of ideological perspectives between its Muslim conservatives and the youth. The conservative group considers the media contents "vulgar" and "too liberal," while the latter defends them as part of contemporary youth culture and the freedom of expression. This paper then examines two study cases: Shopee's advertisement featuring the K-Pop group, BlackPink, and the case of Ruangguru's ambassador from Thailand, Bright Vachirawit. This paper uses qualitative textual analysis to focus on the two contested ideas (global versus local). The findings illustrate how BlackPink's female bodies and Bright's fluid identity as a lead actor in the BL series have been stigmatized and adjusted to become more acceptable commodities among pious audiences. This study helps to reveal the complexity of global consumption in a Muslim majority country where audiences' cultural identity construction has always been contested. Furthermore, it provides a glimpse of Indonesian society's current perspectives on gender and tolerance.

Quilts, Social Engineering, and Black Power in the Tennessee Valley

Drawing on a group of quilts created by African American women who lived in the construction villages associated with the Tennessee Valley Authority during the New Deal era, this essay asserts that these quiltmakers created modernist quilts as "home beautification," as a potential source of empowerment to the Black tva staff and their families, and as a signal to white tva administrators that Black workers had much to offer the community and nation, deserving better treatment than the federal program was providing. These women attempted to disrupt the customs and traditions of the rural South by crafting quilts with equally radical aesthetics and messages, in contrast to the typical quilts of this era, which reflect the colonial revival and popular consumer culture. By giving these quilts to white tva higher-ups, African Americans associated with the tva claimed their power and potential in the face of a segregated system funded by the federal government.

Archetypal Aspects of Visual Intertextuality in Digital Advertising

The semiotic decodification of advertising signs through a col- lective unconscious in the digital era is a reflection of previous individual consumption of popular culture. As a result, advertising is an impure image that contains preexisting replicated visual symbols. This visual intertextu- ality will be at the core of our archetypal approach in advertising. Based on Discourse Analysis research methodology, we have opted for a corpus of digital ads that not only showcase recent creativity in the field, but also witness the development of what we shall encapsulate under the syntagma of ‘the second generation of archetypes’. Our main aim is to demonstrate that the collective unconscious as described by Jung has changed since the apparition of infinitely replicated objects of representation through media. The Discourse Analysis will provide an interpretation residing in three in- tertextual thematic archetypes touching literature, politics and art.

Dancing the Butterfly: Trans-Caribbean Cultural Consumption in Special Period Cuba

This paper takes as its starting point memories of an encounter which saw a Jamaican dancehall queen perform on a locally produced television show in Santiago de Cuba at the height of the Special Period economic crisis. I propose that this encounter was a harbinger of subsequent experiences of popular culture consumption in contemporary Cuba, while also drawing from histories of regional connection that placed Santiago de Cuba in a constellation of trans-Caribbean exchanges. The moment shows how, during the Special Period crisis, media producers sought new paths through which to navigate the technological challenges of making television amidst material shortages, and in doing so created new imaginaries of a transnational consumer culture which featured (specific and appropriate) newly built spaces of leisure and distinctive brands of consumption. The television broadcast was a consciously crafted mediation of emerging consumer cultures that at once repudiated and represented the everyday experience of Cuban society as rooted in crisis, scarcity, and socialist taste hierarchies.

A Study on the Nail Art Design of Andy Warhol's Works to Protect HUMAN NAIL DISASTER

Purpose: Today, people take care of their appearance and show their own various personalities, and even though nails are a small part of fashion, hair, makeup, and nails, They manage, care, and complete the overall style to protect their nails from nail disaster. There are many hairstyles, makeup, and fashion using pop art, but few works using nail art, and the goal of this study is to broaden the scope of nails by applying bright colors, pop culture, and repetition, the main characteristics of representative pop art artist Andy Warhol. Method: First, the theoretical background of Andy Warhol and nail art will be examined. Second, the life and features of Andy Warhol s work will be analyzed. Third, the concept and expression technique of nail art will be analyzed. Fourth, based on the above research, a nail artwork will be created utilizing Andy Warhol s work as a motif. A research method will be conducted revolving around a domestic thesis, specialized books and a pop-art nail art design will be presented by applying Andy Warhol s work. Results: Artwork 1 was drawn with the motif of Superman after Andy Warhol quit commercial design and started fine art. Unlike the previous ones, it was drawn by separating Superman s body and the word Puff and the full of smoke deliver a feeling of a great explosion. Artwork 2 is a work with a motif of Green Coca-Cola bot-tles, and several Coca-Cola, the symbol of the United States, is characterized by being arranged in the same size. Artwork 3 is a work inspired by Campbell Soup, a representative icon of popular consumer culture that anyone can purchase. Conclusion: Since nail art is an artwork in which everything must be expressed in a small part of the nail, the study found that design can be made even in a small space of the nail by applying the characteristics of Andy Warhol s work. In this attempt, nail art aims to expand the scope of nail art by increasing research on nail art design using pop art as well as nail disaster and protection.

