Cultural criticism...

...is tolerable when it's abstract, philosophical, holistic, literary. George Steiner and those French dudes from the 1960s. Stuff like that. 

Whereas too much specificity can make a reader squeamish. Especially when cultural criticism becomes a platform for glamorizing aspects of American hipster culture, which is insipid and banal. Especially hard to take is when ostensibly sober analysis and commentary is actually a Narcissus mirror. Oftener than not, that mirror leaks out a scolding, prescriptive reflection against others. 

But insinuating oneself as a template for behavior arches one eyebrow of the hermit named Xavier.