Dear David Carr: You May Want To Check Your Dictionary’s “R” Section

noah | January 30, 2008 4:20 am
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A note to Times awardsblogger David Carr, who decided to indulge his rockcrit side in today’s broadside against Juno haters as such: “But to suddenly kick something to the curb because it found an audience is the height of ‘rockism,’ a critical mindset that suggests if a lot of people like something, there must be something terribly wrong with it.” Actually, no. (Please trust me on this.) Rockism is–c’mon, say it with me, everybody–“The theory that traditional rock music is a more authentic form of popular music than pop music.” Or: a just as annoying, yet totally different, sort of reactionary attitude exhibited by people who “know culture.”* Maybe next time you should check with your colleagues before embarking on music-crit-related vocabulary lessons? Otherwise, love your work, that No Country acronym contest was killer! [The Carpetbagger]

* FYI: The behavior you describe/decry is actually referred to by the term “being a reactionary asshole, or a bored blogger.” It’s not as zingy as “rockism,” but perhaps you could work on that.