Sometimes I Do Actually Hate the Media Elite

In this week's New York Magazine, there's an article by Adam Sternbergh called The Mad Men Dilemma, in which he considers the minor cultural phenomenon the show has become. His theory is that people are more compelled than ever to try convincing everyone they meet to watch the same shows they watch because, thanks to the internet, I guess, the rest of the world is headed in a gazillion different directions, with nothing really connecting us to one another. It's a nice enough idea but far from a home run. 

"It doesn't even matter that not many people, relatively, are actually watching Mad Men," he contends. "What matters is that everyone's talking about it." Mr. Sternbergh apparently was not at the Conklin family Thanksgiving Dinner, where, as is often the case, conversation turned to television. Lost, mostly, or Dancing With the Stars or even Gossip Girl. As soon as I spotted a lull, I asked everyone -- aunts, uncles, cousins -- if they were watching Mad Men, and I was greeted with blank stares all around. 

This is a conversation I imagine would have gone similarly at a whole lot of dinner tables around the country, which is why Sternbergh's theory is ultimately flawed. What he doesn't seem to understand is that, for most people, that connection, that shared cultural experience, is still there -- it's just that the things connecting them aren't necessarily things he cares to embrace.