December 15, 2014

EP. 57 — How the PG-13 Rating Took Over the World

No matter how cool, young or hip you are, eventually the world of mass media will leave your increasingly-saggy ass behind. Recently, the YouTube channel of PewDiePie, a Swedish video game commenter, became the most viewed YouTube channel in history with over 6.6 billion views. The Wall Street Journal cites that PewDiePie makes around $4 million a year from ads sold on his YouTube account. In the Cracked offices, this feat was met with responses like, “what the hell is PewDiePie,” “I’ve lost faith in society,” and, “I have no idea what any of those words mean.” We’re old — not ‘discounts at The Sizzler’ old, but old enough that we’re no longer the gatekeepers of popular culture.

Tragically (for us) and normally (for everyone else), pop culture is moving faster than ever: YouTubers are making millions; things that some of us were too old for originally, like Power Rangers, are being rebooted; and 13-year-olds seem to have legitimate grounds to bemoan “kids these days.”

This week on the podcast, Cracked editors Jack O’Brien, Jason Pargin (aka David Wong), Soren Bowie, and Tom Reimann discuss the specific areas of pop culture that seem to have left them behind.

 

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace and R&R Games. Use the code CRACKED at checkout for some great savings!

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Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/