[RugnirViking]

Your definition, that most art (or even things in general) are of roughly the same quality above some bar of competency is... Difficult to defend.

There are things that are just better than others. Sometimes it's because they take much longer to make (time, materials etc). Other times it's because they go into a new direction (inventions, new genres). Not all things doing these are good. In fact generally, spending more time on something or trying new things results in overbaked garbage. It's genuinely rare and special to hit upon a combination of all three - competent, new, and with high investment put into it.

Just spend time thinking about airport novels, or the countless pop artists the music industry tries to push that get no traction. Or failed hollywood blockbusters. Quality matters.

[fwipsy]

Not of the same quality, just that the objective parts of quality have been mastered by many people. What sets art apart beyond that is individual taste. "Newness" is definitely subjective; it depends on what you've seen before (though it is correlated for people within a culture.)

I suspect that you criticize airport novels, pop music, cliched movies because they are similar to stuff you've seen before. (I hope that you've tried them, and aren't just criticizing them on the perception that they're lowbrow.) But people who hadn't seen them before could still enjoy them.

You eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I eat a bowl of oatmeal and I enjoy it just as much. What makes your meal better?

[RugnirViking]

I understand the hypothetical argument that you could enjoy a simple meal, a simple life, etc. And there are many that do - but that doesn't mean some things aren't preferable to other things to some people. It just shows that people's preferences are different.

But generally, we see that given the choice, people do rate art differently. That people prefer certain things to other things more often than chance. Some of it is perhaps cultural, sure. But does that really undermine the point? The trick of making good art/products whatever is literally hitting a thing a large group of people like. It's not cheating to try and make people of your culture, or any specific culture or subculture, like it. That's actually kinda most of the point.

You really can distinguish between a competent but otherwise uninteresting thing and something truly special by just like... Putting it out there. Many things that were widely distributed were not especially well liked, and others remain literal classics. Why?

[fwipsy]

Sounds like you mostly agree. We're not a monoculture. Mainstream culture is a compromise - consists of things that many people like, but not many people's favorite.

It's a little silly to say "mainstream is crap! Why doesn't the better stuff rise to the top?" It's because people don't agree on what's better.

[balamatom]

>It's because people don't agree on what's better.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's because taste and discernment (which are personal values) correlate inversely with access to resources (which is a globally recognized value).

>It's a little silly to say "mainstream is crap! Why doesn't the better stuff rise to the top?"

If it's silly to ask that question, maybe it's also a bit silly to answer it - but sure, lemme throw in my own 2c:

It's because the "compromise" you speak of amounts to human society taking on the role of a half-witted hivemind.

IMO a better question to ask is what's the point of there being a "mainstream" at all? It's not like lived human experience is fungible... is it?