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"'Paranormal Activity is the number one film in the country. I know! That means it's great. That means it's great! If it's the number one movie—' This is the logic. For example, more people saw Paul Blart: Mall Cop than saw The Shawshank Redemption. Therefore, Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a better movie than The Shawshank Redemption. Do you see? That's right! More people like it, it means it's better! Don't you understand capitalism?"

The iPhone 4 has sold 3 MILLION units in just three weeks. There is NO antenna problem.
Random Engadget commenter

Success is measured by position on the chart
but the chart is not a measure of music from the heart.
Rebel MC, "Soul Rebel"

Corey Taylor (vocalist) stated in an interview 'You don't sell out concerts, meet millions of fans and go platinum if your music sucks. Period." Therefore SLIPKNOT DOES NOT SUCK!
Urban Dictionary’s top entry for Slipknot

Please, you don't have to remind me that the original was a colossal hit ($700 million worldwide) and the sequel will probably do just as well. I know it's popular. So is junk food, and they both poison your insides and rot your brain.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

President Bartlet: The fact is, the opponents of the treaty are on both sides of the aisle and you've got to respect them, Toby. They're politicians, and they're flying in the face of overwhelming public opinion.
Toby Ziegler: I have to respect senators for defying 82% of the American people?
President Bartlet: Can I tell you something honestly? This is one of those situations I couldn't give a damn what the people think. The complexities of a global arms treaty, the technological, military, the diplomatic nuances, it's staggering, Toby. 82% of the people can't possibly be expected to reach an informed opinion.
The West Wing, discussing a political version of this trope.

The fact that so many books still name The Beatles as “the greatest or most significant or most influential” rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

Poptimism, in practice, has not meant championing those who do not get the acclaim they are due, so much as celebrating the position of artists who don't need their genius proclaimed, because the top of the charts rather than the underground is poptimism's home turf. And the default position of poptimism is to celebrate, rather than to critique. No one wants to be the killjoy, and that mood gets transmitted through the cultural conversation. Hence the uncertain but glowing reviews that poptimist causes celèbre receive from mainstream critics on releasing their new albums: no one wants to be the person who called the Beyoncé album rubbish after they had been allowed to listen to it once. Poptimism wants cheerleaders. It has got them, even among those who are not naturally cheerleaders. And those who benefit are not the outliers of pop, but the superstars and the major labels. Poptimism invites us to adore fame for its own sake, much as rockism invited us to bow down before Dylan and the Stones and Springsteen because, as any fule kno, they are the authentic greats.
Michael Hann, The Quietus

Hawke puts his finger on an authentic phenomenon, albeit not exactly a new one: the tendency of critics to review popular movies deferentially. This is part of a peculiar feedback loop between critics and “big business”: critics respond in advance to the hype surrounding movies that, through marketing, have become big things even before their releases, thus fuelling the movies’ actual popularity (measured in ticket sales) when they are released. This unhealthy symbiosis is, in part, a result of critics’ fear of isolation from readership. At a time when journalism is under economic siege and the jobs of critics are increasingly imperilled, critics legitimately fear alienation from the mainstream.
Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Marina: Well, I guess that settles it. Ice cream is officially better than cake.
Pearl: Well, I don't know if it's "officially" better...
Marina: Actually, according to chapter 3, paragraph 5 of the Splatfest rules, it is. Ice cream is now legally better than cake. It's the law, Pearl.
Splatoon 2, after the results of the Cake vs. Ice Cream Splatfest


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