What happened in 1863? Several British football (soccer) clubs formed an association in 1863 to standardize the rules and to organize professional leagues. Organization of the sport into a formal structure in the United Kingdom marks the transition of football from folk to popular culture.

Origin and Diffusion of Popular Sports Soccer is an example of a popular folk custom that was popularized and then globalized. The hearth of soccer is believed to be in England in the eleventh century. In the 1800s, soccer transformed from a folk custom to a popular culture.

The Spread of Soccer The European version of the sport was spread by merchants, explorers, and colonialists as they traveled the world. In many of the places where they stopped, the native people already had been playing similar games, and the two versions were combined into one.

Scholars trace the origins of the rise of popular culture to the creation of the middle class generated by the Industrial Revolution. The meaning of popular culture then began to merge with that of mass culture, consumer culture, image culture, media culture, and culture created by manufacturers for mass consumption.

Popular culture is the set of practices, beliefs, and objects that embody the most broadly shared meanings of a social system. It includes media objects, entertainment and leisure, fashion and trends, and linguistic conventions, among other things.

Pop culture informs how people make sense of the world. It reveals what society believes about itself, but it can also be used as an instrument for effecting social change.

Popular culture allows large heterogeneous masses of people to identify collectively. It serves an inclusionary role in society as it unites the masses on ideals of acceptable forms of behavior. So popular culture appeals to people because it provides opportunities for both individual happiness and communal bonding.

Nevertheless, pop culture impacts the society in both positive and negative manner. Positively, the culture has helped women and teenage girls to self-define themselves, create bonds with people of different backgrounds, increase knowledge in various subjects and realize their worth in the society.

Perhaps the most important thing that popular culture has is on how this necessarily helps in creating social change. One example is the victory of Obama in the US elections. Perhaps one of the reasons why Obama won the election is because he used the influence of many celebrities to forward his political ideologies.

Example Community Problems: Adolescent pregnancy, access to clean drinking water, child abuse and neglect, crime, domestic violence, drug use, pollution, mismanagement of resources, lack of funding for schools and services, ethnic conflict, health disparities, HIV/ AIDS, hunger, inadequate emergency services.

The 2020s (pronounced “twenty-twenties”, shortened to “the ’20s”) is the current decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 2020, and will end on December 31, 2029.

Here is a list — and timeline — of the major events that happened last year:

• Australian bushfires. Enlarge Image.
• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit royal family.
• COVID-19 pandemic.
• Kobe Bryant’s death.
• Impeachment of President Donald Trump.
• “Parasite” sweeps the Oscars.
• Harvey Weinstein verdict.
• Stock market crash 2020.

2020’s Double-Double Digits. The number 2020 is like 1616, 1717, 1818, and 1919 because the first two digits match the second two digits. This happens only once in a century, which is a hundred years.

• Australian wildfires.
• Impeachment of President Donald Trump.
• Tensions with Iran.
• Death of Kobe Bryant.
• Iowa Caucus chaos.
• Harvey Weinstein convicted.
• COVID-19 pandemic.
• Death of George Floyd.