주이상스 이론 및 아우라의 측면에서 본 문화예술 고찰

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine specific examples of popular cultural tourism products based on the concept of ''cultural theory'' and Lacan''s ''jouissance'' through examples of cultural festivals led by the public as a subject of cultural consumption. Design, data, and methodology - Everyone has a desire to pursue culture and tourism outside of everyday life. Jacques Lacan describes these inner desires and pleasures of human beings with the concept of ‘jouissance.’ Festivals in which Lacan''s concept of ''jouissance'' is well revealed include ''Day of the Dead'' in Mexico and ''Halloween Day'', a traditional Irish festival. A specific example of the enjoyment of popular culture consumption is the Jarasum Jazz Festival. Result - Through the''Day of the Dead'' and''Halloween Day'', tourists break the taboo of death and experience extreme pleasure while enjoying the joy of death. And ''Jarasum Jazz Festival'' shows the concreteness of popular culture tourism while satisfying the inner desires of tourists through musical consensus. Conclusions - Festivals that have existed for a long time have come with changes in their essential characteristics, and festivals in modern society are becoming events that embody popular culture consumption. If the public''s desire for cultural consumption is specifically reproduced, the possibility of the development of the festival is very high. The implication of this study is that cultural theory and cultural consumption issues are linked with actual festivals. On the other hand, the limitation of this study is that various festivals cannot be presented, and discussion is being conducted only in a few festivals.

Pramogų pasaulio „teatras“ kaip medijuotos visuomenės problema

The article deals with the “theater” of entertainment world as issue of mediated society. Modern Western society can be called a mediated society for a strong impact of new, global media. Under these conditions, society, culture and everyday life is increasingly interpreted using a model of theatre and theatrical metaphors. Theatre is becoming one of the key concepts of the modern Western social categories, such as the use of concepts as simulation or society of the spectacle. Regarding to the wide spread of the new – digital media, especially the Internet, in recent decades of Western society, has increased the consumption of popular culture, one might say, began the era of the entertainment world. This study – one of the first attempts to analyze the philosophical Lithuania entertainment world phenomenon: the genesis, structure, impact on society. This article analyzes the phenomenon of entertainment world: its genesis, structure, impact on society. The objective: to explore the causes and trends of mass spread of the phenomenon of entertainment world in contemporary Western culture as an integral part of a technological breakthrough result of new media. The analysis of the phenomenon of entertainment world aims to: 1) explore genesis, causes and objectives of the world of entertainment as a cultural phenomenon and to reflect critically its forms of thinking and lifestyle; 2) reveal the structure of the entertainment world in twenty-first century society of the spectacle; 3) analyze the influence of the media impact to the entertainment world.

Age of Shōjo: The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls' Magazine Fiction by Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase

