In this era of mass media-driven celebrity culture, it has become increasingly fashionable to claim the label “anti-elitist” as a badge of honor. With the help of social media, these supposed rebels-to-the-establishment have risen to unprecedented levels of visibility and influence, often championing the values of authentic, grass-roots movement-building, but in fact, embodying the opposite.
From pseudo-intellectual writers with a bad haircut, to Instagram personalities with more followers than tangible achievements, to self-aggrandizing performers with shallow, focus-grouped perspectives, this crop of supposedly “anti-elitists” has transformed the very idea of “elite” itself into a parody of authentic intellectual or cultural authority.