Complimenting your recent post about not identifying with the characters, I would like to add that today we live in a world where many people equate something bad happening in the story or to the characters with bad writing itself. Which is an absurd, but is becoming increasingly normal. People nowadays want both wish fulfillment and for the author to hold their hand and walk them through interpreting the work and its meaning for them
I totally agree with you Anon, and at the risk of sounding like an inconsiderate Fujimoto fan, once again it's a theme he exploits too. I'm not saying that art has never had this dimension, but it's more apparent today: art is a means of consumption. Some would say it's a means of expression above all. That's only the second objective.
Firstly, authors produce and participate in a market, having to bow to the economic weight that this participation implies; secondly, they can, if the work has not been restricted too much for the consumer, perhaps express themselves. Secondly... As for the reader, they first consume the work, and then see it as a means of forging their own identity and self-expression. But the interweaving of consumption and expression implies a profoundly individualistic stance. Why? Because consumption implies thinking about personal needs.
I need a love story, I need to be perceived as this character, I need to be associated with this work almost like a brand. I know that everything I say may sound cynical, but it's really not. Consumerism and individualism are the two components of capitalism (ouuuuh the dirty word is out), they're its foundations, pillars under our feet that we don't even see anymore.