Reading the Room: The Magicians, BTS, and the Emotional Responsibility of Creating Popular Culture

Heidi S.
15 min readApr 22, 2019

Content warning for mentions of suicide. Also contains spoilers for The Magicians.

When companies do market research, presumably they get feedback from customers — what they like or don’t like, what they need, and whether they’ll buy products from that company again. I assume it’s not much different in the entertainment industry, because in spite of the connection to creative expression, it’s still a business.

Pop culture is by definition popular, which in the 21st century means it uses mass media to reach a lot of viewers, listeners, readers, often to the point where devoted fans and fandoms crop up, some of whom interact with creators on social media and at cons and fan meetings.

The aim for every creator, I assume, is to share their creative expressions, to evoke ideas, and to make things that people enjoy. And to do that you have to care, at least a little, about your audience. Perhaps some people create only for themselves and only for their art, but industries decide what counts and what doesn’t, so there’s always some audience, unless you keep your creations to yourself until you die.

Popular culture specifically depends on wide audience consumption and approval, which is why bad series finales, insulting character arcs, and stale or unbelievable plot lines are curious. When a show, or a movie franchise, or even a commercially successful band creates something…

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Heidi S.

PhD in philosophy | Feminist | Anarchist | Pop culture junkie | Kpop listener | Actually Autistic