Thread by @17cShyteposter

Hard disagree on the first part (if you can even taste tannins an average person should be able to distinguish red from white 90% of the time on that factor alone)

But the overall thrust is right, b/c the main point of criticism is just to find dudes with similar taste to yours

https://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1395769916792377346

Criticism of any kind involves two main branches of "expertise": sampling way more of the field than anyone normal has any time for, and then applying your specific aesthetic preferences to whatever you've just tasted/read/watched/etc

The first branch is, for almost all people, way more important than the second: so the goal of most criticism *should* be that of a humble aggregator

"I waded through all this so you don't have to, and here's the stuff I'd watch for fun if it wasn't my job"

This was the joy of say Siskel & Ebert. They surely thought they had better taste than the public, but they didn't scorn the public

Like the best wine critics, they tried to explain why this $15 bottle was better than this $21 bottle, or why this $9 bottle was surprisingly good

They were absolutely experts, but they understood that most of the audience *isn't*, and that's fine, but here's the *really* good stuff that you're really gonna like—trust us, we've mostly got the same aesthetics that you do, just try it, see if we're wrong

Best of all, here are the works that will resonate with you AND us, like a Monet painting, any idiot can see that it's beautiful—a truly good critic can explain its full greatness in a way that vibes with your visceral understanding

A shit critic has to "theory" you into it

I believe that the best art resonates in both the mind and the gut, to both the aristocrats and the average man, and so the best critics are those that can recognize this dual appeal

But who even needs a "critic" to explain the Sistine Chapel

And this is where I converge back to the original point. Wines, like paintings, are limited in the number that can be owned, unlike a night at the movies: so "criticism" here is increasingly used to detach the price of a thing from its actual value

https://twitter.com/eigenrobot/status/1395830761333264385

I can guarantee you that almost everyone on earth, with no "critics" required, can taste the difference between a $6 bottle of champagne and a $60 bottle. But I doubt that without "experts" they would show a preference between the $60 and the $600 (or $6000) bottle

So yes: the highest-end critics are either charlatans, or autists, and are a net negative to anyone who isn't either obsessed with status, or a very particular aesthetic preference

They are either fakers, or catering to wealthy people who've grown bored of everything else

Nearly all modern critics, like nearly all experts, look down on their audience with contempt. They are "better than," and no longer want to uplift the audience, but to stomp on them

They've lost all connection: this breeds hatred from the audience.

And rightly so.