Also, is there a difference so far as indoctrination is concerned between "high status people like this" and "normal people like this"?

Not in terms of the uninformativeness it injects into the fact of their popularity. That is, if something's popular without that kind of in-school promotion (like Halo), that says a lot more about it then whether people "like" something (but continue to doze through any actual performance until the part where they get to sleep with their date) that is promoted in school, such as Shakespeare.