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Originally Posted by pbradley
By who?
I ask this question because they (the rhetorical majority) are hidden to disguise your rebellion as being anything more than against your school, or friends, or the printed media, or whatever social group you seek to set yourself apart from. I can say anything is overrated in comparison to anyone that enjoys that thing more than I as I surely can play the overrater to anyone else by enjoying anything. Majority isn't even required as it can be the majority of a minority such as critics or teachers. In this way, you provide their authority but then seek to challenge it. Why do you value their "rating" in the first place to find it over?
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We are of course at liberty to ignore the status something is given by a vocal minority, but what then tends to happen is that the person who chooses to questions the 'fact' that, for example, 'The Sopranos is one of the greatest television shows ever produced', is forced to validate their claim far more than those who's views seem to correspond with the minority that have elevated it to such a status.
People are therefore often forced into a position where they feel obliged to justify their dislike of (or lack of enthusiasm for) say, Bill Hicks (in my case) or Shakespeare (in the case of Sonic Youth 37) far more than the person who thinks they're great - who rarely if ever feels obliged to give actual reasons for their enthusiasm.
Maybe Bill Hicks
is great and I've been missing something. However merely receiving "I love him" style affirmations of his supposed 'greatness' hardly points to what it might be that actually makes him so great in the first place.