Mainstreamism - is it like racism/sexism?

I've been told off. A few times now by two of my closest friends. For being Mainstreamist. What does that mean, well, that I make negative judgements about what is popular or what I consider to be mainstream culture.

So I had to delve down inside and see if I am. Conclusion: yes.

Just to be clear, this is not a class judgement. A friend of mine said, "but you're posh", as if this made me hypocritical for feeling anti-mainstream. It is mainly the posh who do engage in cultural and intellectual snobbery. But am I one of them then?

I never thought it was bad to feel that way towards popular culture. Perhaps because I had worked in the public arts and cultural sector for 8 years where my job was to put on work that was not shown by the main cultural or entertainment players. Things considered obscure or left-field. Some of it was populist such as my exhibition on Digital Beauties which got on the cover of The Metro. And for the first time my Dad could sort of understand what I did for work. In general however some of what I curated was sometimes intellectual, sometimes beautiful, sometimes not that great at all. Which is why I left that world and went into business. One of my aims in choosing to do an MBA was to cross over into the wider world, to understand the world from a business perspective (how much more populist could I get?) and be with intelligent people who in general were not into the same cultural products as I was.

My cultural taste was very much into early hip hop, funk, obscure electronica, new media art (such as the exhibition I produced at Laboral, Spain), going to art and activist festivals such as Next 5 Minutes and Transmusicale. I didn't go as underground as a lot of people I knew, but yes I went to squat party raves and cutting edge dance performances coupling telematics and virtual reality and VJ performances as well as the Venice Biennale. But that was also my work. My work and life blurred into one.

I never did like shopping malls, department stores gave me a headache; multiplexes with huge buckets of popcorn were never my thing, nor was a lot of pop music out there.  I do feel it's very sad that what I consider silly Hollywood and Bollywood films and pop music do extremely well in the box office whereas a lot of films I like, do not. I guess they are the niche, the long tail. Not to say all Hollywood is bad. I loved Donnie Darko, American Beauty, Juno and many more...I suppose they are the popular alternative to Hollywood, as Apple Computers is to Windows.

One of the friends who berated me for my snobbishness did so saying that this kind of judgement puts everything into one basket and mainstream culture is way more nuanced than that. Which is true. He also said that it's a hair's breath away from racism and sexism. I suppose he's right.

So I will try not to judge it. 2012 New Years resolution.
Amen.