More Mundane Meanderings.

Obviously, people like Harry Potter. People really like Harry Potter. That, I think, is precisely what has been keeping me from reading the books. The snobbish side of me holds onto an inverse relationship between popularity and quality. It seems totally illogical when I actually think about it, but it's a feeling that's hard to shake. Something must be good if so many people like it, it would seem.

I think a part of the feeling stems from a sort of elitism I hadn't realized I had picked up during my years of higher education: I have an advanced degree—of course I have better taste in books/music/movies than the unwashed masses. They don't know any better. It kind of makes me ill realizing that I may have been thinking like that. Recognizing it is the first step, though, right?

I'm not going to take all the blame. A good portion of mass media and pop culture is so heavily marketed that quality seems to rarely even enter the picture. The lowest common denominator brings in the biggest amount of bucks. The result is a lot of media that mildly entertains a great number of people. But why be only mildly entertained by something many people are reading or listening to, when you can really enjoy something that is of higher quality but lacks the marketing budget of a Top Seller? Thankfully, it's getting easier than ever to find these high-quality, less popular works with personalized recommendation features found on a growing number of websites.

Of course, there always is the possibility that something is wildly popular solely on its own merits. From all I've heard, the Harry Potter series is one such beast. I think it's time to put my snobbishness aside and finally see what all of the hoopla is about.