Deyer and Weber

One similarity in the ideas of Weber and Deyer is Weber’s idea of “charismatic domination”. It’s the idea that our heroes, these people we look up to have this aura about them. It’s something we can’t specifically put our fingers on, but it’s there and it is what draws us to them. Being that Weber was writing about 100 years ago before the idea of stars and celebrities existed, he used it to described politicians and people in power. Deyer obviously used it to describe stars. Both were interested in what exactly was it about these people that makes us admire them. Deyer mentioned that while there is a difference between political charisma and the charisma today’s celebrities have, there is a connection. Deyer mentioned that Marilyn Monroe was an example of someone with this charisma. There was something about her that made so many people adore her. She portrayed innocence while also portraying seduction and the udder confusion that came with distinguishing the two made everyone adore her even more. Weber’s ideas and research, while it was done 100 years ago, is still relevant to our discussion because when we are talking about pop music and pop culture, what always comes up is this question of what makes something part of popular culture or what makes a specific artist popular. That is one of Weber’s main focuses. When he mentions charismatic domination and other ideas like that, he too is questioning what makes these things popular. How do we as a society choose what is popular and what is not. How do we choose what is high culture and not. The fact that he was talking about it 100 years ago and we are still talking about it today is what makes it so relevant. There is always going to be some craze and people are going to be interested in finding out how everything got this way.