Pop culture as shared contexts

I used to hate mainstream, thinking that if it mattered to the majority, chances are, it isn't so valuable in the end. Trends are fleeting, and people'd tire of them, their interests captured not for the value of the thing in itself, but the fact that it was attractive to many. With that in mind, I only checked things out when they're already considered laos. 

The funny thing about trends is that they're hot one moment (when you'd be taunted for not pursuing them), jologs the next (when you'd be taunted for pursuing them), but after a significant amount of time, they just turn into classic objects of nostalgia (when it's perfectly okay to pursue them). I watched this happen to Meteor Garden, The Backstreet Boys and Westlife. People even judge less now when one publicizes watching old, local, jologs movies. Heck, it's how people in my college bond these days. So I can't help wonder if the attitudes were just phases in adolescent maturity or if it cuts through all ages and social strata. Does society really work that way? Or did my peers just mature?

Trends aren't as wrong as I once deemed them to be. They actually serve some unifying purpose, if I may say. In a nation as diverse as the Philippines-- or even just between a random group of strangers-- AlDub and pabebe girls, are some sort of common ground. People who are familiar (obsessed) with these things feel a certain sense of belonging with each other, sometimes enough to break the ice. There's a feeling of community, being familiar with the same things, however trivial they may be. This effect is not an easy one to achieve, not even when necessary, so it's quite an extraordinary feat when something as simple as a kalyeserye attract nationwide (worldwide) attention. Trends aren't completely useless, I guess. The question is how to use them well.