The Three Stages of Internet Pop Culture Conversations (And Why They’re Baloney Sandwich)
Believe it or not, I don’t get into a lot of conversations about my pop cultural loves via the internet. Oh, I IM or chat or Hangout or whatever often enough, but I don’t typically discuss these topics with semi-strangers via social media statuses and comments.
Well, I screwed up last week and actually did have a conversation about superheroes and how a currently “hot” creator doesn’t really get them. This was not all that interesting because I recognize that I’m almost always talking to people who haven’t thought about this as hard as I have. I also recognize this is incredibly pretentious to say, but facts is facts.
No, what was interesting was that I could have predicted the three stages of this conversation before I even started having it. And this leads me to believe that I can now do so for every pop culture conversation that has happened or will happen on the internet.
Just know that if you are the perpetrator of any of these things, you are at least kind of clueless and at worst an idiot. Act like ya know.
The Stages of Debate Denial
Stage 1 – Single Word or Phrase Rebuttals: If you have ever seen someone explain why they like, don’t like, or would have done something different with some piece of pop culture using several measurable and demonstrable points and responded with “Poppycock” or “Ridiculous” or “That’s where you’re wrong” while not responding to or even acknowledging their points, then you’ve initiated stage one. And nobody will thank you for it.Brevity may be the soul of wit, but brevity without wit is the soul of asshattery.
Stage 2 – Personal Taste Is A Poor Excuse For Making : Yes, we’re talking about arts and entertainment. Yes, there is absolutely an element of subjectivity to every piece of art and entertainment. Yes, personal taste factors heavily into both a creator’s choices and your enjoyment of those choices. Unfortunately, while the subjectivity of personal taste will cover a multitude of sins, it won’t cover an infinite number. Sometimes ideas are just bad or executions are just poor. These are rarely the work of an auteur who is just plain smarter than us plebeians. And if you’re only rebuttal to somebody’s well thought out points on subjective things is “well, that’s just your taste,” then I have bad news: You’re never going to make captain of the internet debate team.
Stage 3 – I Don't Buy "Then Just Don’t Buy It": Yes, obviously if I don’t like some piece of pop culture the natural response is to “vote with my dollars” by denying it my patronage. And that strategy would totally work, too, if only I could influence all my friends to do the same. And if all my friends were, in fact, the totality of North America. And even then, that’s not really anything like a guarantee that we’re going to avoid another Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, or Transformers movie. Guys, this “argument” is just stupid. I’m sure nobody has ever walked into a restaurant just to give it a shot or on the suggestion of a friend, then found it a horrible experience. Oh no, nobody could ever accidentally spend money on things they wouldn’t like. And not only is the effectiveness of this suggestion incredibly dubious on any given piece of work let alone a specific take on a character or concept, it also doesn’t address the core problems of the work in question. Whether or not it made a bajillion dollars – or whether I’m responsible for a handful of those dollars – does not address the core issues of “is it creative?” or “is it well executed?” or “is it a faithful adaptation of the source material?”
Well Yelling
Here’s the worst part of this whole thing: I’m yelling down the exact same well making this post as I did commenting on social media. I must enjoy this kind of thing, right? No, actually, I really don’t. I just have a slim sliver of the thinnest hope that somebody who does these things will happen upon this post and realize they aren’t making an argument or participating in a debate.
What they’re doing is trying to short circuit one. And that isn’t really enjoyable or useful to anybody.
So I choose to think of this post as throwing a penny into the wishing well rather than yelling down one. Anybody else got some coppers to pitch in?
