No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The tendency for alien civilizations (and sometimes futuristic human civilizations) to be portrayed as having no native analog of contemporary popular culture, even when it would make sense for an advanced planetary or interplanetary civilization to have some kind of mass media. Sometimes this can be due to The Law of Conservation of Detail, but frequently these cultures are exquisitely detailed: the creator of the 'verse has written a rich, deep, complex culture with its own religions and traditions... but absolutely no native equivalent of popular culture.

In practice, this means that while Klingons have their own culture complete with Proud Warrior Race Space-Jesus and Vulcans have their Proud Scholar Race Space-Socrates, there's no such thing as the alien equivalent of The Simpsons or The Three Stooges. These rich, detailed cultures, spread over dozens of planets and actively exploring the galaxy, seemingly have no literature that isn't ancient and part of their mythology. They have no comics, no TV shows, no films, no newspapers, no satirical essays, no novels, no pop singers; only epics, myths, legends, sacred scrolls and ancient tomes. Frequently, the entirety of an alien culture is equated with its religious mythology and traditions, completely excluding the existence of a secular mass media. This leads alien characters to interpret human popular culture along religious lines, for example when G'Kar in Babylon 5 asks if Daffy Duck is one of Garibaldi's household gods.

If an alien culture is explicitly detailed as being rooted in its theology, extremely isolated and/or controlled by an authoritarian government (and these are almost always examples of planetary monocultures, sometimes in cultural stasis), this may be justified. It is a mystery as to how a civilization can purposefully develop starships and faster-than-light communications (and presumably print, radio and the technology for visual broadcasts) without also developing, at least by accident, a mass media independent of their ancient traditions.

Sometimes it is justified by high culture being the sort of thing that gets noticed by outsiders, or that the aliens are on their best behavior when in diplomatic situations. After all, when works by one culture are translated to another on Earth they usually give a misleading picture: more people know about Homer then Aristophanes, and the Byzantines had boisterous chariot races as well as making glorious mosaics. Imagine an alien judging our culture having only knowledge of the "Great Books" of the Western Canon without Family Guy or The Simpsons, the New York Times Best Sellers List, or even the World Wide Web.

When this trope is in effect, an alien Cultural Rebel may find that when Klingon scientists get no respect, Earth becomes the general direction of interstellar brain-drain.

NOTE that this trope, common to Space Opera films and television, is usually remedied in Expanded Universe material like novels and comics which attempt to show more realistically diverse alien cultures. Also note that while this trope also covers futuristic human societies, it should not overlap with Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions, which is a separate trope. Please limit examples to aversions, subversions, and instances in which the trope is sufficiently played around with to warrant mention. Finally, note that instances in which aliens assimilate popular culture from Earth are not true aversions, but this trope being in effect is what makes Earth pop culture so irresistible to E.T. in those cases.

Sub-Trope of Aliens Never Invented the Wheel.

Aversions, Subversions, and Not-So-Straight Examples:

Anime and Manga

  • Robotech/Macross has an interesting example. There's an aversion with the future human society, since they still have pop stars and things like that (they're only Twenty Minutes Into the Future). But the invading Zentraedi don't have anything like that (although they do have a name for it in Macross: Protoculture); they are an entirely militaristic society. In fact, this becomes a plot point later on. The Zentraedi, having never been exposed to singing or anything like it, are rendered stupefied by a recording of a singing pop star. The humans actually seize on this and use it as a tactic in battle, making the pop star both a weapon and a morale booster.

Literature

  • The Glatun and the Rangora, two alien species from John Ringo's Troy Rising series, have rich pop-cultures that include popular music, trash literature, movies and so on (the Glatun even have the same sort of advertising spam we get on their computer networks). The Horvath, on the other hand, are portrayed as being unimaginative to the point that their lack of a popular culture is justified: they're simply not creative enough to have developed one.
  • The Star Trek Novel Verse tends to avert this, for all that the TV series tended to play it straight. For example, the novel A Singular Destiny features a character owning a large collection of novels and comics (or equivalent) from Klingon popular culture - most of these had been introduced in earlier novels, only to be collected together here for Continuity Porn. In the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch, a popular joke involves the crew of Defiant all reading their way through a melodramatic Klingon novel, and the same series introduced a Bajoran children's educational series, The Adventures of Lin Marna. Meanwhile, in Star Trek: Klingon Empire mention is frequently made of the Narm Charm found in the politically-charged animated installment of the "Battlecruiser Vengeance" franchise[1]. In one novel, Ezri Dax is distracted by her memories of a Trill nursery rhyme.
  • Despite taking place either on Earth or in a space military setting, the main Animorphs series manages to avert the trope, at least for the Andalites. In internal monologues Ax mentions musical forms from his homeworld (and that he hates Earth's), and that people who can morph in creative ways (making themselves into Winged Humanoids when morphing birds and so on) are bona fide performance artists.
  • In Technic History much of the series is centered on the planet Avalon which is home to a joint colony of humans and eagle-like Ythrian aliens. Most of what we see Ythrians doing among themselves is rather poetic looked at from the outside. But then just being an intelligent flying creature is rather poetic. On the other hand Ythrians often participate rather incongruously in human activities such as going to bars.
  • In The Keltiad by Patricia Kennealy, the descendants of the Atlantean Celts who had migrated to another planet have no discernible pop culture or even mass media despite their futuristic technology. The Kelts' culture is stuck in a heavily idealized pre-Christian iron age and party entertainment consists of someone playing traditional songs on the traditional harp in a way that apparently hasn't changed for thousands of years.
  • In the J. R. R. Tolkien franchise, Elves are simply elven though wood elves tell jokes and have boisterous parties. Dwarves enjoy getting drunk as well as making beautiful things. The oddest part is men who are often pictured routinely speaking in Purple Prose and acting like epic heroes when they are just men. Hobbits, who are a kind of men, are mundane all over however -- as are Bree men.
    • Orc culture consists of torturing people. Hey, a guy has to have some entertainment!

