Popularity is the quintessential concept in
herd mentality. It is the blind subservience to ultimately meaningless statistical averages (if you really want 2.3 kids, you'll need a hacksaw).
Have you ever really thought about the motivation behind Top 40? "Wow, lots and lots I've people I'll never probably never meet, and probably wouldn't like anyway, really dig this song... it must be cool!" Moo.
And the height of popular lunacy must be the statistical fiction of number one. At any given time, the "Number One movie in America" is about guns and car chases, soon-to-be-dismembered teenagers, or a dinghy in a storm. Don't you get all moist and swoony just thinking about it? I know the masses of mallgoing teenage girls of America do.
The real problem is that the corporate assholes backing all this shit get the high hard one just thinking about all the numbers. "Fuck eclectic and difficult art," goes the thinking, "We need those opening weekend sales and a chart-topping soundtrack to go with it."
And so goes the increasing homogenization of mainstream culture.