Am I a Product of the Internet?

I’m beginning to think that my favourite art was curated for me

Welcome to your Wednesday Fix at The Drip Tray: A weekly dose of inspiration and reflection to keep you focused, like a philosophical espresso.

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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how popular opinions online have shaped my own. More specifically, those on the most influential works of pop culture. General consensus of the best movies, albums, and books has informed my approach to content consumption, but I feel like I should be able to decide for myself. I don’t want to be told what to like and why. Of course, art is subjective and we all have different tastes, yet most Top 10 lists are the same – and they look a lot like mine.

In a way, history determines what is worth our time by preserving the greatest achievements while forgettable works are lost to time. The surviving examples become educational resources for future generations and serve as an introduction to the artform. To appreciate M. Night Shyamalan, you have to thank Alfred Hitchcock. To commend Architects, you have to respect Metallica. To admire Stephen King, you have to acknowledge Ray Bradbury. Having grown up at the dawn of the Internet, am I a product of our digital landscape?

This feels like a timely topic with the recent TikTok ban in the U.S. forcing countless influencers to migrate to Instagram. The benefit of a social media platform like Substack is that creators have control of their content and their followers can pay for their insight, but that’s a whole other post. My point is that we rely on these people to steer us in the right direction when navigating an oversaturated market. When I was a kid, my biggest influences were my parents and teachers. Now, it’s whoever I choose to follow, which has its cons.

My stepdad and I at my first concert - Metallica on their Death Magnetic World Tour in 2010.

As you probably know by now, most of my favourite films – The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), Alien (1979), Jurassic Park (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994) – were box office hits. Linkin Park is my all-time favourite band, as well as one of the most successful of the 21^st century. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity are some of my favourite books, both of which are considered classics – published over 175 years apart – and have been adapted for the screen numerous times. But I didn’t discover any of these on my own. Many were shown to me or sought out purely because I had heard that they were good.

I guess it’s better than realising that all of my favourite movies, artists and books are widely considered bad. But, as an amateur pop culture critic, it gives me imposter syndrome. How can I offer recommendations as a tastemaker when I’m just parroting everybody else? Publications like Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, and IMDb have become online hubs for film buffs worldwide to compare notes, just as Discogs has for music, Goodreads for literature, and Reddit for pretty much everything. Then again, rankings and reviews are generally curated by experts in the field, so I can’t be too disappointed by sharing their views.

But what does that say about me as a consumer?

I don’t want to be like everybody else, but I also don’t want to be a pretentious hipster. There’s nothing cool about panning every new movie that comes out, nor the weird flex of stating that you listened to a band before they were big. But I often feel like I’m supposed to appreciate a film when it’s deemed essential viewing – even if more recent works in a similar vein are arguably better – just as snobby trolls suggest that artists derivative of pioneering musicians should be considered inferior. However, this is not always the case. For example, I don’t rate Suspiria (1977) or Friday the 13^th (1980) despite being a diehard horror fan.

In contrast, art that we first discover in our formative years is usually remembered fondly regardless of its quality. I still love Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy (yes, even the third) with Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, though they may not be the best in the franchise, simply because I grew up with them. I smile at the cringy dialogue and ugly crying because it brings back memories of watching it as a boy. The same goes for bands like Bush and Mudvayne, who are no longer relevant in the contemporary music scene. I’ve seen both live in the last five years and each set was comprised mostly of songs from their debut albums.

This doesn’t make them the best, just personal favourites. In saying that, Spider-Man (2002) made nearly six times its budget and Spider-Man 2 (2004) won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, while Bush’s first album Sixteen Stone – the first record I ever bought – went six times Platinum in the U.S. and their second album Razorblade Suitcase topped the Billboard 200. On the other hand, one of my favourite local bands Nervous Light have less than 1,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and I’ve never met anybody who has heard of the sci-fi thriller Coherence (2013), which was made for just $50K. I’ve still got some street cred!

I still have it!

But how does that make me feel? Unoriginal. Uncool. Boring, even. It’s kind of depressing to learn that most of my favourite works of art are everybody else’s as well. There’s this irrational defensiveness that comes with being intensely passionate about a certain person or thing, like a strange sense of ownership. I know because I used to be that guy. “How can they love Alien, too? That’s my favourite movie!” Then it hit me. What I ignorantly thought to be a sophisticated palate from tedious research and critical analysis is really just an amalgamation of what I’ve read online over the years. It shouldn’t bother me, but for some reason it does.

Perhaps I don’t like it because it feels safe. There’s a certain validation in knowing that you can bring up the big crowd pleasers of music, film or literature in any conversation and know that you’ll have a fairly tepid response. You can also make friends in almost any social situation by referencing The Simpsons, Seinfeld, or Friends because I guarantee that somebody will have seen at least one of them. But waxing lyrical about my passions in this little corner of the Internet can only do so much. I need discourse for development and discovery – and monologues are not conducive to building a community.

It’s why I started a podcast with my friend Nathan, who has many differing opinions to me, otherwise I would have presented film reviews in the form of video essays. Too often we get defensive when our personal preferences come under fire. I mean, it literally starts wars. Most of us would rather follow pack mentality for herd immunity than stand out from the crowd to be judged and ridiculed. If I said that The Beatles are overrated, I’d probably be raked over the coals, just as I would if I said that Taylor Swift is the best songwriter of our time. Both arguments have merit, though each seem to require justification (don’t @ me).

Nathan and I recording one of our earliest episodes of Dead House.

There’s an inherent expectation that comes with experiencing a classic work of art for the first time, which can make it a somewhat daunting task. Sometimes I anticipate to be moved by it, as were many before me, and am inevitably disappointed as a result. These guides that I follow online are designed to be just that. Of course, it’s impossible to create a definitive list of essential works in a subjective medium. The best that we can do as consumers is to take these suggestions into consideration on our own personal journey of self-discovery. Why should I care that Roger Ebert only gave Constantine (2005) one and a half stars?

I’ll keep my generic interests and popular opinions, thank you very much. I don’t need to be a contrarian to have a meaningful conversation with somebody about art. We can love both the dumb fun and highbrow material the same, irrespective of our backgrounds and influences. Besides, there are plenty of artists I listen to and movies I watch that it seems nobody is familiar with when I mention them. It may very well be that they’re not established enough to reach commercial success, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve it. Accolades don’t determine a work of art’s validity. After all, they’re called classics for a reason.

So, am I a product of the Internet? Yes, but the irony is that it’s a great place for seeking recommendations. These things that I like are popular because they’re universally well-regarded, but I also trust the judgement of strangers to find what else I might like. I often say that I was born a decade too late. As a twenty-something who watches ’70s horror and listens to ’90s rock, it makes sense to me. Then I remind myself that I live in the past because the art of yesteryear is so much better than most of what we have today. At least, that’s my opinion.

But what would I know?