Hmmm.  I think Bruni is touching on something we all feel at some point—there is always some mass culture phenomenon we don’t participate in, for some reason, even if this isn’t the norm for us. Some people have never seen Star Wars, but own Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” album. I’ve never got into “The West Wing,” even though it was aimed straight at my personal demographic. I thought ET had too much melodrama.

There’s a good article on why the Harry Potter books fall short in The Atlantic this month entitled “<a >How the Harry Potter Movies Succeeded Where the Books Failed</a>”.

simply refusing to even investigate the latest trend makes you a more interesting person.

My brother follows this creed. It’s annoying as hell. I have to trick him into reading / watching stuff I know he’ll like.

Thanks for the concept of hack snobbery - I agree that proper snobbery takes work.

Darn it—I screwed up the link to The Atlantic article: here it is.

No he’s not, Tyro.  Don’t try to make this hackery something more relatable.  The column you’re imagining is not the one on paper.  For one thing, Bruni presents refusing to even consider that something popular could be good as a noble undertaking.  The column you’re imagining isn’t so bad, but it’s not what’s on paper.

I mean, he preens about missing out on “Mad Men” solely because people like it.  That is roughly the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.  Does he also avoid chocolate so as to avoid being dirtied by being seen enjoying the same thing that everyone else raves about?

He also, by the way, disses Radiohead.  Because they’re popular.  I mean, seriously.

So, the Onion’s Area Man who constantly mentions that he doesn’t own a TV now writes for the NYT under the name “Frank Bruni.” 

(shrug) I think we both just see the article differently. He doesn’t diss Radiohead—he points to it as an example of something you might not have liked even while “everyone” else did. He een makes the point there there are all of these mass culture phenomena we make choices about whether to consume: “There are all these commitment crossroads, where you sign up or opt out.” he even points out that there is a lot of sanctimony in people’s justifications about why they’re not participating in a mass culture thing that everyone else is.

I really don’t see anyplace where he’s dissing Harry Potter. Or Radiohead. It’s just one in another of dozens of popular (perhaps even great) things that we might not end up paying attention to.

“If you want to be a snob, I believe you have to work at it.”

This. My wife & I don’t have the same taste in music. But we both occasionally have to listen to the other’s choice (in the car, the driver controls the tunes), so our dislike/snobbery comes from familiarity and not from a simple dismissal because its “country” or “alternative”.

I didn’t get snobbery from his article at all. My take is that with so many HOT! NEW! THINGS! nearly everyone will at some point be “left out” of some trend. And since it’s not cool (or more often not accepted by others) that it’s simply a lack of time that you haven’t checked out the latest and greatest, people often adopt a faux snobbery.

I’ve done it myself. With Harry Potter I did not (still don’t really) understand the appeal for adults. Just flat out don’t get it. Watched the first movie and still don’t get it. So whenever someone asked if I read/saw the latest installment I perhaps looked down my nose a bit and said, “No, I don’t have interest in children’s books.” That partially true, but really I just don’t want to admit to feeling completely clueless. It sucks when people look at you like you have two heads because you aren’t in on a thing.

I get the same feeling whenever someone says, “I don’t watch tv, I read.” Okay, well there’s junk reading just like there is junk television and we are both still sitting on our ass.

I have already purchased and printed out my tickets for HP, and I’m now strategizing how early my friends and I will have to get to the theater in order to get seats together. 

Still, for several years following a feeling of betrayal at wasting $20 and about 5 hours of my life on “Vinegar Hill” and “The Bridges of Madison County” based on a NYT bestseller list and descriptions that made those books seem like stories I would like, I REFUSED to read any fiction on the bestseller list, because any group of people who—through their purchases—recommended “The Bridges of Madison County” deserved to be summarily ignored from that point forward. 

I’m better now.

I must be a better snob than Bruni, because there are things on his list of pop culture fads to be proud of avoiding that I haven’t even *heard* of.

He also, by the way, disses Radiohead.  Because they’re popular.  I mean, seriously.

I also don’t get Radiohead. As for “non-conformist pride”, it may read as snobbery to some, but I also think it can be interpreted as taking pride in not feeling like a sheep. The Apprentice is hugely popular, but I take pride in saying I won’t watch it. Or if you prefer, Breaking Bad get’s rave reviews, but I didn’t watch it the first season and now I’m just not going to regardless of its popularity.

First Brooks, then Douthat, now this guy. What is going on at the Times?

This total disdain for anything that attracts millions of fans has always annoyed me. I too am not a Harry Potter fan (only read the first book) but I refuse to criticize the millions who are because there is nothing wrong with the harmless fun they are having. Going to a movie at midnight tonight is not the equivalent of showing up on the National Mall with a sign that says you’re willing to kill people in order to end the welfare state like the tea baggers. Priorities people. Some mass movements deserve our total disdain, but with others we should just move out of the way and let the legions of fans have their fun.

