Childish Gambino and how the internet killed the cultural critic
This is less about that Childish Gambino video in and of itself and more an apologia for that facile kind of ‘fit this thing I don’t quite understand into the immutable category framework already established for myself’ as a placeholder for more rigorous media and cultural literacy/analysis (cf Dan Olson’s video on ‘Annihilation and Decoding Metaphor’). It’s ironic that the article is almost entirely uncritical of Fandom with a capital F’s blindness to context beyond its own bubbles. And especially grating when it slaps down such straw-man dingers like “the impartiality of reviewers was of dubious provenance anyway”. #link