A new budding literary genre emerged recently in the 2010s, and began its major rise in the 2020s. Pop culture fiction is one of the new wave of genres born from the post-postmodernist period that were inspired by 21st century media and internet. This new wave includes GameLit, LitRPG, and Isekai, which are genres inspired by video games and the modern gaming community; Young Adult Fiction which is a genre inspired by teen rebelliousness and anti-establishment; and Greek Reimaginings, which is a genre that retells Greek myths from a different point-of-view, different setting, and different themes like women empowerment and feminism.
Pop culture fiction is a genre that integrates references from popular mass culture into writing. This literary genre evolved from parodies and satires seen in films, television shows, and graphic novels. It is a wide-ranging genre that encompasses different media that are comedic in nature. Some of its popular examples include Airplane!, Scary Movie, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
In the realm of literary arts, the use of references is often seen as a taboo. A writer needs to put a ton of effort to make sure the references to be included will be recognized and will not be dated. That being said, pop culture fiction does exist in the world of prose and poetry. The first and arguably the most pioneering was Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, a sci-fi book starring geeks inside a world populated by geeky references to films, shows, comics, and video games. The book helped spawn other similar titles and imitators like Chris Fox’s The Dark Lord Bert and Aleron King’s The Land.
But during that time, the references used remained comedic. Critics and readers thus seldom took pop culture fiction books seriously, often disregarding them as mere parodies and satires. The genre would continue being stale until the 2020 with the arrival of a Filipino author by the name of Louis Bulaong.
Louis Bulaong is relatively uknown in much of mainstream literature. His history in writing seems to be sparse at least: conducting workshops like the “Creative Writing Seminar” for the University of the Philippines Tacloban in 2022 with other local writers; and winning awards like the 2018 SSCT Science Achievement Award and the Sulhog-Binhi Award. But he became primarily known for reenergizing the pop culture fiction genre by launching his virtual reality world series from 2020 to 2021, through titles consisting of Escapist Dream and Otaku Girl respectively. The series follows a virtual reality world known as the Escapist Dream where geeks can roleplay as their favorite fictional characters from films, comics, video games and many more. It has garnered both the praise and ire of the literary community with its fanfiction-like style of writing and its myriad of pop culture references.
The first book, Escapist Dream, was met with mixed reception due to its poor writing. Published as an independent KDP book, readers had a hard time understanding what the novel really was. It was new for its time, especially in a decade where the YA genre was most prevalent. Nonetheless, for the geeks and critics who had read the book, they found something special in it. Dissecting every pop culture reference bore deep meanings. Unlike other pop culture books before it, the references used conveyed symbolism and art. Bulaong also combined these symbolism with equally deeper themes like depression and escapism in his story-telling. Sure, it was still a funny little book like those before it. However, Bulaong would release his second book in 2021, entitled Otaku Girl, which would further change the genre.
Bulaong published the book first as a web novel, which helped it gain an interest from the right audience. Otaku Girl was a postmodernist meditation on the serious life of a geek. Like its predecessor, the book showed a reflection of the life of a geek, complete with their escapism, fandoms, and the unique subcultures each with their own traditions. The book also portrayed the typical problems faced not only by geeks but by teens in general. It also improved on the style and formula of its predecessor by expanding the world, and adding a ridiculous amount of literary styles ranging from poetic prose to breaking-the-fourth-wall.
It’s no stretch to proclaim Bulaong as the “Dean of Pop Culture Fiction” as stated in my title. He made a landmark in literature by putting the genre of pop culture fiction into the pedestal of serious genres. The author changed the landscape of how the genre is seen, and inspired other books and writers in the years to come.
