But the entire premise of poptimism is to avoid giving credit to artist for formalist experimentation, and this has forced critics to work double-time to invent new ways that culture can be innovative outside of the artistic intention. This can go to ridiculous contrarian extremes. Rodney F Hill described Plan 9 from Outer Space — the worst film of all time — as an artwork that “pointedly rejects the conventions of logic, verisimilitude, and unity that characterize classical Hollywood cinema, in favor of a looser, more meandering plot structure, a flagrant disregard for the rules of continuity, and arguably a modernist or even Brechtian self-awareness of its own artificiality.” In a more recent example, Megan Garber argued in The Atlantic that Kim Kardashian was basically the new Duchamp: “In declaring herself, against all common sense, as art, she mocks and dares and provokes. She rejects what came before.”

Last year Sinéad O’Sullivan had a great piece in The New Yorker arguing that no one bothers to argue that Taylor Swift’s songs are musically innovative. But since her music connects with so many people, it must be good, and therefore, critics are on a mission to find the innovation somewhere. For Kornhaber, Swift has been “pioneering a futuristic form of storytelling: every verse and every public utterance links together an intricate web of ‘lore,’ which brings fans together for puzzle-solving and reinterpretation.” We can, I guess, add Swiftian lyricism to other futuristic forms of storytelling, such as Powerpoint slides and the AI-generated LinkedIn post.