It can be argued that America's greatest export, both in terms of revenue and in terms of influence, is its popular culture. Americans have taken the cult of celebrity and fame to heights never before imagined in human history. Technology, particularly the information superhighway via the Internet, has taken cult of celebrity and therefore pop culture to supersonic speeds.

             Since pop culture hinges so heavily on information, the ready availability of real time information - whether through instantly downloadable illegal song tracks before the compact discs even hit the record store shelves, or news of a celebrity romantic breakup even before publicists take the podium - renders pop culture easily accessible to the masses. Indeed, technology puts the "pop" in "pop culture.".

             In recent years, the production of "culture" - art, music, literature, video, and other forms of creative expression - has exploded. There are any number of reasons for this, including technology that has dramatically lowered production and distribution costs, higher discretionary income, greater communication among peoples of the world, and the erosion of traditional "gatekeeper" authorities.

             According to Nick Gillespie's research, "Despite an assumed antagonism, the marketplace for culture shares a lot with the marketplace for less rarefied goods and services. Both embody an unpredictable mix of creative vision, technological innovation, sweat equity, and luck (good and bad); both are characterized chiefly by failure and manage to support all sorts of losing ventures; and both tap into a basic, often unrealistic, human urge for risk taking.

             "At rock bottom, the artist and the entrepreneur face the same dilemma: In a world of prolific choice, how do I cultivate, hold, and grow an audience for what I'm offering? Relatively free and unregulated markets in culture and commerce alike have helped create so much stuff that we sometimes take our aesthetic bounty for granted, much in the same way we take a supermarket whose shelves are overpacked with food for granted.