Patton Oswalt Stops Being Polite and Starts Getting Real

Readers of Patton Oswalt's blog were recently made aware of the Comedian of Comedy's affinity for the fledgling prime-time drama Friday Night Lights, and the post went on to spur an interesting conversation on the boards at A Special Thing about the prejudices of intellectuals and indie-types. Among the wisdom extolled by Patton was this thoughtful comment:

You know how, when you're nineteen, and terrified of what everyone
thinks of you ("You are what people perceive you to be…") you do that
disdainful bullshit, where you say, "Oh, he doesn't like SPINAL TAP",
or "Oh, she likes FAMILY GUY", and you follow it with the phrase,
"…and that tells me all I need to know about him/her".

 
That's kinda cute when you're nineteen, because older people hear
it and have a hearty chuckle behind your back. Because — tee hee! –
saying that tells everyone else everything they need to know about YOU.

 

But no one faults you for it, 'cuz you're nineteen, and pretty soon
you'll grow into Alan Moore's famous phrase, "Forget cool. Like
everything." Or what that Shaky Cane?

 

Nothing has a shorter shelf life than "indie street cred".  'Cuz no one worries more about "indie street cred" than people who

 

a)  are not indie

 

b)  have never lived on or near the streets.

 
May I quote the noted Sufi philosopher and orgone energy researcher
Bob Hope: "When you're twenty, you worry what everyone thinks about
you; when you're forty, you don't care what anyone thinks about you;
when you're sixty, you realize no one was ever thinking about you."

The whole discussion is worth reading and really makes me want to start watching FNL.