Everything Bad Is Good For You

This book is a funny – but serious – plea in favor of popular culture, video games, television series, in short, everything that the proponents of “real culture” often regard with condescension. The author refutes the common notion that popular culture “dumbs society down” to the lowest common denominator. To illustrate his thesis, he states that more brain power is needed to understand what is happening in an episode of Survivor than an episode of the love Boat, because the former has more complex situations, more ambiguous scenarios, less obvious references, etc. Threaded throughout the book is an evocation of a world in which consumers are increasingly proactive and demanding, as well as more difficult to manipulate than they might appear. Although some of the author’s assertions and views are certainly debatable, this satirical tract decidedly raises questions that will leave none indifferent.