<p>Is popular culture the strongest influence on a young persons identity?</p>
<p>The strongest influence on a young persons identity is the persons parents, rather than popular culture. Popular culture plays a significant role on a young persons identity, but is not the strongest factor.
During adolescence, teenagers try different clothes, different looks, different tones. What they are actually trying are various identities. During this period of time, teenagers shift from style to style, from accent to accent, in an attempt to determine the bets identity, the one identity that is theirs uniquely. The choice of identities is influenced by the outside world, by popular culture and fashion, and by ones own parents. No doubt, teenagers will mimic their role models and, probably, famous celebrities, and it is exactly this reason that parents, rather than popular culture, assume the most significant role.
Before adulthood, people take their parents as the best, as role models and, therefore, will try to take on a similar identity. Children are seen trying on their parents clothes, adjusting their tone to the same pitch as their fathers and copying their parents walking styles. Why? They are wearing their parents identity because they believe it is the best. This effect is magnified throughout the course of ones childhood, the 18 years one spends under the guidance of ones parents shapes one like ones parents and multiplies the awe one has bout ones parents.
An old Chinese idiom reads: There is a parent and a parents son. The idiom encapsulates the striking accordance between a parent and his son. It is more than the genetic basis that plays a role in the similarity. It is ultimately the role of a role model that a parent plays that drastically alters the childs identity into an almost consummate replica. When a child seeks his own identity, he turns to his role mode, his parent, for a guideline and sets about conforming himself to it. From such a perspective, parents have the strongest influence on a young persons identity.
Popular culture can act as a role model but when compared with ones parents, parents prevail. Children adjust themselves to suit their parents which determine parents as the key factor in a young persons identity.</p>