A Perspecitve on Commonplaceness

I hate Starbucks. Its awful coffee, but for some reason unbeknown to me, people flock to their cozy little corner shops to drink the vile manure they call Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks, in a sense, has become a part of a standard way of living, a commonplace in our society that populates our cultural subconscious.  I guess these kind of "standards", per se, populate all walks of our lives. In literature, we have Harry Potter, Twilight (vomit), Dan Brown, and the rest. In music, we have your characters like Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, among other vapid, genetically engineered Disney child stars. In film, you have your run of the mill romantic comedies (Meet the Morgans).  All of which are lacking in at least one aspects, and often more.
Many critics have denounced these things as being gaudy, low-brow, and generally in bad taste.  Indeed, several of these pieces of culture are dismissed because they are so kitschy. However, I don't think we should necessarily denounce these things that have made America such a cultural wasteland. I'm not saying that we should all go and support these thematically devoid films or books, but rather we should pay attention to how it has effected our society.  We have come to value the shit put out by Stephanie Meyer over some really good films. Okay lets take a look:


New Moon Receipts: $281,930,000  Metacritic Rating: 83

Fantastic Mr. Fox Receipts: $18,377,799   Metacritic Rating: 44


So, we have two movies, each aimed at a younger demographic (albeit one a little younger than the other), but the movie that was actually good didn't get near as much as a film with a cult following.
My point being, we have seen a dramatic shift in our culture from valuing something worthwhile, to valuing something worthless.  These cultural phenomena shouldn't just be pushed aside, but looked at in a new light: why are we transfixed with a piece of shit like Twilight?  This generation is being taught to uphold the awful and denounce anything that is "artsy", yet we (the people whose opinions matter) say, "ehh, its terrible and I hate anyone who likes this shit, but what am I gonna do about it?" I think its time we put aside apathy and try to talk some sense into the listless Twilight sheep (or at least show them some culture) and come down from our high horses of snobery and elitism and try to teach the common man what real culture is.