Reviewed by: Age of Shōjo: The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls' Magazine Fiction by Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase Sarah Frederick (bio) Age of Shōjo: The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls' Magazine Fiction. By Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase. SUNY Press, Albany NY, 2019. xx, 203 pages. $95.00, cloth; $32.95, paper. This ambitious book provides a clear and readable narrative of the shōjo or "girl" in modern Japan, with a focus on her place in literature and print culture. Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase covers the core illustrators and authors associated with the beginnings of the shōjo around 1900 and broadens the scope of this category by providing examples that "stray outside the stereotype" (p. xiii) and show "diversity in the genre of girls' fiction" (p. xvi). Dollase reveals the agency of young women who strategically took "advantage of the social marginality of shōjo" (p. xv) to acquire "soft power" by invoking their "shōjo mentality" (p. xiv). The book exhibits excellent primary research and should be highly accessible, including for an undergraduate audience. There is extensive work in English on the shōjo, but anyone seeking a full account of the major research on shōjo cultural history and literature would do very well to start with this book by Dollase, who explores the richness of this topic. In her introduction, with concision and clarity, she sets out the various arguments from past research and gives exceptionally clear accounts of the types of definitions of shōjo that have been developed in both Japanese and English, before moving on to her own original research which offers detailed examples and analysis of girls' fiction writers. She portrays the print, cultural, and lived contexts that made space for "scribbling girls" from the 1910s and their influence across the twentieth century. Research on shōjo writing has long had an interdisciplinary quality, with scholars of literature, sociology, anthropology, visual culture, and history weighing in and usually working across multiple disciplines, while bringing their own focus to the subject. Among the many examples, we see that anthropologist Jennifer S. Prough's book on shōjo manga takes an ethnographic approach and considers elements of gender studies and manga studies; linguistic anthropologist Laura Miller considers diverse forms of girls' writing such as altering photographs and forms of script using ethnography, media analysis, and linguistics.1 In addition, coauthored pieces have [End Page 250] productively brought multiple disciplines together.2 In this book, Dollase foregrounds her training in literature but considers also the perspectives of other disciplines. Her literary studies background finds expression in her choice of subject matter, a focus on writers of girls' fiction, rather than manga, anime, or popular culture consumption. While Dollase covers a great deal of historical ground in the book, she also takes care to zoom in closely on the details of her texts. For example, along with providing in broad strokes information about the history of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women in Japan, in a fascinating section she closely compares the earliest translation (which is more of an adaptation) into Japanese with the original text (pp. 10–16). In the original, Jo March is often described in ways such as "shooting up into a woman" that focus on her development into an adult woman, in tension with her aspirations and boyish qualities. In the first Japanese translation, the equivalent character is described as not having "any maiden-like qualities" and as "like a man," with no sense that growing up will make her more compliant to gender norms. Her language such as "iya de, iya de" and "daikirai" is forcefully used to show her resistance to feminine gender qualities and expectations. Through these sorts of details, Dollase highlights the different relationships between gender and development in 1910s Japan without resorting to reductive contrasts about whether the United States or Japan is more progressive. This is one of the many places where Dollase uses careful research and attention to the texts to show the complexity of the topic and the special qualities of shōjo culture in Japan—such as how it pushed against value systems, including feminist ones, that emphasized shōjo...

Shin-Ōkubo as a feminine ‘K-pop space’: gendering the geography of consumption of K-pop in Japan

Studies of the global spread of South Korean popular culture have often neglected the role that space plays in this transnational fandom and consumer culture. Explicitly exploring the geography of Korean popular culture consumption in Japan, this article draws upon a walking ethnography of Tokyo's ‘Koreatown’ of Shin-Ōkubo and interviews with selected consumers to reveal how ‘K-pop spaces’ within Japan have become tied to young women's consumer culture. We argue that spaces of K-pop promotion and consumption within Tokyo are inherently ‘feminised’ due to their linkage to pre-established promotional strategies in consumer districts specifically targeting young women. Through an ethnography of Shin-Ōkubo and interviews with K-pop fans who regularly visit this district, we further reveal how this ‘ethnic enclave’ has been reconfigured as another ‘feminised’ consumer space that caters to particular behaviours and attitudes based in K-pop fandom. Overall, this article charts the emergence of ‘feminine’ consumer spaces in Tokyo and interrogates how the ethnic enclave of Shin-Ōkubo has transformed into a gendered space tied to Japanese K-pop fandom.

Becoming Shuri: CTE, Racializing Affect, and the Becoming‐Technologist

AbstractRacializing affect draws on Black feminist theories to extend affect theory and related poststructuralist approaches within literacy studies. The authors examined literacies via a study of affect and youth of color in career and technical education (CTE) and the reconfiguration of CTE to enable radical change in the racializing experiences of/with technologies. An information technology classroom and its spatial arrangements, plus the larger CTE school, offered a lens into how material spatial movement (mobility and dislocation) affects bodily movements (rhythm, relationality, intensity, and energy) in a rhizomatic becoming process of reconstituted racializing affect with technology. Interested in the emergent rhythms and living intensities within affect theory, the authors also drew on the movie Black Panther to further theorize affect in relation to the discussion on becoming‐technologist through the character of Shuri. This creative rendering provided a different methodological approach to reflect the authors’ own intensities as researchers and consumers of popular culture in the analysis. Together, the authors hope to shed light on CTE as an understudied educational context and to reimagine race, gender, and difference in relation to technology and literacy learning.