Being a hipster is so mainstream.

Watched the first movie and still don’t get it. So whenever someone asked if I read/saw the latest installment I perhaps looked down my nose a bit and said, “No, I don’t have interest in children’s books.”

The first movie is not reflective of the whole series.  I think Harry Potter exploded for adults sometime around the third novel for readers and the third movie for movie-goers.  Because it wasn’t just a kid thing anymore after that. 

It really is seriously fun stuff.  You don’t have to like it, watch it, or seek it out, but you know that your opinion of the series is not an informed one, right?

I personally haven’t found it difficult to say, “Yeah, I hear ‘Lost is really good. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
This usually leads to a discussion about how, without the advent of serialized tv, you’ve gotta watch every episode; and if you don’t get into something early, it’s a lot of work to get caught up. This conversation is a lot more pleasant and interesting than the one that occurs when someone decides to just to be a snob about something.

Then there’s a variant or perhaps more advanced form of hack snobbery (great term!) where the hack snob, having refused to partake of the popular book/ tv show/ movie/ music, makes assumptions about it and then criticizes and makes fun of it and its fans based on those assumptions.
This is commonly deployed with fantasy/ sci fi pop culture.

Bruni’s beat has long been to combine snobbery with astonishing personal mediocrity.  He is maybe the least insightful columnist or critic at the NYT (which is saying a lot), and yet is always expressing contempt for the riff-raff.

There was that famous column a few years ago on ‘restaurantese’, in which he mocks servers for saying the things restaurant owners make them say. The tone is one of aggrievement that underpaid service staff have not learned exactly the right way to kiss his and his dining companions’ asses as they eat out at high-priced restaurants night after night.

It’s the boorishness combined with the terrible quality of the writing, the inept attempts at wit, that make it trademark Bruni.

Sample quote:

Restaurantese traffics in off-kilter pronouns, on display when a server asks: “How are we enjoying things so far?”

Well, we didn’t know you were dining with us. And we hadn’t come to a group verdict, but we’ll appoint a table foreman, deliberate and get back to you.

Bruni’s beat has long been to combine snobbery with astonishing personal mediocrity.  He is maybe the least insightful columnist or critic at the NYT (which is saying a lot), and yet is always expressing contempt for the riff-raff.

There was that famous column a few years ago on ‘restaurantese’, in which he mocks servers for saying the things restaurant owners make them say. The tone is one of aggrievement that underpaid service staff have not learned exactly the right way to kiss his and his dining companions’ asses as they eat out at high-priced restaurants night after night.

It’s the boorishness combined with the terrible quality of the writing, the inept attempts at wit, that make it trademark Bruni.

Sample quote:

Restaurantese traffics in off-kilter pronouns, on display when a server asks: “How are we enjoying things so far?”

Well, we didn’t know you were dining with us. And we hadn’t come to a group verdict, but we’ll appoint a table foreman, deliberate and get back to you. 

I personally haven’t found it difficult to say, “Yeah, I hear ‘Lost is really good. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

That’s what I do, and there’s plenty of good stuff I haven’t gotten around to.  How could you catch it all, unless it was what you did for a living?  I’m bad with TV especially.  I missed Lost, The West Wing, Mad Men, Battlestar Gallactica…  but maybe someday, you know? 

It’s not a badge of honor that I haven’t seen things that other people have seen.  “I hate this thing so many people love, just because they love it” is kind of a lazy attempt at individualism, but really, none of us should base our sense of individualism on any piece of pop culture.  Everything you like is liked by thousands of other people, almost no matter what it is.  We might be unique snowflakes, but the differences are not always visible to the naked eye.

I think I’m with Tyro; Bruni’s tongue is planted firmly in his cheek for most of this. Sure he says he didn’t watch Mad Men, and in the next sentence admits he made a mistake, which he realized when watching something else from AMC.

It really does seem to be more about how missing out on some huge cultural deal puts a person in an odd, awkward, but sometimes perversely satisfying position. At no point in the article does he even imply that HP is bad; just that it involves lots of in-words that he didn’t understand.

Bruni’s an idiot, but this is not his idiot banner, to my mind.

I have a hard time badmouthing something I haven’t seen/read/heard unless I’ve heard a lot about it.  I’ve actually watched stuff I’ve heard is bad just to check out that it really was as bad as everyone said it was.  I don’t like passing on hearsay.

I’ve actually watched stuff I’ve heard is bad just to check out that it really was as bad as everyone said it was.

That’s why I read Twilight.

