time and time again people are confused that the content they see is directly related to the people they follow and that they’re absolutely lost navigating the internet without an algorithm force feeding them lowest common denominator dreck
I remember when RSS first started and I realized I could basically curate my own personal newspaper/magazine and it was the greatest thrill of my online life, and ever since I've realized people HATE that, that's the WORST part of online for them, they just want TV you can fave
Yeah, one of the reasons I litter my contemporary work with pop culture references isn't that I think I'm funny (though I am, I'm SO funny) but because little babydorks play these games I write and, like, I want them to know that things exist?
Like, the musical references are there so if that stuff sounds interesting people can explore it and maybe escape the algorithm they're stuck in. It's definitely a reaction to the totalizing isolation, the eternal self-reference, of modern comic book movies and D&D.
I find myself name dropping old artists as a practice a lot more because exposure to that stuff is why so much genre work is excellent these days.
Modern American SFF culture arose out of art nerds integrating those influences and pushing back on the “Art as Engineering” schools before them.
