Pop Culture: An Introduction

By Erik Pepple
210 west Pop Culture Editor [send email]

If you are looking for big-breasted barely legal teens, click here. If you are a family member or friend, I'm sorry that you have to see that my professional life consists of writing the words 'big tittied teen sluts,' and not being paid for it.
Sorry, Grandma.

However, if you are one of the few who has stumbled upon this site because you are down with reading movie reviews or CD reviews or insightful, humorous commentary about the candy store we call popular culture, then let us tell you a little about ourselves.

As the Pop Culture section of 210 West, we are no doubt aware that there are more movie and music reviews floating around the Net than rolled up dollar bills at a David Crosby party circa 1976. That's part of the democratizing beauty of the Web -- any yahoo who sees a movie can write about it and you can choose whether you pay it any mind. It's the free market of ideas, baby! It almost makes you wish the real world was this democratized and not conglomerized, although I'm sure with the recent lessening of FCC regulation 210 West will find itself gobbled up by Conglomco and turned into a website that tells you just how awesome and totally sweet The Lizzie McGuire Movie is.

However, until then, until the sweet, sweet Conglomco money and hookers start rolling in; let's get these pesky introductions out the way.

Bearing in mind that you can get pop culture commentary anywhere, and that most of it will be interchangeable, we at 210 West would like to hope we offer you an alternative. You see, there's a lot of great, insightful writing out there, but what the very structure of the Web has created is thousands of websites about niche markets. Many websites focus on one genre or style of movies and music. Let's face it, much of the Internet is about navel gazing. It's about getting off on your kinks and loves and explaining why Matrix: Reloaded sucks because if Neo can fly, why doesn't he just get the fuck out of the way of the Smith clones during the burly brawl? And that's the last thing 210 West wants to do. If you want that, start hanging out at the Aint It Cool News boards.

The pop culture writers at 210 West realize that all art has some intrinsic value across a spectrum, and it's our job to report on it. It's not our job to tell you that you are a big assclown if you think 2 Fast 2 Furious is like, totally the best movie ever, bro! (OK, we may make an exception on that front). Our job, though, is to objectively let you know whether something is good or bad or OK or awesome or soul-suckingly vapid. This is not about trying to prove our cool or our superiority; this is about loving all that pop culture has to offer and evaluating it fairly. We are folks who know that loving the movie Booty Call is not mutually exclusive to loving the movie Citizen Kane.
Will there be snark? Well, yeah. Will there be cheap pot shots? On occasion. Will it be entertaining and insightful? We certainly hope so.

We have a lot on deck for future issues. This week, we have an interview with Dave Attell, host of Comedy Central's Insomniac. We also have movie reviews, music reviews and a column about the toll a Matrix obsession is taking on one of our writer's lives. In the future look for more interviews, movie/music/video game/comic book reviews, a feature on the Blog explosion, and departments like 'Canon Fodder' where we evaluate great -- but overlooked -- moments in popular culture. There will be a regular department called 'A Look Back in Anger,' where we take a look back at movies or records we may have hated, but now love and vice versa. There's a lot more on deck, too, and I don't want to be that guy who ruins it for everybody; you know, like those bastards who told everyone Bruce Willis was a ghost in The Sixth Sense before you got the chance to see it.

So there you have it, that's our deal. We hope you like what you see and stick around.

Now you can get back to those big tittied teen sluts.