An overlooked and underrated philosophy book called "The Philosophy Of Andy Warhol!" is a book that emphasizes Pop Culture in the United States. I particular section in his book that stood out to me was the following paragraph. "What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.". On the surface level, it seems like the idea of this paragraph is that he is someone who is emphasizing the greatness of America and the equality in this country by using a can of Coke as an example of how anyone of any social status has access to it and loves it. However, my interpretation behind the message of this paragraph is that is mocks the idea of idolizing the rich and feeding into the ideas of consumerism and Pop culture.
By looking at the following first sentence of paragraph, "What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.", this is disguised as a phrase as a Nationalist who is proud of this country would say to reference how we all have access and the ability to get a product we all love. In my view this Sentence has a specific meaning which is seen throughout the whole paragraph. The concept of consumerism is essentially saying that someone who is poor can have something that someone who is rich has but in a more unfair way. As consumers, we see someone important have something so we want it to feel better about ourselves and this sentence captures the reality of those feelings. This introduction says that essentially a rich consumer buys what the poor is consuming which shows this message of how insignificant the upper class is compared to how we view them in our heads. This introduction is subtly hinting at the humanization of the rich by mocking the mind of a consumerist.
The phrase stating "You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too." is the general mindset of consumerism and essentially a founding building block of Pop Culture. We see a product and think "these important famous upper class people use this so if I use this I am gonna be just like them". Pop culture essentially is Important upper class people we admired and put on a pedestal for something the achieved. The following sentences Warhol wrote stating, "A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." , Warhol shows the subtly harsh reality. Someone who is homeless on the street is consuming that exact same product yet we glorify it when someone of importance is drinking it. These final sentences to the paragraph shows us that even if we deny it, in the back of our heads we know that a lower class person we look down upon drinks the exact same thing, just like the person you saw on TV that you want to be like so badly.
The essential theme of this paragraph as well as the entire book, is mocking the obsession Americans have with idolizing the rich. Warhol uses a simple can of coke to symbolize how consuming what is advertised to us works and how it is a culture made of lies. This book was published in 1975 yet it is a topic that can be heavily applied to America today. Just because you saw Taylor Swift using a $150 shampoo bottle, does not mean you are going to be like her when someone who is working a regular 9-5 and struggles to pay their bills probably bought the same thing for the same reasoning.
Pop culture is not essentially all that bad, we can admire art, music, entertainment , etc. without being blinded. In the end, we are all just regular human beings with distinct backgrounds and lives. We can admire who want and buy things we like without becoming overly obsessed. The message behind this paragraph simply states the reality behind being a consumer. The coke you purchased may be the same as the President's, but do not forget that your coke is also the same as the man outside the the gas station who is begging for some money.