Pop culture has become inescapable.

I have no historical context with which to compare the current dominance of pop culture in our media, so I will restrict my consideration to its status today. I can only say that, if you consume digital media at all, you read about pop culture. Sites and publications devoted specifically to pop culture are innumerable. Pop culture has completely saturated general interest and news publications, even those which doggedly cling to a highbrow ethos. The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR and network television…. I cannot name a prominent part of the media establishment that does not devote considerable time and resources to the analysis and celebration of popular art. Indeed, though the Times is one of the few remaining pieces of big media to cover theater, ballet, opera, orchestral music, and other aspects of traditional “high” culture, its coverage of those are dwarfed by its coverage of popular movies, TV, music, and video games. You cannot be a consumer of media and opt out of pop culture.

It’s not just any pop culture, either. What has traditionally been thought of as “geek culture,” and what I will generally refer to as “fandom culture,” is now at the absolute pinnacle of prominence, economic power, and attention. Sci-fi, comic books, video games, cartoons and anime and manga, all of it is examined in minute detail, and celebrated, in the most respected and well-read magazines, newspapers, and websites. I can say without exaggeration that fandom culture is now the single most powerful force in entertainment and media. The movie, television, and video games industries ruthlessly compete for the fandom dollar. Websites devoted to those cultures are endlessly analyzed by the big media companies. Not only can and will any comic book character be made into a movie, it is becoming exceedingly hard to get a major movie made if its source material isn’t already treasured by the fandom community. Major fan conventions, like San Diego’s Comic Con, are treated like religious revival meetings, where some of the most powerful figures in Hollywood show up to demonstrate proper deference to the chosen people.

And yet, somehow, a curious lie (and that is all it can be called) persists: the idea that pop culture generally and fandom culture specifically are somehow denigrated or disrespected, and that their fans are somehow an oppressed group.

I take it as inarguable that this idea persists. Vast acres of text on the Internet are devoted to the idea. Online fan communities, such as the commenters at blogs like io9 and websites like the AV Club, often seem to do little but complain that their various obsessions are (somehow) being disrespected. Entire careers are built on massaging the ego of those for whom no praise is enough. (See: Dan Kois, whose New York Times piece on “cultural vegetables” is a masterwork on saying that you shouldn’t feel guilty about what no one at all is trying to make you feel guilt about.) You will never go broke, as a writer, telling people what they want to hear, and the most powerful people in the media landscape want to be told that they are powerless. It is a bizarre pathology.

You can imagine my annoyance when Joel Stein, “funny” writer, deliberately trolled the pop culture obsessives by writing in the Times that adults should read adult books. Well: it happens that I think that many people who like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games books, and similar would enjoy reading more adult fiction. And I also think that, given the vast array of people constantly claiming that young adult fiction and similar are the pinnacle of culture, a lone voice saying that perhaps people should try something else could be refreshing. (I know several adults who simply cycle back and forth between the Harry Potter books, the Lord of the Rings books, and a few others, never reading outside of a few authors and titles, let alone trying different genres or modes.) But, sure, Stein is being an asshole. The reaction is about what you’d expect. Successful troll is successful. Film at eleven.

Alyssa Rosenberg is, as in most things, generally on the side of the angels when it comes to fandom culture. She is about as clearheaded as you’ll find when it comes to skepticism towards supposed geek oppression. But when she wraps that post in a context which suggests that Stein is writing from some privileged, highly-populated position of cultural snobbery, she’s gone wrong. That snob culture does not exist. Try to find it! Again, the number of media outlets that treat pop culture positively and seriously simply dwarf those that dismiss it. (The fact that CAP’s employment of a pop culture blogger is so normal and unremarkable should tell you something.) A quick Googling will confirm that the Times published dozens of pro-fandom articles this year, while sentiment like Stein’s seems otherwise unrepresented. The fight was won by Rosenberg’s side a long time ago. If the defenders of popular culture require literal unanimity in praise for their preferences, they’ll never be happy.

Look, this is just true: you are not allowed to weigh in on fandom culture on the Internet in a critical way. I can tell you from long experience: assert the superiority of cherished pieces of fandom, or be angrily corrected. I mean, I think Harry Potter is okay. They’re alright. I can tell you from dozens of arguments online that calling Harry Potter okay or alright is not sufficient to placate the more zealous defenders. To speak of Dr. Who as anything less than genius is inviting a headache. Try it yourself. Say publicly that Game of Thrones is a pretty cynical bit of tits and violence, and you won’t have people just disagreeing. Your sincerity and good faith, and even your very right to hold the opinion, will be challenged.