Comment #17: Eileen, and that’s exactly the kind of attitude I was talking about. I didn’t say I have a fully informed opinion and I’m not critiquing it. I’m just not interested in it, for any number of reasons (basically I don’t like fantasy much, I don’t even like Tolken), and yet I get people telling me how great it is and how I just don’t know what I’m missing out on. So okay, I’m a snob to not giving HP a chance, but what does that make the people who keep insisting that I just have to try it?

You don’t have to try it.  You’re not a snob for not liking it;  you just don’t like fantasy.  Snobbery assumes a superior position that, in this case, doesn’t exist.

I am super confused. Isn’t Bruni the food critic? And if so, why is he writing about pop culture all of a sudden?

(basically I don’t like fantasy much, I don’t even like Tolkien),

I wouldn’t use Tolkien as a good example of fantasy writing, to be honest.  He’s had an immense amount of influence of how the genre has evolved, but his actual writing isn’t that great.  I love fantasy and worldbuilding, and I still find Tolkien a hard read.

what does that make the people who keep insisting that I just have to try it?[

Fangirls/boys.

Wait… it occurs to me that we might not all be in agreement that ‘snob’ is always a derogatory term for an undesirable attitude.  I go by this definition:

One who affects an offensive air of self-satisfied superiority in matters of taste or intellect.

If you like certain things and dislike others because you’ve spent a lot of time investigating the subject and have an informed opinion, that makes you a connoisseur.

Comment #27: Eileen, and we’ve come full circle back to my original comment. I say I don’t have interest in reading/watching something, person tells me “But you have to try it, it’s the best!” I say no thanks, and person then keeps trying to defend their thing and eventually leaves in a huff because I am apparently a snob. NOTE: you are not that person in this story. I merely point out your fist comment to show how when I say I don’t want to read HP, there is inevitably someone telling me I should, as if they are the first person to do so. HP has been around for a long time. If I had an interest I would have gotten to it by now.

Comment #29: Jayn Newell: I’ve tried other (perhaps bad) fantasy, and the genre just doesn’t do it for me. Tolken is just the most notable for me.

#31:  I understand, Livi.

I also failed to acknowledge in #30, that what might be happening when people say, “Fine, I’m a snob!” is insider appropriation of the derogatory terms the mainstream uses to put them down.  It isn’t full-scale oppression, as in the use of racial slurs, but I understand why, after many encounters with people calling you a snob, you might just appropriate the term for yourself and take the sting away.  If they can’t use it to shame you, it loses its potency.

Comment #32: Eileen, ding, ding, ding! Yes, you have spelled it out so much better than I did.

Amanda, you brilliantly made your point and made me laugh out loud.  I have only a few trivial things to say in response.

First off, I interpret your bracing defense of the honor of “snobs” as somewhat ironic, given that we don’t really aspire to be snobs, and shouldn’t.  After all, the word “snob” is short for “sine nobilis,” that is, “without nobility,” so that even if you think it’s good to be an aristocrat, it’s still not good to be a snob.  I believe your defense really saves the honor not of snobs, but of EXPERTS, who have taken a drubbing from the critics recently.

Frank Bruni may not seriously threaten the reputation of experts in pop culture or anything else, but Philip E. Tetlock, on the other hand, has dealt it quite a blow.  His research (in EXPERT POLITICAL JUDGMENT: HOW GOOD IS IT? HOW CAN WE KNOW?, 2005) provides detailed evidence that political experts are no better than dilettantes at making predictions in political affairs.  However, Tetlock has also shown that a certain subcategory of expert, which he characterizes as the “fox” type (as opposed to the “hedgehog” type) actually does benefit from expertise.  So we may still hope that education (which is what makes an expert an expert) is good for something, after all.  (If only we could learn better how to educate all those hedgehogs!)  And, as you make clear, Amanda, Frank Bruni cannot seriously pretend that his ignorance of pop culture makes him better qualified to judge it than somebody who actually knows something about it (that is, somebody who is an expert in the most basic sense).

Secondly, Frank Bruni’s article has two possible, but maybe not plausible, saving graces.

The first possibility is that his article may be intentionally ironic.  (This is the point that “Well what?” has made, I think.)  In other words, maybe Bruni is not really proud of his ignorance of certain elements of pop culture.  Maybe he’s secretly embarrassed not to be hip, and believes that we, the readers, already know this, or ought to know.  In this case, what he’s looking for is not admiration, but sympathy.  After all, we can’t all be experts in every aspect of pop culture.  So we can all sympathize with the feeling of being ignorant or left out of this or that pop subculture in the vast media universe.

The second possibility is that Bruni is trying to trivialize pop culture in general.  Perhaps he is suggesting that we might all better spend more of our time with something more serious than Harry Potter and similar pop-culture trivia.  However, his approach is both aimless and awkward.  It’s aimless, because he doesn’t tell us what he believes we are all missing because we’re too absorbed in pop culture.  Should we become more involved with some more “wholesome” activity, such as gardening, cooking, or home maintenance?  Or should we become more focused on “serious” issues of politics, science, or technology?  He doesn’t say.  Instead - and here’s the awkward part - he spends his entire article talking about pop culture that supposedly DOESN’T interest him.  If you think pop culture is trivial, it defeats your purpose to go on and on about how trivial it is.

