History Main / NoSuchThingAsAlienPopCulture

* In ''Warhammer40K'', there are many mentions of Imperial pop culture, including the popular if historically inaccurate holo series ''Attack Run'' and the children's song ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice The Tracks on the Land Raider Crush the Heretics]]''.

In practice, this means that while [[StarTrek Klingons]] have their own culture complete with [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus Space-Jesus]] and Vulcans have their [[ProudScholarRaceGuy Proud Scholar Race Space-Socrates]], there's no alien equivalent of ''TheSimpsons'' or ''TheThreeStooges''. 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, films, newspapers, novels, pop music, fashion designers, or the like; 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 (let alone aliens who don't follow the dominant religion). This leads alien characters to interpret human popular culture along religious lines, for example when G'Kar in ''BabylonFive'' asks if DaffyDuck is one of Garibaldi's household gods.

* ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and afterwards: Klingon {{Opera}}. (And {{Shakespeare}}, best appreciated InTheOriginalKlingon.)
* ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''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).
** Also in ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Cardassian "enigma tales" (detective stories) get mentioned a couple of times.

* One episode of ''StarTrekVoyager'' featured a Klingon romance novel called ''Women Warriors at the River of Blood''.

* The Glatun and the Rangora, two alien species from JohnRingo's ''TroyRising'' 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 [[JustifiedTrope justified]]: they're simply not creative enough to have developed one.

In practice, this means that while [[StarTrek Klingons]] have their own culture complete with [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus Space-Jesus]] and Vulcans have their [[ProudScholarRaceGuy Proud Scholar Race Space-Socrates]], there's no alien equivalent of ''TheSimpsons'' or ''TheThreeStooges''. 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, films, newspapers, novels, pop music, fashion designers, or the like; 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 ''BabylonFive'' asks if DaffyDuck is one of Garibaldi's household gods.

In practice, this means that while {{StarTrek Klingons}} have their own culture complete with [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus Space-Jesus]] and Vulcans have their [[ProudScholarRaceGuy Proud Scholar Race Space-Socrates]], there's no alien equivalent of ''TheSimpsons'' or ''TheThreeStooges''. 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, films, newspapers, novels, pop music, fashion designers, or the like; 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 ''BabylonFive'' asks if DaffyDuck is one of Garibaldi's household gods.

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 TheLawOfConservationOfDetail, but frequently these cultures are exquisitely detailed: the creator of [[TheVerse 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 [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus Space-Jesus]] and Vulcans have their [[ProudScholarRaceGuy Proud Scholar Race Space-Socrates]], there's no such thing as the alien equivalent of ''TheSimpsons'' or ''TheThreeStooges''. 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 ''BabylonFive'' asks if DaffyDuck 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 [[PlanetOfHats planetary]] [[DittoAliens monocultures]], sometimes in [[MedievalStasis cultural stasis]]), this may be [[JustifiedTrope 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 did do more for entertainment than making glorious mosaics. Imagine an alien judging our culture having only knowledge of the "Great Books" of the Western Canon without ''FamilyGuy'' or ''TheSimpsons,'' the New York Times Best Sellers List, or even the World Wide Web.

* 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 [[VoluntaryShapeshifting morph]] in creative ways (making themselves into {{Winged Humanoid}}s when morphing birds and so on) are bona fide performance artists.

* The colonies of Man in the 2000's ''BattlestarGalactica'' 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.

* The Minbari in ''BabylonFive'' 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 Warrrior 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.

In practice, this means that while Klingons have their own culture complete with [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus Space-Jesus]] and Vulcans have their [[ProudScholarRaceGuy Proud Scholar Race Space-Socrates]], there's no such thing as the alien equivalent of ''TheSimpsons'' or ''TheThreeStooges''. 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 newspapers, no satirical essays, no novels; 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 ''BabylonFive'' asks if DaffyDuck is one of Garibaldi's household gods.

* The [[{{X}} X-Universe]] averts it, although you'll miss it if you're not paying attention to flavor text on some of the {{Fetch Quest}}s. Various junk carried by [=NPCs=] also points to a stealthy aversion.

NOTE that this trope, common to SpaceOpera films and television, is usually remedied in ExpandedUniverse 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 OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions, which is a separate trope. Please limit examples to aversions, subversions, and instances in which [[PlayingWithATrope the trope is sufficiently played around with to warrant mention]]. Finally, note that instances in which [[AliensStealCable aliens assimilate]] [[AlienArtsAreAppreciated 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.

