It sounds silly but ‘poptimism’ was an early signal to me that something was very wrong culturally. Pop music doesn’t need promotion from music critics. It’s pop music. It’s popular and accessible. By cheerleading pop music the ‘poptimists’ were providing zero value added in terms of making readers aware of esoteric, difficult, or obscure music they otherwise might not be aware of or likely to enjoy. Instead the ‘poptimists’ were playing the role of social arbiter, they existed as a manifestation of over socialization, they were saying ‘it’s ok to like this music and think that it is good,’ and instead of doing real work as critics they were performatively allocating social approval. ‘Poptimism’ was self aggrandizing and self referential and as others have pointed out it didn’t even make sense because a great deal of pop music has always been held in high esteem. These status games where art approval was manufactured by ersatz surplus elites as a social commodity were a primary mechanism that facilitated our descent into the ideologically adulterated slop that was culturally dominant from 2015 to 2024 that everyone knew was execrable but still pretended was wonderful and thrilling.