In fact, some of we more practiced snobs are experts at taking occasional pop culture products and spinning out golden arguments about how artful they really are.

Those are real gems, because when an IMS comes out with praise for something that is so mainstream, it seems out of character—like Beyonce or Sting or something—it comes as a surprise to the reader and leads us to rethink our assumptions. “Huh, Amanda, who is insufferable, likes Dave Matthews. Maybe I should re-listen to that noodly crap with an open mind.”

It may be a conceit in itself—the edgy hipster has to shore up their edginess by even being an outlier among hipsters—but it can still be a valuable conceit.

The Bruni column is completely incoherent. It literally has no point. Surprise!

I don’t get what’s so hard about saying, “Oh, I haven’t seen/read/heard/done that yet,” listening to the person go on about how great it is, saying “Thanks, I’ll have to check that out,” and then deciding for myself if it sounds like something I’m interested in. 

I don’t like reality television, so even if someone tells me a show is really great I’m still pretty sure I’m never going to watch it.  So, rather than get into a debate about the merits of the show or reality television in general, I just ask them why they like the show, which usually leads to a conversation about the underlying subject or premise of the show, or some other tangential thing that can be a really interesting conversation.  Or I ask what makes the show different from X other show with the same or a similar premise. 

Do I sometimes secretly think that my taste is, in some specific regards, superior to the taste of those unwashed masses who like or don’t like some thing that I really love?  Sure, because I’m only human.  But I don’t understand acting like something is inferior just because it’s popular.  Some popular things are terrible, it is true, but some are deservedly so, and I try the things that sound interesting and unapologetically skip the things that don’t.  Yes, there are lots of trends and no one has time to participate in all of them.  But instead of going the “sour grapes” route, why not just be honest?  “I’ve heard that’s really good, but I barely have time to keep up with the shows I already watch.”  “That seems really popular, but right now I’m obsessed with this other thing.”  “You know, I don’t usually like fantasy, so I didn’t see that one, but the reviews have been great.”

Comment #37: Kit-Kat, well sure. But not every one is as “live and let live” as you. Some people are really damn pushy. And, not something I complain about out loud, but all the media hype can be really annoying for someone who isn’t “in” on a thing. It’s not a big deal, but last night after yet another HP related quip on the news, I looked at my husband (who is also not interested in HP) and said, “Finally, after how many years of HP, we will finally get a rest from hearing about it.”

I’ve tried other (perhaps bad) fantasy

Clark Ashton Smith—“The Last Incantation”

Meryvn Peake—“Ghormenghast”

Lord Dunsany—“The Hoard of the Gibblens”

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again.

Jorge Luis Borges—“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tlon_Uqbar_Orbis_Tertius_by_Rikki.jpg

I mean, he preens about missing out on “Mad Men” solely because people like it.  That is roughly the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.  Does he also avoid chocolate so as to avoid being dirtied by being seen enjoying the same thing that everyone else raves about?
Comment #5: Amanda Marcotte on 07/14 at 11:38 AM

He avoids orgasm, too.  It’s just so déclassé.

Bruni is actually—-and I read it twice to make sure—-arguing that simply refusing to even investigate the latest trend makes you a more interesting person.

I’ve missed out on some pretty cool stuff because of this attitude.

Comment #39, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but this is missing the very point of my comments. I don’t like fantasy as a genre. Naming random authors to me is being dismissive and pushy. That excerpt sounds exceedingly boring to me.

Of course, I’ve also missed out on Transformers because of it as well.  So I think, overall, I’m coming out ahead.

Dark Avenger - I don’t know if the books you read are “bad fantasy” but the ones you cite are all high fantasy (you can tell by the language and syntax - it’s all Ye Olde Kingdom and crumbling castles and the like - set in the fuedal past).  If you just can’t get into the language or that sort of world building, but don’t have problems with the concepts of magic or elves or what-have-you, you may enjoy other types of fantasy (or it may just not be your thing). There are lots of different flavors - you’ve got humorous fantasy (Terry Pratchett), urban fantasy (Neil Gaiman), paranormal fantasy (Buffy, Ilona Andrews), retold fairytales (Robin McKinley), distopic fantasy (which often shades into SF - Suzanne Collins, China Mieville), steampunk/historical fantasy (Gail Carriger) - pretty much anything you can think of, in fact. Fantasy is a huge genre, there’s something for most everyone.