[[AC: Literature]]
* The Glatun and the Rangora, two alien species from JohnRingo's ''TroyRising'' series, have rich pop-cultures that include popular music, trash literature, movies and so on (the Glatun even have the same sort of advertsing 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 [[JustifiedTrope justified]]: they're simply not creative enough to have developed one.
* The StarTrekNovelVerse tends to avert this, for all that the TV series tended to play it straight. For example, the novel ASingularDestiny 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 ContinuityPorn. In the StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch, 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 StarTrekKlingonEmpire mention is frequently made of the NarmCharm found in the politically-charged animated series "Battlecruiser Vengeance". 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 [[VoluntaryShapeshifting morph]] in creative ways (making themselves into {{Winged Humanoid}}s when morphing birds and so on) are bona fide performance artists.

[[AC: {{Live Action Television}}:]]

[[AC: Tabletop games:]]

** 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 ProudWarriorRace ethos makes them one of the straighter examples.

* In Warhammer40K, there are many mentions of Imperial pop culture, including the popular if historically inaccurate holo series ''Attack Run'' and the children's song ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice The Tracks on the Land Raider Crush the Heretics]]''.

* Part of the background of the TeenagersFromOuterSpace role-playing game 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.

[[AC: {{Video Games}}:]]
* MassEffect 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).

[[AC: Webcomics:]]
* ''{{Homestuck}}'' is also an aversion. Alternian pop culture is highly advanced - they have video games and TV and tabletop RPG lore and bad books about vampires. In fact, the troll movie industry has been running for so long that they've run out of titles, and instead [[InWhichATropeIsDescribed describe films with a list of the tropes that appear in them]]. This is appropriate because the characters are all {{Geek}}s into varying fandoms. Karkat is even into an Alternian {{Expy}} of ''TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir''. PlayedForLaughs, mostly.

* The [[{{X}} X-Universe]] averts it, although you'll miss it if you're not paying attention to flavor text on some of the {{Fetch Quest}}s. Various junk carried by NPCs also points to a stealthy aversion.

* Another ''BabylonFive'' example: the alien parents in "Believers" appear to come from a planet like this. Somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as it's specifically mentioned their planet is backward and isolated and their contact with aliens limited. They're not even members of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.

** 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 [[{{Cyberspace}} virtual reality]]), though not without their [[CulturePolice critics]].

* ''{{Homestuck}}'' is also an aversion. Alternian pop culture is highly advanced - they have video games and TV and tabletop RPG lore and bad books about vampires. In fact, the troll movie industry has been running for so long that they've run out of titles, and instead describe films with a list of the tropes that appear in them. This is appropriate because the characters are all {{Geek}}s into varying fandoms. Karkat is even into an Alternian {{Expy}} of ''TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir''. PlayedForLaughs, mostly.

In practice, this means that while Klingons have their own culture complete with [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race]] [[NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus Space-Jesus]] and Vulcans have their [[ProudScholarRaceGuy 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 newspapers, no satirical essays, no novels; 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 ''BabylonFive'' 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 [[PlanetOfHats planetary monocultures]]), this may be [[JustifiedTrope 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.

* The Glatun and the Horvath, two alien species from JohnRingo's ''TroyRising'' series, have rich pop-cultures that include popular music, trash literature, movies and so on (the Glatun even have the same sort of advertsing 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 [[JustifiedTrope justified]]: they're simply not creative enough to have developed one.

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

[[AC: Literature]]
* The Glatun and the Horvath, two alien species from JohnRingo's ''TroyRising'' series, have rich pop-cultures that include popular music, trash literature, movies and so on (the Glatun even have the same sort of advertsing 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 [[JustifiedTrope justified]]: they're simply not creative enough to have developed one.

[[AC: {{Anime}}:]]
* ''{{Robotech}}'' 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 TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture). But the invading Zentraedi don't have anything like that; 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.

[[AC: {{Role Playing Games}}:]]
* In {{Traveller}} ''Interstellar Wars'' it is specifically stated that there is an aristocratic Vilani culture and a commoner Vilani culture.
* In Warhammer40K, there are many mentions of Imperial pop culture, including the popular if historically inaccurate holo series ''Attack Run'' and the children's song ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice 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 [[FantasticRacism filthy xenos]] do with their free time.
* Part of the background of the TeenagersFromOuterSpace role-playing game 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.

[[AC: Other:]]

The tendency for alien civilizations (and sometimes futuristic human civilizations) to be portrayed as having no 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 TheLawOfConservationOfDetail, but frequently these cultures are exquisitely detailed: the creator of [[TheVerse the 'verse]] has written a rich, deep, complex culture with its own religions and traditions... but absolutely no equivalent of popular culture.

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 did do more for entertainment then making glorious mosaics. Imagine an alien judging our culture having only knowledge of the "Great Books" curriculum without ''FamilyGuy'' or ''TheSimpsons,'' the New York Times Best Sellers List, or even the World Wide Web.