PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater, visual arts, travel, and the Internet.

PopMatters was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had previously established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. PopMatters launched in the fall of 1999 as a sister site providing original essays, reviews and criticism of various media products. Over time, the site went from a weekly publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features, and columns. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million.

From 2006 onward, PopMatters produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. As of 2009, there are four different pop culture related columns each week.

PopMatters is publishing "Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion", ed. by Mary Money, with Titan Books in May 2012. PopMatters published four books in a series with Counterpoint/Soft Skull in 2008-2009 including "China Underground" by Zachary Mexico, "Apocalypse Jukebox: The End of the World in American Popular Music" by Edward Whitelock and David Janssen, "Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists" by Iain Ellis, and "The Solitary Vice: Against Reading" by Mikita Brottman.

David John "Dave" Matthews (born January 9, 1967) is a South African-American musician and actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band. He performs mainly with acoustic guitar and favors rhythm rather than solos in his playing.

David John Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the third of four children of parents John and Valerie Matthews. At two years old, Matthews' family moved to Yorktown Heights in Westchester County, New York, where his father, a physicist, started working for IBM.

In 1974, the family moved to Cambridge, England, for a year before returning to New York, where his father died from lung cancer in 1977. Biographer Nevin Martell argues that Dave's father's death may be an impetus for his "carpe diem" lyrics. At some point while residing in New York, Matthews attended his first concert, when his mother took him to a performance by Pete Seeger. The family moved back to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1977.

Upon Matthews' graduation from St Stithians College high school in 1985, he was faced with conscription into the South African military just as civil disobedience to the practice was becoming widespread. A Quaker (and consequently pacifist), Matthews left South Africa to avoid service.