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"While other people were out living their lives, I wasted mine watching TV, because deep down, I knew it might one day help me save the world. Plus, I would have lost my Workman's Comp if I had gone outside."
While the Cultured Badass and Wicked Cultured kill to Tchaikovsky and Wagner, and read Nietzsche on their spare time, the Pop Cultured Badass rocks out to the latest hits on their iPod and discusses their interpretation of recent movies.
They may very well engage in discussing tropes and Conversational Troping.
Contrast Cultured Badass and Wicked Cultured. Sometimes the eponymous bunny ears of a Bunny-Ears Lawyer.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Comicbooks
Film
- Bill from Kill Bill, who seems to be a fan of Star Trek and Silver Age comics.
- Nicholas Cage's Ghost Rider really enjoyed the music of the Carpenters. And jelly beans.
- Abigail Whistler from Blade: Trinity, who was listening to trip hop while kicking ass. Kind of counterlogical too. Why would you want to cut off one of your main senses while wading into melee combat?
- Also something of an Informed Attribute. While we're told she likes to listen to her playlist in battle, she's never actually wearing the earbuds when we see her fight.
- Crimson Tide: Lt. Commander Ron Hunter has the balls to stare down a Naval captain and his backers who insist on launching an unconfirmed preemptive nuclear strike. He's also got time to talk the Silver Surfer and Star Trek.
- Pulp Fiction: Vincent and Jules both frequently reference pop-culture as they do their jobs. Quentin Tarantino is famous for his eclectic, pop-culture-laden dialogue, so this extends to many of his other characters.
Literature
Live-Action TV
Truth In Television
- Naturally, this applies to every single Troper who serves frontline duty in any sort of job where violent confrontation is a real possibility.
Videogames
- Belial, the player character in Painkiller Overdose, who constantly references films and movies in his neverending series of one-liners repeated ad nauseam.
- Metal Gear: Solid Snake loves Action Movies.
- No More Heroes: Travis Touchdown, Occidental Otaku, Assassin.
- Duke Nukem is a living, breathing pop culture reference. Most of his catchphrases are directly taken from action flicks of the 80s and 90s.
- In Mass Effect 2 (the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC) it turns out Garrus and Legion are this. It doesn't get much play in the game, but then most of their activities are subject to conservation of detail (Garrus listens to pop and dance music while in combat, and Legion is a gamer nerd in his spare time).
- Joker also frequently throws out pop-culture references and the occasional Fandom Nod. It helps he's voiced by Seth Green.
- The Citadel DLC for 3 reveals that Tali's romance lines are lifted almost entirely from her favorite movie, which she was unaware Shepard hadn't seen.
- Zoey in Left for Dead knows just how to handle the Zombie Apocalypse because of her love for horror movies. May overlap with I Know Mortal Kombat.
- BlazBlue has this a lot, being a Trope Overdosed parody/Reconstruction of anime and Japanese fighting games. The most notable ones are Hazama, Makoto, and Taokaka.
- Similarly, Skullgirls's majority of shout-outs come from Peacock, a walking, talking, killing throwback to the Golden Age Of Animation. She looks like something out of a deranged Merrie Melodies cartoon. She's actually a small-scale Reality Warper, and her love of classic animation has her manifest the power as a gang of cartoonish cronies, and various powers based on old cartoons.
- The protagonist of Far Cry 3, Jason Brody, makes a number of references to various media. Vaas is also an example of this trope.
*finds a briefcase with the Abstergo logo on it* "That symbol looks familiar..."
*entering silo* "You know, I could really use a portal right about now."
- Francis York Morgan of Deadly Premonition. At his introduction, he's discussing the subtext of Tom And Jerry.
Webcomics
- In Opplopolis the mysterious spy/mercenary (or something) Moon turns out to be an expert at the NES game Contra
 .
- Justin of El Goonish Shive is moving in this direction now that he has the badass part down. He works in a comic book shop, and has all of the interests that his job implies.
- Jareth in Roommates is a Pop Cultured Hidden Badass, he can be cool if he wants to, is the most powerful of the main cast, and is really into internet culture memes and fandoms. He referenced the Rules of the Internet (intentionally badly), used Fan Nicknames, and also countered in a game Super Hero with Nyan Cat.
- Most of the kids/trolls from Homestuck qualify for this. References made include, but aren't limited to: Ghostbusters,Juggalos,Betty Crocker, Phoenix Wright, Indiana Jones, Short Circuit, Iron Man, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Super Mario Bros.,Lord of the Rings, etc.
Web Originals
- Crazy Awesome Generator (Jade Sinclair) from the Whateley Universe, who is a Hello Kitty addict and has been known to sing J-Pop anime theme songs. In public.
- Generator has built herself a working Raising Heart (of Lyrical Nanoha fame) and has a Nanoha costume in her purse of holding.
- Chaka would have to count too, since she's the team Deadpan Snarker and once beat up a CIA team while listening to Macy Gray (she was out for a jog).
- Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the Protectors of the Plot Continuum are protecting a pop culture universe. They need to be up on the canon; it's their job.
- Most of the reviewers for Channel Awesome are this. It's naturally a part of their jobs to be up to date on pop culture, and they all can kick ass when the need arises.
Western Animation
- The Venture Brothers: 21 was already pop culture savvy by the first three seasons, but by Season 4, he became a pumped up pop culture badass.
- Beast Boy from Teen Titans uses his pop culture knowledge of (fictitious) television shows in order to save the day.
- When Dr. Drakken accidentally sucked everyone into television reality, Ron was able to navigate the reality with his extensive knowledge of shows and their subsequent timeslots.
- Philip J. Fry from Futurama who frequently drops pop culture references and does incredibly badass things... all the while, screaming like a little girl.
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