In my rock critic days I found it a useful tool in writing about and understanding pop culture. ('80s British pop music is what you'd get if you tried monetising postmodernism, and I don't just mean ZTT.) It's the sort of thing you really want to have a use for before you bother with it more than casually.

(I still think in terms of critical understanding of stuff all the time and read books of criticism for enjoyment, even of artistic fields I know nothing about. I realised a while ago that if I were doing for a job the thing I would be best at, I'd be a professor of critical theory and paid a lot less than I am as a sysadmin.)