Live-Action TV

  • The colonies of Man in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica have pop music and indications of different subcultures. They also have sports, card games, nude magazines and novels that have nothing to do with the Sacred Scrolls.
    • Subverted even further in the prequel series Caprica, where various colonial subcultures (V-World, the Ha'la'tha, the Monotheists) were shown in great detail. 58 years before before the Fall, Caprican society was like our world now but on hyperdrive. Holobands were a good example of a realistic treatment of a fictional commercial application of virtual reality, though not without their critics.
  • The Minbari in Babylon 5 nearly count as a straight example, but that's because outside of the Religious Caste, we know nothing about Minbari culture. However, most of the Minbari we got to know were either Religious or Warrior Caste, so the largely unseen Worker Caste may have their own separate cultural roots. Also, Minbari humor (not specifically Religious caste humor) is said to be based around failure to attain spiritual enlightenment.
    • It's worth pointing out that because of the long standing tension between the Warrior and Religious Castes, the Warrior Caste probably didn't take things like myth and prophecy too seriously, and several episodes indicated they had a more secular outlook, though still obviously influenced by the few shared Minbari values (collectivism, sacrifice, honor) that cut across caste lines.
  • Another Babylon 5 example: the alien parents in "Believers" appear to come from a planet like this. Somewhat justified as it's specifically mentioned their planet is backward and isolated and their contact with aliens is limited. They're not even members of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation and afterwards: Klingon Opera. (And Shakespeare, best appreciated In the Original Klingon.)
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‍'‍s Ferengi are the mercantile traders of the galaxy, so naturally they come stocked with holonovels like "Vulcan Love Slave" and other gems of the 24th-Century entertainment complex. Their children also collect action figures presumably based on a popular culture franchise, Marauder Mo (TM).
    • Klingons seem to have their version of creole music, as performed by the Klingon chef in the episode "Playing God".
    • Also in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Cardassian "enigma tales" (detective stories) get mentioned a couple of times.
      • One episode also features Bashir and Garak having a debate about the virtues of the Cardassian "repetitive epic", a type of story in which the essential plot is repeated several times over in order to drive home a point. In this case, service to the state above the self, which becomes something of a theme with both characters as the show goes on.
    • In one episode, mention is made of a Breen lullaby. With nonsensical but catchy lyrics, apparently.
  • One episode of Star Trek: Voyager featured a Klingon romance novel called Women Warriors at the River of Blood.

Tabletop Games

  • In Traveller Interstellar Wars it is specifically stated that there is an aristocratic Vilani culture and a commoner Vilani culture.
    • Aslan have a fancy for decorated weapons and elaborate epics. They also have insult contests, bragging contests, and tall-tale contests. Recreational dueling (which often requires a ritual insult that the recipient pretends to be offended at) can be either an Aslan high culture or a pop culture depending on how the GM presents it. However their Proud Warrior Race ethos makes them one of the straighter examples.
    • Of the Major Races Humans, Aslan, Vargr and possibly K'kree are really the only ones to which this trope could apply. Hivers and Droyne are Starfish Aliens so it is hard to say what would be high culture and what would be pop culture among them. Among the Hivers the "topical clubs" might count as pop culture.
  • In Warhammer 40,000, there are many mentions of Imperial pop culture, including the popular if historically inaccurate holo series Attack Run and the children's song The Tracks on the Land Raider Crush the Heretics.
    • Never any mention of alien pop culture, but that's because no Imperial citizen cares what the filthy xenos do with their free time.
  • Part of the background of the role-playing game Teenagers from Outer Space is that Earth has the best pop culture in the galaxy. There may be some pop culture put out by alien races, but it's our Hat and the reason all the aliens have come to Earth.

Video Games

  • Mass Effect has some popular alien films, but most of them are relatively recent. Examples include Fleet And Flotilla and Blasto: The Jellyfish Stings (although that sounds more like a human production than a Hanar one).
  • The X-Universe averts it, although you'll miss it if you're not paying attention to flavor text on some of the Fetch Quests. Various junk carried by NPCs also points to a stealthy aversion.

Web Comics

  1. ↑ Essentially, Star Trek as made by Klingons; it has been a part of the Novel Verse since its introduction in John M. Ford's The Final Reflection
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