Framing adaptation: screen stardom and aesthetics in Tragedy of W (1984)

ABSTRACTTragedy of W (1984) is a film adaptation of a mystery novel by the author Natsuki Shizuko. However, rather than producing a straightforward, ‘page to screen’ style adaptation, the filmmakers opted to change the source material into a story-within-story, shifting the whodunnit into a stage play being performed by a theatre company. This transformation shifts the film’s narrative and aesthetic priorities away from the original story and onto its star, Yakushimaru Hiroko, which in turn requalifies the stakes of adaptation toward the goals of commercial media production in 1980s Japan. This emphasis on stardom within the mise-en-abyme mode of adaptation also generates new aesthetic concerns, such as the use of objects to crowd the edge of the frame, the treatment of stages before the camera, and the mode of performing within a performance. What emerges is an intersection of adaptation with qualities of bracketing and citation, which continuously put the film, its star, and its narrative in ‘quotation marks’ by relying on antecedent forms of meaning that connect the film to its source material, Yakushimaru’s own screen celebrity, and the wider climate of transmedia production and consumption of popular culture in 1980s Japan.

Emerging “2.5-dimensional” Culture: Character-oriented Cultural Practices and “Community of Preferences” as a New Fandom in Japan and Beyond

Emerging “2.5-dimensional” CultureCharacter-oriented Cultural Practices and “Community of Preferences” as a New Fandom in Japan and Beyond Akiko Sugawa-Shimada (bio) What is “2.5-dimension (2.5 jigen)”? In recent years, the term “2.5-dimension (ni-ten-go jigen)” has gained much attention within popular culture studies. The term “2.5 jigen” roughly means the space between the two-dimensional (fictional space where our imaginations and fantasy work) and the three-dimensional (reality where we physically exist). Within Japanese anime fandom, fans often use “two dimensions” to mean anime characters, stating, “I am only capable of loving the two-dimensional [characters] (2 jigen shika aisenai).” However, due to the growing success of cosplay and 2.5-D stage performances (theatrical adaptations of manga, anime, and videogames) since the early 2000s, the 2.5-D has begun to be used as an umbrella term to express virtuality embodied by actual human bodies as well as human bodies that look unreal, which I call “virtual corporality” (kyokô teki shintai). A magazine specializing in 2.5-D theatrical performances, Stage Push!, was published in 2014, and in 2016, the March issue of Da Vinci, Kadokawa’s entertainment magazine featuring 2.5-D, was immediately sold out.1 These magazines usually focus on 2.5-D stages under the name of “2.5 jigen.” In 2018, when NHK’s year-end traditional entertainment event, Kôhaku utagassen (Red and White Singing Festival) invited the singing group, Tôken danshi, from one of the most famous 2.5-D musicals, Musical Tôken ranbu as a guest, 2.5-D theatrical performances gained national recognition in Japan. Academic critical attention has been also drawn by some publications such as art and culture magazines Yuriika (2015, Eureka) and Bijutsu techô (2016 and 2016, The Art Handbook), featuring special issues on the 2.5-D cultural phenomenon. These magazines primarily focus on 2.5-D stages as cultural products. The Japan 2.5 Dimensional Musical Association, founded in 2014, defines 2.5-dimensional musicals as “theatrical presentations based on Japanese manga, popular animation and video games.”2 This is the typical categorization [End Page 124] of 2.5-D stages as seen from the production side for promotional purposes. However, fans use 2.5-D very differently, usually taking pleasure in realistic reproduction and reenactment of anime/manga/videogame characters (“virtual corporality”), fictional worlds, and the interaction between characters/actors and fans. As a matter of fact, 2.5-D theatrical performances are not stand-alone productions but, just like anime and manga, they have multiple episodes within a series, called a “season” (shiizun) in Japanese. For example, the first season of Musical Prince of Tennis ran from 2003 to 2010, with sixteen plays (or episodes) in which each had a run of between a few days and a few months.3 The merchandise sold during the event is one of the major motivations for fans to visit theaters. They exchange their unwanted merchandise among fans outside the theaters for their desired products, such as canned badges and photos of cast members in costumes. This exercise is called “trading,” and these venues serve as sites for fans to construct their communities of fandom. As such, if we can extend the scope from the cultural products themselves to the fans’ engagement developed through their deep commitment to character-oriented consumption of popular culture, then 2.5-D can be utilized as a means to detect wider cultural phenomenon among fans of popular cultural contents such as manga, anime, and videogames. I define the 2.5-dimensional culture as “cultural practices which reproduce the fictional space of contemporary popular cultural products (such as manga, anime, and videogames) along with the fans’ interplay between the real and fictional spaces.”4 Emerging as a cultural phenomenon in Japan in the early 2000s, 2.5-dimensional culture includes 2.5-D theatrical per-formances, cosplay, voice-actor/character concerts such as Love Live! School Idol Project (2010–), anime-induced tourism (also known as contents tourism), cheering-along version of anime movie screening (ôenjôei), and virtual YouTuber (or V-Tubers, such as Kizuna Ai). Ôenjôei...

