shut up about “authenticity”

Everything about BTS can relate to something deeper. That’s why I’m starting a Medium column called BTS and Other Things. In this column, I will sometimes write about BTS, and sometimes write about other things. And if you don’t like it, nice

One of the easiest ways to assert one’s membership in the intellectual and social elite is to disparage the forms of ‘lowbrow’ entertainment and recreation pursued by ‘ordinary’ people. Sometimes this disdain for mass, pop, or folk culture is blunt and sarcastic; sometimes it is subtle.

Nonetheless, some sort of indication that one does not engage in some putatively debased, kitschy, or common form of social activity is, for many of us, a means of claiming to support more edifying and ‘authentic’ forms of cultural expression.

They like Las Vegas shows, we prefer opera; they like Disneyland, we prefer the Museum of Civilization; they like the Olive Garden, we prefer Italian bistros; they like ethnic festivals, we prefer to experience unfamiliar cultures by traveling, reading, or immersing ourselves in relationships with members of these communities.

Underlying these familiar binary oppositions is the seemingly self-evident notion that the second term or concept of each of these pairs is somehow more culturally ‘authentic’ than the first.