Seriously though, art is literally the only area of life where consumption and examination overlap in such complex ways. Stop being so goddamn terrified of the very things that make it interesting. Learn about it. Let yourself be elitist. Seriously, it's freeing. It's natural. If someone is innately interesting enough…

Art is objective. Woo, look at all those forehead veins pop.

Your taste equals your worth. I just said it. That's your cue to go apeshit, everybody.

Hey, what about the radical idea that all actions have consequences, and art is a form of action, and maybe -just maybe- doing something poorly out of indifference is inexcusable? And indulging someone else's lack of effort is a form of self-abuse? All this I'm-okay-you're-okay shit is dated and plastic and dull. Go…

But who is ACTUALLY getting bent out of shape? The statement you just made is the most defensive-sounding thing I've ever heard. People who actually believe in quality have real discussions about it. Friction is important. Without it we're wimps. Boring, stale wimps. You ca judge my motivation in bothering to say this…

The very belief that being in your 20s is somehow not REAL adulthood is a symptom of an infantile society. Things we equate with being 30 or older are just as achievable earlier. Self-discipline and commitment are the determining factors, not age.

No, it stems from the exact opposite of how pop culture is presented. I think this statement is bullshit. Equating taste with worth isn't pettiness, it's subversion. It exposes the logical fallacy of equating WORTH with TASTE by turning it inside-out, thus forcing the put-upon individual to reevaluate how they…

If we weren't discussing bands, I'd agree with you. Like, in the absolutely literal sense. Because I can, in essence, "play music with my head" already, whereas I can only fantasize about being able to make a car run just by sticking my head under the hood….

Yeah, but what is fucking annoying to quite a lot of people, which guys like, er….Guy don't seem to understand, is that teenage girls and the culture they are all but forced to consume by their inevitable and constant proximity to an unfathomably massive, intricate, multi-platform machine designed exclusively to…

The problem with trying to make everything "catchy" is that it tends to lead to a lot of copying of other things that are catchy, thus defeating its own purpose - if a song sticks in your head because it sounds just like another song that's ALREADY stuck in your head, how much has it really succeeded? Song B has a…

He's basically the exact kind of gay man my conflicted, somewhat-homophobic teenage self's perception of gay men was based on - Cashing in on cultural capital paid as an (insufficient) amendment for oppression by equating discriminating taste with discrimination itself, thus appealing directly to the kind of person…

Stop deliberating over that comment, Disqus or AV Club or whoever's in charge. Let me regret it and delete it myself like an adult. You already know you don't approve of it. Let it go.

This was a test. It appears I have not been banned from the flock just yet. Although I no doubt deserve to be….

sfsgh

No, it's not that those old songs have gotten safer, it's just that no one gives a shit anymore. We're too exhausted to be outraged. Remember that "fuck off, Helen" line in Bridesmaids? Little girl addressing her mother? That's us. We're looking back up the rabbit hole we got dragged into by the post-counterculture…

Do you know what words mean?

Dove soap has chemicals that are bad for your skin that they don't tell you about and makes commercials that try to put a Hallmark-y spin on the idea of not hating yourself for being a slightly overweight woman. Last I checked, Ivory soap doesn't. Bad analogy.

Now remind me, why EXACTLY is it called a "Urine Monkey"?……Oh…..

Saw this at TAAFI last July and couldn't agree more with this assessment. I got extremely frustrated watching it. It also made me permanently averse to the way his animation looks, just in general. Creative, to be sure, but virtually the opposite of what I think looks good.

One of the most overrated records ever made. For dark, vaguely psychotic sexual preoccupation, early Roxy Music. For complex smut, Zappa. For great electro-funk, Stevie. For coked-out, slap-happy mania, Oingo, Devo and Lindsay's half of Tusk. Prince is not "attacking" puritanism - he is using it to his advantage. In…