This genre is a bit hard to quantify when used for character development. Most of the music used in popular fiction is a variant of pop, since it has radio friendliness and Multiple Demographic Appeal. Generally, only manufactured pop written for tweens gets used as character development, meant to show someone as unrefined or naive. While the main character might be some high school boy that likes Red Hot Chili Peppers, you can bet his little sister listens to Hannah Montana.
Examples:Comic Books
- Pop music is associated with The Question on a few occasions in Justice League Unlimited, which reinforces his air of eccentricity.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who:
- Susan's Establishing Character Moment is for her to be spotted secretly dancing to an instrumental pop song by (fictional) "John Smith and the Common Men", a 1960s pop group that she claims excitedly has gone from 19 to 2 in the charts. Here, it's used to illustrate that, despite being an alien, She Just Wants To Be Normal, especially since she's playing it on a futuristic radio and she is dancing alone - and her dancing, while not bad at all, looks very weird.
- Vicki's decision to use a device that allows her to view any historical event to view The Beatles performing "Ticket to Ride" on Top of the Pops 1965 is used to illustrate both her youngness and her Future Imperfect view of the past... and the fact that Ian enjoys it a lot more than her shows off how much of a Cool Teacher he is.
- In "An Unearthly Child", Ian is able to talk pop music trivia with Susan, and when she's surprised he knows about it, he explains he's open-minded and has a wide variety of interests.
Video Games
- While the Dark Purveyors are all based around different forms of rock and funk, the protagonist of Lollipop Chainsaw Juliet is associated with pop songs "Lollipop" by Chordettes and "Hey Mickey" by Toni Basil.
Visual Novels
- Naegi in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc informs us in his introductory narration that his favourite music is always 'whatever is at the top of the charts', stressing how much of a boring Unlucky Everydude he is. He mentions that his only trait he has that isn't insanely average is that he's a little more optimistic than most people.
Western Animation
- In The LEGO Movie, the fact that Emmet's favourite song is manufactured-pop noise "Everything is Awesome" is used to characterise his Ridiculously Average Guy personality. The robots also all love it. Wyldstyle insists she hates it, but seems to know all of the words, leading Emmet to realise her hatred of it is an affectation.
