No one cares about what actual strangers read or write.
You care about what people you think have better taste than you read and write.
There is far too much media to consume. The market for ideas and culture are monopolized by few trends at a time. Attention is finite and not evenly distributed (or fairly for that matter).
Consuming and sorting lesser known media serves as an important societal function and a way of accruing cultural capital. Often times, especially now, it’s more valuable than creating more or adding to the noise.
However, this doesn’t mean you delay creating. Creating and failing at a certain velocity is important to maintaining creative vitality. With regards to communities, it’s important to maintain standards and spirit. You have to actively fight to against entropy as quality of discussion and participation degrades.
Note 1: I’m thinking about what this means in publishing and new media. What about in the context of literary circles and why so many writers come from the same class/circles (Brooklyn, MFA). Is there room for creating long-tail, direct-to-readers, work that bucks these trends?
Note 2: I recently wrote about Knausgaard’s library and trying to decipher the books on his bookshelf in the short BBC documentary if you’re into that sort of thing.