starting to think about how people of a certain age grew up with 2010's media where like being seen as a "gatekeeper" or a "hipster" was like, the ultimate boogeyman sin. the sign that you are a bad person. there's this terror at the idea that you would display your taste in media to indicate anything. this coincides with the growing power of fandoms and the waning influence of a lot of traditional media. also a reaction against a lot of things that were clearly bad and had reached their end point at the time. but now it feels like it's just this odd compulsive fear people have - "no, don't worry!! i'm not like one of them!! i have friends, i like pop culture!!"
as a result there's this like, reflexive fear about ever alienating other people or making them ever feel left out of the conversation. online media has increasingly coalesced to speaking as if it is directed at the largest possible audience now, even when it is niche. people are terrified of alienating other people by taking concrete or fundamentally unpopular positions. no one wants to get into these arguments constantly, so we have almost a load-bearing cultural force of intense and frankly extremely unhealthy relationships with online content creators and pop figures. to go against this is to cause people to spontaneously weep - you're being a hipster!! how dare you, don't you know that's the worst possible thing you could be!! to fight against this tide is to face the wrath of so many people, which is far too great for one person.
so that's the reality we're in now - where being a fan is always good, but being a "gatekeeper" is always bad. regardless of whether or not the people who present themselves as "fans" are actually far more powerful than the people who are seen as being gatekeepers or "insiders" now - it doesn't matter. it's just the identity you perform, and the emotional buttons it hits inside people. don't question how manipulative this whole thing might be!! i'm too weepy to think about it!!