In fact, I often find people are more comfortable with out-and-out dismissal of phenomena like the Potter books, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who, or similar. That dismissal, after all, invites the catch-all insult of fandom culture, which is snob, the insult Rosenberg turns to here. But I have no clue what that means. There is no such thing as highbrow culture anymore, in any real way, and if it did exist, it could not possibly be represented by a guy who appears in cartoon form in the pages of Time. There are no highbrow bullies anymore. The bullies are the geeks. I truly believe that it’s come to that. Fandom culture is a bullying, evangelical culture, and has been for ages.

Leigh Alexander, in a response to that execrable, self-aggrandizing post against “fake geek girls,” puts it succinctly:

Traditional ideas about geekiness are dying a slow death in the social media age. The socially-awkward computer nerd is not society’s embarrassing chaff, but rather an admired hero driving connectivity and innovation. Steve Jobs has been practically canonized. Video games are, thank god, becoming something that anyone can enjoy and understand on whatever level they choose….

It’s just not A Thing anymore

Perfectly true. And to the degree that being a geek is a thing, what that thing means is that every movie is made for you, every piece of media caters to your interests, your obsessions enjoy incredible economic and institutional authority, and you can count on a bounty of new art and new commentary year in and year out. It’s not a bad gig. I would again contrast this with us scorned lovers of difficult art, or art considered (horror of horrors) highbrow. To be a fan of experimental fiction means that you will have preciously few books to buy, almost no commentary or reviews to enjoy, and half the Internet insisting that you are an asshole who just wants to look smart. The assumption that you don’t like what you say you like doesn’t require defense. Ta-Nehisi Coates is about as friendly to literature as any blogger I can think of, but he can’t help but get in a swipe at Ulysses. (Imagine if he made a similarly offhand crack about The Fellowship of the Ring!) To be a fan of orchestral music is to worry constantly that what funding remains will dry up, and you won’t be able to enjoy the art you love anymore. There is literally no chance whatsoever that such a fate could befall the ranks of fandom.

I have a whole line of thought about cultural consumption that is only tangentially related to this debate. Personally, I think people are investing too much of themselves into their cultural consumption, defining themselves more and more through what they buy. Not in the normative sense that there is something wrong about that, but in the practical sense that this sort of self-definition is likely insufficient. I think people are so defensive and cranky about the pop culture that they claim defines them in part because they are dimly aware that they can never be satisfied by definition through such minor differences. I know that people really want it to mean something that they love Community rather than Two and a Half Men. But I’m afraid such a distinction cannot say anything meaningful about you. People cling to that idea because they feel divorced from traditional means of creating personal meaning and identity; naturally, people so committed lash out, unfairly, at those who make different choices in the consumption of art and media.

I have little hope for change. Because fandom appreciation has now seeped into every corner of our media, there’s little hope of anyone having the access or audience necessary to change “geek” minds. Most prominent commentators would likely be too afraid to risk criticizing the large, vocal, and defensive group that polices discourse about pop and geek culture. (Look at the comments on Rosenberg’s post; the overreaction is acute and disturbing.) But most of all, minds won’t be changed on this topic because they don’t want to be changed. I have come to realize that there is simply no level of evidence powerful enough to convince fans of pop art that they are not oppressed. They enjoy being martyrs too much, and they enjoy the kind of anti-snob snobbery that is so prevalent in our culture too much.

In that terrible “fake geek girls” post, Tara Tiger Brown asks “how can we separate the geeks from the muck?” For me, personally, the answer is that I don’t want to. I’m not in the habit of declaring human beings to be “muck” because their interests and style are different than mine. That behavior is bad enough on its own. But it becomes positively ugly when it is married to a persecution complex. Ultimately, the whole “denigrated geek” idea persists because it excuses that kind of destructive, bigoted attitude. The worst kind of bullying is sanctimonious bullying, and the worst kind of self-flattery is the kind that pretends to be self-deprecation. The sad, ugly lie that fandom culture is oppressed exists to excuse both.