Back on topic, I hate the way that newspapers and other media outlets will have people review “genre” novels who have no background in that genre and who are, in fact, actively hostile to it. I find that this happens most often with regards to sci fi/fantasy and romance, and the contempt that just emanates from so many reviews is just ridiculous.

If you want an example of snobbery done right, I highly recommend Joe Queenan’s book “Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon,” where he deliberately ‘throw(s) off the mantle of the urban sophisticate’ and takes a deep dive into popular culture.  He bravely seeks out all manner of allegedly popular things and examines them up close and in person (i.e., Riverdance, Kenny G. concerts), and even spends a weekend in Branson, Missouri.  The results are both painful and hilarious.

...a feeling of betrayal at wasting $20 and about 5 hours of my life on “Vinegar Hill” and “The Bridges of Madison County”...

Heo,

For my money, the best ever evisceration of Robert James Waller appears in “Red Lobster…”, where Queenan illustrates that Waller’s acclaimed book “Border Music” is a complete ripoff of…Smokey and the Bandit.  Seriously.

Eileen,

If you ever do get around to Battlestar Galactica, skip the last season and make up your own ending.  It’s not pretty.

#44
Everything Dark Avenger listed is classic.  Those works would probably be canon if there wasn’t a prejudice against genre fiction in canon.  Peake may qualify as high fantasy, but Borges does not.

All the writers you’ve listed are contemporary, which isn’t anything bad, but yeah.  There’s a different thing going on.  I think maybe Dark Avenger’s comment, while dismissive of the previously stated disinterest of non-fans, demonstrates that genre fiction of all types generally far exceeds the expectations that non-readers bring to it.  It’s larger and more complicated.  Disinterest is totally valid, but out-of-hand dismissal is unwarranted.

If you ever do get around to Battlestar Galactica, skip the last season and make up your own ending.  It’s not pretty.

Can I trade out with the last season of the original BG, where they all arrive on Earth and their children can fly and have ESP?

In regards to that Atlantic article, I still think the best essay on why the Harry Potter movies are better than the books is Dan Hemmens’ “As If By Magic”. It’s amazing that a work that’s the subject of so much obsessive fandom could be adapted so pragmatically without eternal cries of Ruined! Forever!, but Hemmens makes a good case as to how it can be done.

Sour Kraut: If you ever do get around to Battlestar Galactica, skip the last season and make up your own ending.  It’s not pretty.

As Darren MacLennan said, “I think that it shows off the best thing about science fiction: its ability to look into the future, see what’s coming, shriek like a startled baboon, dump a load into its pants and flee into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

” but the ones you cite are all high fantasy (you can tell by the language and syntax - it’s all Ye Olde Kingdom and crumbling castles and the like - set in the fuedal past).

I don’t think you can say that about Tlon, and I just mentioned a few authors whom in my experience aren’t given the time of day instead of the Lord of the Rings and other works.

CAS has some pretty funny stuff as well:

I do not remember where or with whom the evening had begun. Nor can I recall what vintages, brews and distillations I had mingled by the way. In those nights of an alcoholically flaming youth I was likely to start anywhere, drink anything and end up anywhere else than at the port of embarkation.

It was therefore with interest but with little surprise that I found myself among the guests at the symposium in the Gorgon’s hall. Do not ask me how I got there: I am still vague about it myself. It would be useless to tell you even if I could, unless you are one of the rare few elected for similar adventures. And if you are one of these, the telling would be needless.

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/206/symposium-of-the-gorgon

Eileen I should probably mention that I totally misread Dark Avenger’s comment and thought that was a list of previously poorly received fantasy. (/headdesk) I think my general point still stands though - that not liking classic or high fantasy doesn’t mean that one should write off the genre as a whole. I think a lot of people get stuck on Tolkein and don’t realize that there’s a ton of fantasy that has less in common with Lord of the Rings than it does with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and I say this as a big fan of Tolkein - even if I do skip the songs).

I hate the way that newspapers and other media outlets will have people review “genre” novels who have no background in that genre and who are, in fact, actively hostile to it.  I find that this happens most often with regards to sci fi/fantasy and romance, and the contempt that just emanates from so many reviews is just ridiculous. - #44

Me too!!!!  They also do that with tv shows and movies.  The usual rationale I’ve seen is that the non-fan of the genre is somehow more “objective,” which is nonsense. You just end up with an uninformed useless review.

Tolken should never be read by anyone older than 15.

Bruni has a way to go to reach his previous highs in hack writing.  I am surprised no one has remembered he’s the guy the NY Times assigned to cover the Bush campaign in 2000, and who kept writing softballs about how he was just an ordinary likable guy.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780060937829-1

Can I trade out with the last season of the original BG, where they all arrive on Earth and their children can fly and have ESP?

Yeesh, I’d forgotten about that.  Maybe the new ending isn’t so bad after all.