Kultura popularna a zaangażowanie społeczno-obywatelskie młodzieży akademickiej

The huge potential of popular culture shaped and transmitted over “mass-media” and “new” media is noticed. At the same time, they are criticized due to their content and their influence on human actions and social relations. A number of social researchers refer to the submission of media to popular culture and entertainment, promoting of immaturity of the recipients and in consequences withdrawn from the public sphere. On the other hand, the popular culture is consider as a factor important for development of the human capital, the bonding social capital, individuals identity and society’s cohesion. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between popular culture and the civic engagement of youth. First, the basic assumptions of popular culture- civic engagement relations are introduced. The second section is based on the chosen findings of author’s pilot study into the field of The youth identity formation in the mobile society era (N=92). The mutual associations between the popular culture consumption of university students and their level of civic engagement are analysed. The research results show statistical significance of the positive relationship in the sample between analysed factors. The higher is level of students’ cultural participation and media consumption, the higher is level of their civic engagement. The article concludes with the explanation of those findings, which may be considered surprising in light of popular culture criticism.

Recording recorders

She stabbed him repeatedly; his knuckles drained white as he gripped the edges of his iPad; he gasped audibly, then scrambled to his feet and quickly disembarked the train. I am referring to my tube journey a few mornings ago, when I observed a fellow passenger watching the particularly horrific murder of Bill by Villanelle in an episode from the BBC hit drama, Killing Eve. My experience mediated between the on-screen visuals, the subtitles, and this passenger’s extraordinary moment-by-moment reactions. It made a truly memorable live performance, and inspired me to reflect on the performative nature of responses to audio-visual material. The ubiquity of today’s technology means that we consume TV shows, films, vlogs and music, in a range of public spaces where others around us are privy, to a greater or lesser degree, to what we are consuming. Performative consumption of popular culture is something we all engage with, perhaps unknowingly creating what I am going to call (tentatively) a new improvisatory genre of active reception.

Does Science Fiction Affect Political Fact? Yes and No: A Survey Experiment on “Killer Robots”

AbstractSome scholars suggest popular culture shapes public attitudes about foreign policy in ways that can affect real-world political outcomes, but relatively few studies test this proposition. We examine whether—and more importantly how—popular culture affects public opinion on foreign policy through a survey experiment on American attitudes toward fully autonomous weapons. We queried respondents about their consumption of popular culture—including a number of iconic science-fiction films featuring armed artificial intelligence (AI)—before or after questions about autonomous weapons. We find that science fiction “priming” exerts no independent effect on political attitudes, nor does referring to autonomous weapons as “killer robots.” However, consumption of frightening armed AI films is associated with greater opposition to autonomous weapons. This “sci-fi literacy” effect increases for the highest consumers of science fiction if they are “primed” about popular culture before reporting their attitudes—what we call the “sci-fi geek effect.” Our project advances current understanding of how popular culture affects public opinion on foreign policy and suggests avenues for further inquiry.