Anybody can like something that nobody else likes.
Let me explain.
As a Gen-Xer (31 in two days!), I've grown up appreciating the obscure, the under-appreciated and the oft-maligned. Part of liking something for me is its existence outside of mainstream appeal. I'm sure if TRL had played Sunny Day Real Estate videos, my opinion of them in college would not have been so lofty. The fact that I was the only one (at least in my mind) that liked them made it special, and it made me smug.
Likewise, if there was something enjoyed by the masses, then it was either to be ridiculed and avoided altogether or, if unavoidable, then savagely criticized for its middling and low-brow sensibilities -- something it obviously had to have if it appealed to so many people. However, if for some reason I liked something mainstream (gasp!), then there had better be some irony involved. Smashing Pumpkins? They're cool... Was I being sarcastic? I don't even know anymore.
So for me, it's easy to remain mired in the obscure, the hip or deeply personal. What's difficult for me is to get behind the cultural juggernauts, the popular -- in short, the HITS! And that's what I'm going to try to do. Owing no small debt to the Onion A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin and his wonderful My Year of Flops, I'm attempting to undertake a similar project that similarly examines our culture. I'm just going about it from another angle. I'm looking at the hits, and trying to figure out not only why they're hits, but also why they shouldn't be hits. Songs, movies, books...it's all fair game.
Looking, as I am now, at the shelf that holds my DVD collection, I can already see that this has the makings of a real undertaking. I see violent, I see obscure, I see kitschy, and I see awesome -- what I don't see is "You've Got Mail." And this is going to be a problem, as I'm going to have to hit the streets in search of many of these so-deemed "hits."
My fiancee, who is lovingly standing over my shoulder even now, providing a voice of reason, says that my approach to this project smacks of cockiness. And indeed it does, which is my overall and larger point, and the burden I wish to un-shoulder, or at least understand, by undertaking this project.
I apologize for this up front, but it's in my genetic makeup, and I think in the genetic makeup of many of my generational cohorts, to think that my tastes are better than yours. Tess, my loving fiancee, doesn't understand this -- she's no Gen-Xer. But the dual senses of irony and archness are so ingrained in those of us who fall into this random generational grouping that it's difficult for us to step outside and admit that something that's popular might also be good. Or bad. But I'd never know, because for the most part, I don't give what's popular a fighting chance. And that's my goal. To let the hits wash over me and take them on their own merits. And then destroy their hit-osity.
First up will be the mother of all hits, and a movie which I'll admit that I've seen and have a real soft spot for. That's right, Titanic will be coming at you shortly.