I just fail to see anything remotely mean-spirited about (this particular) column. I know that the snobbery hacks exist, but this is a poor example. Sometimes people miss out on the effing zeitgeist. Sometimes it’s not such a big huge deal, because in the end it is a book and a movie and life is generally bigger than those things, wonderful though they may be.

Also, some of us missed the women’s World Cup game last week because we just missed it and don’t really follow soccer at all, or any other sport for that matter, and not because we’re meanie sexists who think lady players are teh suck.  Ahem.

We have short lives and limited energy and must sleep. Everyone misses almost everything. It’s not always a statement of judgment to miss one thing in particular.

there’s a ton of fantasy that has less in common with Lord of the Rings than it does with Buffy the Vampire Slayer ...and that’s an endorsement? Sorry, I’m just pokin’ fun. I have, over the course of my life, found my penchant for any kind of supernatural fiction or movies waning at a pretty drastic rate. I used to dig vampire stories; now I keep my distance. I still get that lots of other people like it, but: none for me, thanks—more for you! There are other areas I obsess over that other folk don’t dig, so I figure it’s all good.

As for the canon, as a younger generation takes over Arbiters of Taste positions, we’ll see more genre stuff admitted. Inevitable. Pulp fan Geoffrey O’Brien is at the Library of America, and it’s no coincidence that they now publish Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick.

So whenever someone asked if I read/saw the latest installment I perhaps looked down my nose a bit and said, “No, I don’t have interest in children’s books.” That partially true, but really I just don’t want to admit to feeling completely clueless. It sucks when people look at you like you have two heads because you aren’t in on a thing.

Obviously YMMV, but I think you’d have better luck saying “it’s not my kind of thing” than “I have no interest in {entire category of whatever}. Because “I have no interest…” makes it seem that you’ve dismissed it beforehand. Thinking about the person I know who doesn’t read children’s books, but makes sure to see the HP movies on opening night…

But not every one is as “live and let live” as you. Some people are really damn pushy.

I think part of it is that occasionally people will fall in love with something, and fail to see how it could possibly be less than perfect (and thus unlikable).  Popularity can reinforce that idea—if everyone else likes it, why don’t you?  (It can also work the other way, as Bruni articulates.)  I know I had to get over the idea that something I looooove isn’t something everyone else loves, or even likes.  I think there’s an element of searching for validation in it as well.

Plus, it’s just plain enjoyable to be able to share a book/show/movie with a friend.  It’s a way of bonding with people.

I suspect that lots of the time there’s more than just “an element” of validation, especially when things get pushy—there’s a difference between “I love it and can’t stop talking about it try is so we can obsess together” and “I love it why don’t you? You really would, if you tried. Everyone else does (so what’s wrong with you?) ” But that seems to be integral to the idea of snobbery, to me—“These are my tastes, and there’s nothing wrong with me, so if you disagree…”

I didn’t read the column, and I actually pay, so I don’t have the 20-article limit.  (I know, I know, but I also buy real newspapers.)  So, I guess I’m a newspaper-reading snob.

But is what is this Radiohead thing?  I assume this is a popular band?  Would I know anything they have done?  Do they play during the community members’ shows—not the students’ shows—on the local college radio stations?  Are they on my iPod?  Let’s see:  ...Prokofiev, R.E.M., Ramones, Roches….  Nope, no Radiohead.  And I’m definitely a music snob.  I mean, I sort of liked the Crash Test Dummies until they got popular. Thomas Dolby?  Loved him, until I heard him at a frat party.  B-52’s?  Same thing.  “I ain’t no student—of ancient culture.  Before I talk, I should read a book.  But, there’s one thing that—I do know: there’s a lot of ruins in Meso-potamia.”  Total snob.

But I’m not a fiction snob, because I have a friend from high school who writes chick lit books, and I buy and read all of her books and many of her friends’ books.

Livi @26:  “...yet I get people telling me how great it is and how I just don’t know what I’m missing out on. So okay, I’m a snob to not giving HP a chance, but what does that make the people who keep insisting that I just have to try it?”

This—for me—WRT “sushi” and the “Grateful Dead.”  I’ve been dragged to probably half a dozen sushi social get togethers by well-meaning, insistent friends but…I DON’ WANNA EAT NO SUSHI NO MORE!  Eeeech. It doesn’t do it for me. 

Back in the day, a lot of my besties all loved the GD.  I think I went to prolly 4 or 5 shows (can’t name the day/date/location/set list like some Deadheads) and, fairly serious music fan though I am, I just never “got it.”  Jerry’s got (had) some soul, but he can’t (couldn’t) play guitar in any way I appreciated.  Sorry; over it.

Are they on my iPod?  Let’s see:  ...Prokofiev, R.E.M., Ramones, Roches….  Nope, no Radiohead.

