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Nominull comments on Things you are supposed to like - Less Wrong
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I'm not sure which is worse - liking all modern art because one is supposed to like it, or hating all modern art because one is supposed to hate it. Either way, the category lines are not being drawn usefully. As the original post notes, there ought to be more to this than just going along with social signals.
Why ought there be more to this than going along with social signals? Isn't all of art just one great gameboard on which to play boundlessly complex social status games? When you think of people who are obnoxiously devoted to social status games, the "hipsters", you think of two things, fashion and art. Both are essentially meaningless except to define the rules of the games we play with each other.
If somebody enjoys something that they read or experience alone, then they must get some utility from art that isn't connected with the associated social signals. I suspect that there are many people who are capable of appreciating art without talking about it.
(This does not apply if they read something alone, brag about it, and try to signal super-high status and nonconformity by only liking obscure things. THAT is the status game that I associate with hipsters.)
I consider that sort of social signaling basically orthogonal to liking art for being pretty, funny, thought-provoking, or sublime. Art that is liked solely for social reasons is unlikely to survive a change in social environment.
(EDITED for pronoun trouble)