Why you should be a snob when it comes to consuming art.

Why you should be a snob when it comes to consuming art.

October 31, 2024

artthought piece

This sounds really bad but trust me on this one, I whole heartedly believe that you should consciously monitor the art you consume and by extension the content you consume. This would mean something like monitoring and tuning your social media algorithms to show you more of certain things. While I would rather not be a judge to what according to you is good art but at the same time I do believe that you should make conscious effort into being a gatekeeper/snob of sorts with regards to art you come across.

This concept to an extent spun into existence for me when i was reading Norwegian Wood by Murakami about an year ago. There is this quote where he says

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

This to me is the crux of the whole argument about being a snob when it comes to consuming art.

In an age where everything from clothing to thought is mass produced, I believe it has become ever so important to go out of your way and seek art you would not find in the mainstream media and be a harsher critic of what is put in front of you to consume.

I think you should go watch that four and a half hour long art house film about two families in the Siberian wilderness that spans across generations. I think you should watch this four hour indie Japanese film that deals with religious dogma, ultraviolence, perversion, sexual liberation, guilt and a million other things told with a protagonist who is an upskirt photographer. I think you should listen to that 42 minute long Russian gypsy violin recording on Spotify.

I think you should write a rambly scathing review where you destroy someone's life's work as if they were your mortal enemy when you do not like something (with reasonable civility of course). I would love for more people to be more conscious about art and its context in their lives. I say so because it is a lot more important than we realise it to be. In my opinion a lot of our best ideas and work comes as an inspiration either consciously or sub-consciously from the art and media we consume.

But the larger point I am trying to make here is that you should seek works of art that are beyond what you know and comprehend and be inspired by them. I truly believe doing this and being critical and thoughtful of the art and content you consume will benefit you in more ways than you can think of.