I'll have to thank the guy who called me a 12 year old on r/books today for this post. I posted my list of books I read this year, and it was just not up to his matured elitist tastes. He asked me if I was 12 years old.
Which brings me to the meat of this post. The internet (or any community) has this way of idolizing and creating what they consider the "right" way and tend to reject other methodologies. I've seen it too many times to count. I stumble on a corner of the internet that has information on something I'm interested in, I surf their sites and forums, and soon enough you see a trend of the same senseless bleating that there is only one path that will bring you "true" greatness and satisfaction. You can never use the beginner route, or stray, OH NO, GOD FORBID, you did it the "other" way. That is heresy. Homebrewing with a Mr. Beer to see if you like it? That's not even brewing! Are you telling me you buy shoes other than Allen Edmnuds? What a waste. You haven't read Ulysses! Dear god you uneducated twit! I wish I was being hyperbolic.
If you want extreme examples of these kind of communities I recommend r/malefashionadvice on reddit and /lit/ on 4chan. Let me emphasize that these are EXTREME examples, communities so far up its own arse that they become strawman arguments when you bring them up. (Heh see what I did there?)
/Lit/ for example seems to consider Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon "required" reading, almost to the point of entry level. (In case you didn't know these books are huge and very involved, they take some muscle to get through) Of course, if you don't "get" it, you are a pleb, a casual, and unworthy of their time. This thinking is absurd. It's very similar to the "Fake Nerdy Girl" horseshit that floats around, as if someone needs to prove their enjoyment of anything to you. If you were looking for peers to discuss literature with why would you try so hard to be exclusive? Or better yet, why would you try to elevate yourself by walking around like some self-inflated Gaston from Beauty and the Beast?
I would hope that if you wanted to share a mutual interest with someone you would be working to bring others into the fold instead of erecting gates to keep the "unworthy" out.
I dream of a world that one day someone will say "I like x" and "I'm an X'er" people won't immediately try to quiz them and see if they're more "legitimate." I won't be a part of this world, of course, I'm guilty of every single fucking thing I bitched about.
-BB Out
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