On the other hand, some of the things in popular culture are what teach us about what the world is like. For example, I would wager that more people are taught what guns are like by video games and movies, than the actual physical objects themselves. This means that there is some purpose to analysing popular products from a variety of angles. It might teach us new things about the world. We probably do it from the same few (political) angles too often though.
Teachers often teach that very badly, but the lesson is buried in there. Discover what you like, then inquire about why you like it and how it does that.
It's not about teaching you about the world. It's about teaching you about yourself, and then about other people.
All of this speech comes from like 10 world-spanning companies and everyone is on everyone else's board.
Books and indie games usually aren't much different, because they are imitative of the dominant content owners. A world of fanfic. And of course, in the case of books, the world has about 4 publishers that sell 80% of them.
Books aren't expensive to publish like theatrically released movies and AAA games. According to the 2019 Publishers Weekly ranking of global publishers, Penguin Random House issues 15,000 titles a year with revenues of 3434 million Euros (2018). That puts cost-per-title well under $0.25 million whereas AAA games start at tens of millions per title. I don't know if ROI is similar but initial cost to bring a new work to market is much lower for a book.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/binary-data/Global502019.pd...
My only problem with this is the cultural critic's insistence on assigning everything they enjoy with a complex intellectual meaning and significance. It's self-praise, in the guise of analysis, used to rationalize the sheer amount of time spent consuming popular products of the culture industry.