An obvious observation about entertainment media: Of the four major formats (?)—movies, TV, music, and books—the first two are clearly the easiest for one to be a fan of the medium in general; there's only so many theaters, only so many channels, and thus it's not as daunting a task to keep up with all the noteworthy releases/shows.
With music and books, there's more that come out than would be really feasible to keep up with short of focusing on particular genres (or sub-genres).
Movies and TV are the populist media not merely because they're more passive forms of entertainment, but because there's intrinsic ways of limiting how much there is of them.
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That, of course, was not a particularly muckraking statement; even if people disagree, it's not the sort of assertion that would be likely to inspire an emotional response (if any response at all). In the vast world of contemporary entertainment (let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that anything I do is entertaining in even the broadest sense), to pose a thesis that is not particularly controversial is to blend in with the proverbial woodwork. It's better to be something of an a-hole who stirs the debate kettle—even if it's merely for the sake of rhetoric and not a genuine reflection of one's beliefs—than to express a reasoned opinion that allows for other points of view.
Even that level of unsubstantiated assertion is undoubtedly too tepid to trigger much if any notice or response. In truth, it's not expected to.
A widely reviled jerk must have first attracted sufficient attention to achieve that. In the era of the web, nice guys still finish last in page views.
However, that also keeps the nice guys off the radar of those nitwits who delight in being the one to espouse idiotic views in the comments on popular sites, that seem more or less intended to prevent any sort of attention being held by the nice guys, and specifically trying to bait the naïve into offering cogent retorts to statements that have no interest in reasoned debate.
If being ignored includes being left out of that fray, it's not so bad.
With music and books, there's more that come out than would be really feasible to keep up with short of focusing on particular genres (or sub-genres).
Movies and TV are the populist media not merely because they're more passive forms of entertainment, but because there's intrinsic ways of limiting how much there is of them.
~
That, of course, was not a particularly muckraking statement; even if people disagree, it's not the sort of assertion that would be likely to inspire an emotional response (if any response at all). In the vast world of contemporary entertainment (let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that anything I do is entertaining in even the broadest sense), to pose a thesis that is not particularly controversial is to blend in with the proverbial woodwork. It's better to be something of an a-hole who stirs the debate kettle—even if it's merely for the sake of rhetoric and not a genuine reflection of one's beliefs—than to express a reasoned opinion that allows for other points of view.
Even that level of unsubstantiated assertion is undoubtedly too tepid to trigger much if any notice or response. In truth, it's not expected to.
A widely reviled jerk must have first attracted sufficient attention to achieve that. In the era of the web, nice guys still finish last in page views.
However, that also keeps the nice guys off the radar of those nitwits who delight in being the one to espouse idiotic views in the comments on popular sites, that seem more or less intended to prevent any sort of attention being held by the nice guys, and specifically trying to bait the naïve into offering cogent retorts to statements that have no interest in reasoned debate.
If being ignored includes being left out of that fray, it's not so bad.
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