Scott Adams on Bias
To me, Justin Timberlake sounds like a shockingly untalented guy with a lot of musical training. Why do I perceive him that way when millions of his fans do not? One explanation is that I have excellent taste in music while the people who buy his albums do not. … The other explanation is that I am mentally defective. … I see this situation every day … People e-mail … telling me that Dilbert sucks, despite the fact it’s in 2,000 newspapers … The e-mail I have NEVER received goes like this: “I do not enjoy Dilbert, but since many people do, I assume the problem is on my end. Something is wrong with me and I am just writing to let you know I am defective.” … Describe the last time you disagreed with a popular opinion, about anything, and concluded that the problem is with you?
Hat tip to Eric Crampton.
I imagine there are vastly more people that don't care for Timberlake's music than do. If so, it would seem odd that the hundreds of millions of non-fans should feel somehow defective because he has tens of millions of fans. Similarly for dilbert.
I suspect that a lot of musical taste is determined by the "mere exposure" effect; you tend to like music similar to the music that you hear most often. (There seems to be an over-exposure effect of some sort, though, in that listening to the same piece of music for long enough often becomes annoying.) I have observed that my own tastes sometimes seem to change when I hear other people praising or denigrating things. Is that reasonable?