Is that the whole scroll?  Where is Public Image Limited, Pulp, Queen, The Raconteurs, The Radio Department, Randy Newman, Rasputina, Raveonettes, The Real Tuesday Weld, The Replacements, Rick James, Ricky Lee Jones, The Rolling Stones…  you’re a music snob?

#ICanBeMoreObnoxiousAboutMusicThanYou

Eileen, no you can’t.  Just ask my ex-wife.

i, I like Radiohead.

ii, Kiss my hairy ass if you draw any conclusions from that.

For those interested in some unconventional sci-fi, I highly recommend the late great Stanislaw Lem. Not only is he a great writer, but he’s got the Eastern European obscurity cachet (especially if you read anything that isn’t Solaris).

Actually, I really liked the last season of Battlestar….

I tried to read a book of Lem’s short stories once but gave up when I got to the third story in a row about huge alien robots each made of a different mineral. In any case, the cruellest and most effective kind of snobbery is the one that transcends high and low culture to pick out certain specific things while damning others, using largely arbitrary reasons. Any conversation then becomes a game of battleships with the other person tiptoeing around things that might for some reason be ‘uncool’, without understanding why.

The Cyberiad is a good collection of short stories:

A typical example is the fairy tale O królewiczu Ferrycym i królewnie Krystali) (“Prince Ferrix and the Princess Crystal”). A princely (robotic) knight falls in love with a beautiful (robotic) princess. Unfortunately, the princess is somewhat eccentric, and is captivated by stories of an alien non-robotic, “paleface” civilization (the humans). She declares that she will only marry a “paleface”. Therefore, the knight decides to masquerade as a paleface. He covers himself with mud, starting to resemble one, and then comes to woo her. Meanwhile, a real “paleface” captive arrives, given as a gift to the king. It immediately becomes obvious to the princess who is the “muddier” one, but the “paleface” turns out to be too squishy and overall disgusting. Not wanting to back down at the last minute, however, the princess declares a joust between the two suitors to select the worthier one. When the “paleface” charges at the robot, he splatters himself on the latter’s metal chest, revealing the metallic body to all. The princess, beholding the beauty of the exposed robot (compared with the ugliness of the “paleface”), changes her mind. The knight and the princess live happily ever after.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberiad

Also good is Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

Lem’s short stores are definitely very Swiftian; they’re a sort of absurdly exaggerated satire, some of which only makes sense when read in the context of being a resident of the Eastern Bloc. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is another classic.

The absurdity that you describe can also be found in Lem’s fellow countryman Mrozek, who wrote absurd plays around the same time.  See his Tango.

Who are all these people and books of which you speak with such jejune, emphatic fervor? I read only the Iliad, Water Margin, Beowulf, the Song of Hiawatha, and the Tale of Genji—and only in the original languages.

Leave it to my people to take fandom to an extreme:

Redology (simplified Chinese: 红学; traditional Chinese: 紅學; pinyin: hóng xué) is the study of the novel Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Classics of China. There are many researchers in this field, most can be divided into four general groups. The first group is the commentators, such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi, Chen Yupi, and others. The second group is the index group, which mainly includes Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei. The third group is the textual critics, including Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo. The final group is the literary thought group. There are quite a few researchers in this group, most notably Zhou Ruchang.

  Critical thought - comprising scholars such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi and Chen Yupi;
  Allegorical thought - comprising scholars such as Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei;
  Investigative thought - principally Hu Shi, Yu Pingbo and Zhou Ruchang;
  Literary thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redology

I dunno if anyone’s still reading, but…

Some of the comments are even worse than Bruni’s essay. You’ve got the asshole who believes in a false binary between having fannish interests and paying attention to politics. You’ve got the cultural ascetic douche who thinks that having fun is shallow. You’ve got the caricature of the academic who probably sees no problem with Dickens or Shakespeare, despite they themselves having been the pop-culture phenomena of their respective times. And then the claim that if you like anything made after about 1930, you’re not really a “grown-up.”

Sheesh, I myself am clueless about a lot of trendy things and have been for years, but I don’t think it makes me better. People are capable of having multiple, divergent interests. There are folks who are much more fannish than I am who are also better informed about politics, science, etc.

Oldfeminist, #40: Snerk. Well, it gets him all sweaty and making ridiculous faces, not to mention that he then has to change his sheets.

Sour Kraut, #45: Queenan, like quite a few New York–based social critics, is nastily classist. Not as bad as Gary Indiana, but that’s not saying much. While I don’t blame Queenan, for example, for being annoyed that the locals were giving him dirty looks for wearing shorts to Red Lobster, I rolled my eyes at the resultant sneering at them for wearing polyester.

Jerry Vinokurov: For those interested in some unconventional sci-fi, I highly recommend the late great Stanislaw Lem.

