That’s just how media discussions go

Reddit user jess77x made this comment about Pluribus:

The discourse around this show is so weird. It's either a masterpiece or a total slog. And everyone is just talking past each other and calling people illiterate/TikTok brained for disliking it or pretentious shills for liking it. And it's a shame because engaging with this show, the ideas presented in it, and how the show goes about exploring those ideas (for better and for worse) could be so interesting, yet so much of this discussion is centered around this unproductive binary.

They say this is a weird thing about the discourse around this show, but I'd say this is how the discourse is around every piece of media these days. I continue to think that social media warps our minds by rewarding and therefore encouraging extreme takes. You either loved something or your hated it, nuanced options like, "I didn't like all of it, but there was enough there for me to enjoy" doesn't exactly pop off on socials, you know?

The only other possibility I could credit to this "it's either the greatest thing of all time or it's trash" dichotomy I see is due to the fact there's just so much media for us to participate in these days that anything short of great is not worth our time. Why would I waste my time watching a show that's "pretty good" when there are 10 "amazing" shows released each year? Maybe there's something here, but given the amount of "trashy comfort food" media we all consume, I'm not convinced by that.