As the_gneech noted in a followup to his post about the troll that failed, different styles appeal to different audiences which might not necessarily overlap. I regularly read Suburban Jungle[1] for instance, but find the style of It's Walky unappealing. Not bad, just unappealing to me.

That's just one example. The Animaniacs character of Rita (the cat) was voiced by Bernadette Peters. Rita often sang, the singing also done by Bernadette Peters. And the singing was, of course, quite good. But somehow it never appealed to me. Was it too many high notes? Too much like a whine? I'm not sure. When I listen to the singing to judge it, it's fine. But I can't listen to it for enjoyment.

There's a lot of stuff out there that isn't actually bad, but I simply don't like it very much. There is, of course, also an astonishing amount of genuine crud. Those are not the same, but sometimes I think folks get the impression that they're all lumped together. In the sense of "don't care for it" they are lumped together. The reason for not caring for each class differs, however.

One person might like a breakfast of soft eggs with runny yolks, soft bacon, and lightly toasted white bread. Another person might prefer eggs with fully cooked yolks, crisp bacon, and rye toast. These two people will disagree about the appeal of each other's meal, but will agree that it is what was actually ordered. Chances are if either one got blackened, charred eggs, bacon that was nothing but barely cooked fat, and burnt toast there would be some well-deserved complaints about it.

Yet, each person, shown the three possibilities, would only consider the one he preferred to be the "right" choice. Only one of the example breakfasts is truly rotten, but only one choice is really appealing, too. "You think that my perfectly good breakfast is crud?" "Not for you. But for me, it would be."

[1] Suburban Jungle is being done by guest artists for a little while, so if you're looking at it around the time I post this, you're not getting a representative sample unless you check the archives a bit.

Current Mood: pensive