I particularly enjoyed “The Seventh Sally or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good”.

Is anyone else here a fan of Greg Egan? I think “The Moral Virologist” would go over well with the commenters here.

Alex Weaver: “g(x)=-k*f(x)” is not the same as g(x) being independent of f(x).

That’s a remarkably succinct way of saying reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Thanks!

<blockquote>Leave it to my people to take fandom to an extreme:

  Redology (simplified Chinese: 红学; traditional Chinese: 紅學; pinyin: hóng xué) is the study of the novel Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Classics of China. There are many researchers in this field, most can be divided into four general groups. The first group is the commentators, such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi, Chen Yupi, and others. The second group is the index group, which mainly includes Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei. The third group is the textual critics, including Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo. The final group is the literary thought group. There are quite a few researchers in this group, most notably Zhou Ruchang.

    Critical thought - comprising scholars such as Zhou Chun, Xu Fengyi and Chen Yupi;
    Allegorical thought - comprising scholars such as Wang Mengruan and Cai Yuanpei;
    Investigative thought - principally Hu Shi, Yu Pingbo and Zhou Ruchang;
    Literary thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redology</blockquote

The current academia’s seeming obsession in Redology to be quite ironic considering that it was considered a “guilty pleasure” on par with reading modern “junk literature” back when it was published during the Qing Dynasty. 

Especially if one was an educated literatus because it was written in Vernacular Chinese rather than Classical Chinese and it was their equivalent of a soap opera centered on romances and drama within a wealthy aristocratic household.  In short, it was considered “beneath them” because it didn’t really deal with affairs of state, histories, or other “more serious matters along with fact it was written in vernacular Chinese and thus…..was only fit for the “uneducated” literate populace…..which incidentally included most women in wealthy landowning/merchant households who were literate but rarely had access to a classical literary/linguistic education as it was mainly given to boys hoping to pass the Imperial Chinese Civil Service examinations which only allowed the use of Classical Chinese. 

Nowadays most introductory Chinese lit courses start off by reading Dream of the Red Chamber/Story of the Stone and there are scores of grad students/academics who wrote tons of theses/articles/books on this work.

That kind of linguistic snobbery isn’t that uncommon, the Qing Dynasty was inherently conservative.

That it was considered the equivalent of “Dallas” is kind of interesting when you consider the prospects of Texans looking towards J. R. two centuries hence as a subject worthy of serious study.

It’s amazing that a work that’s the subject of so much obsessive fandom could be adapted so pragmatically without eternal cries of Ruined! Forever!, but Hemmens makes a good case as to how it can be done.

A good number of Potter fans like it for its potential more than its execution. The later movies do a decent job of cutting the crap and getting to the interesting parts.

There’s a fine line between snobbery and annoyance at those who like something when you tried it and decided it wasn’t for you. I don’t like Mad Men, and I tire of people raving about it all the time. I don’t think it makes me a better person (just one with a weaker stomach. The problem is I’m not willing to sit through hours of grossness to get to the point, which is essentially “all that stuff we just showed sure did suck for women, huh?” It’s the same problem I have with Game of Thrones), but I do get tired of people trying to get me to give it another chance because they can’t bear to have a friend they can’t talk to about it.

That kind of linguistic snobbery isn’t that uncommon, the Qing Dynasty was inherently conservative.

Compared to our politics and current times, yes.  However, some recent Chinese historical scholarship has made a decent case that compared with the Ming, the Qing dynasty was more open-minded and progressive in some ways…..especially during the first several decades. 

That it was considered the equivalent of “Dallas” is kind of interesting when you consider the prospects of Texans looking towards J. R. two centuries hence as a subject worthy of serious study.

I’d say it is a cross between “Dallas” and “Passions”.....especially considering some supernatural subthemes within “The Dream of the Red Chamber/Story of The Stone”.  Albeit much less corny than its modern equivalents….

Considering that the Ming Dynasty forbid the manufacture of multi-masted ships by the end of the 15th Century after the successes of earlier voyages of exploration , being more progressive than the late Ming dynasty isn’t that impressive.

I must admit to a fondness for the hunting scenes painted or drawn during the early Qing, traditional Chinese art usually doesn’t admit to the beauty of man going after beasts as Western art will at times.

I have a joss chair( the chair that the village headman or mayor would occupy while his fellow Chinese petition him with their concerns as he sat in the Chinese equivalent of city hall) that dates to the late Qing Dynasty, it’s been in my family for 100 years and was alleged to have been acquired during the fire sale known as the Boxer Rebellion.

I’m not willing to sit through hours of grossness to get to the point, which is essentially “all that stuff we just showed sure did suck for women, huh?”

I feel the same way. I also think a lot of people who watch it probably aren’t taking that message from it at all.