"}For two decades or more, instructively in line with the retreat of \npossibilities for concerted left political action outside the academy, \nthe popular culture side of that debate has been dominant, along with \nits view that the products of this precinct of mass consumption \ncapitalism are somehow capable of transcending or subverting their \nmaterial identity as commodities, if not avoiding that identity \naltogether. Despite the dogged commitment of several generations of \nAmerican Studies and cultural studies graduate students who want to \nvalorize watching television and immersion in hip-hop or other specialty\n market niches centered on youth recreation and the most ephemeral fads \nas both intellectually avant-garde and politically \u201cresistive,\u201d it \nshould be time to admit that that earnest disposition is intellectually \nshallow and an ersatz politics. The idea of \u201cpopular\u201d culture posits a \nspurious autonomy and organicism that actually affirm mass industrial \nprocesses by effacing them, especially in the putatively rebel, fringe, \nor underground market niches that depend on the fiction of the authentic\n to announce the birth of new product cycles.
lol tumblr (from that adolph reed essay i just reblogged)