surprised so few stopped. $60 for a canvas knockoff of banksy isnt a bad price, let alone an original.
It's obviously a pretty self-selected population, and I mean, I haven't formally surveyed all of my friends, but there you have it, for what it's worth.
I think phrasing is that way is misleading, though, there are more "my friends" than "my mom" even though they each have a "my mom."
I would wager that the sum total of all twenty and thirty somethings that know of banksy is pretty substantial. That said, it's definitely not a household name. I'm just wondering if 98% is a great guestimate.
It's all wild speculation, though and kind of immaterial
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/42957...
Like most things, just getting people to talk about him will raise his profile. Being mentioned on national TV and the network news doesn't hurt either.
That said, I must confess my ignorance as I'm unaware of why Banksy is relevant. I don't mean high level ignorance, as I have googled around and I get the general idea of his works and some of the social issues his works relate to. What I mean is I'm unaware of how he became relevant in pop culture. Does anyone here know?
Banksy's wikipedia article[1] doesn't particularly spell it out. Did his first works show up in a particularly public area in response to a poignant event and the British media noticed it? Did his work catch on organically?
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy#Early_career_.281992.E2....
Banksy is not relevant to 'pop' culture, he was famous as an underground artist. Pop culture consumes anything (like the internet) that has social currency, regardless of whether or not it is relevant to pop culture per se.