About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

24 May 2014

On the over reliance on "experts"

This month, The Economist's Intelligence Life magazine has an interesting article on convergence of opinion with regards to art works. The article argues that due to hype, marketing and just general overwhelming praise (or otherwise) - our own appreciation of art work will be tainted by these wider opinion. The result however is, when one does come across a lesser heralded work, one struggles to understand why it is not considered in the top 10 lists etc. 

This has interesting implications as art (and other things) are commented upon in great numbers via social media; and off course some things have just been condensed down to "Like" or some star ratings. Thus, with increasing number of ratings, is it really possible to distill whether the rating is genuine appreciation or just the convergence by the herd - i.e. since it is a 4.2 star, and I didn't like it, I will give it a 4 - instead of giving it a 2 ...

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