this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
15 points (89.5% liked)
Funny
322 readers
71 users here now
Funniest content on all Lemmygrad
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Art appreciation has always been a class signifier, a way for rich snobs to show to other rich snobs that, unlike the unwashed masses, they "get it". It reinforces class boundaries on the cultural level. And the educated middle class apes this behavior in an attempt to signal higher social status. That's why so much of art criticism is entirely ad hoc nonsense, pseudo-objective rationalization for an entirely subjective assessment. It's as pretentious as when you hear a wine snob talk about "notes of X, Y or Z" when there is zero of that ingredient actually in the wine or any of the manufacturing process (the foodie equivalent of homeopathy).
Not to defend wine snobs, but they aren’t talking about X, Y, or Z literally being in the wine. They’re talking about flavors that a wine has in common with X, Y, or Z . We don’t have a rich vocabulary for flavors like we do with colors, so analogies are used (and anyway, we do the same with some colors, like lilac and salmon).
Ok, fair point, except that for regular people it still all just tastes like wine.
great comment & it resonated with me, brought me back to being a tryhard teenager and the type of faux-intellectualism i tried to ape. back then it seemed so weird and pointless like I couldn't understand the broader context. like I wanted to be like the intellectuals I looked up to but couldn't find an end to what they were doing.
fascinating take...
I couldn't have put it better