[SamFold]

How can you possibly argue the Mona Lisa isn’t inherently interesting or moving? It wouldn’t be the most famous painting in the world if it wasn’t interesting or moving.

And no, it’s not because it was stolen. Most people don’t even know it was stolen. I loved the painting and it moved me from the moment I saw it as a child.

[iopq]

> It wouldn’t be the most famous painting in the world if it wasn’t interesting or moving.

The most popular book in the world is the Bible and I never found it very interesting

[crtified]

The overall human majority probably falls upon the side of (people who don't find the Christian Bible very interesting), as opposed to those who worship it. After all, Wikipedia tells us there are only about 2.4 billion total Christians on the planet.

Therefore, you fall in line with the dominant human viewpoint, the popular opinion.

I don't know what my point is, apart from a friendly irony that in eschewing (the) popularity (of the Bible), you're actually doing the popular thing.

[iopq]

I bet you the majority of the population doesn't think Mona Lisa is anything amazing and is just a famous painting. They just don't come out of the woodwork to tell you that

[edmundsauto]

I do find it interesting that it is so famous, but I think it’s probably due more to a confluence of coincidental events than anything inherent to the painting. Rerun the universe simulator 1M times (adding a hard requirement that this paining gets painted every time) and I’d bet this level of popularity is an outlier.

I just don’t think popularity means much outside of a lot of people knowing about it in some vaguely positive light. Sometimes things are popular because they are incredible (the Beatles), sometimes they are popular just because of randomness or situational context (most pre-20th century American literature)