Do you think part of the (is this just X) problem is an outsized backlash to shows that get praised for their novelty when in fact they are just good works in their genre (like how people talk about Evangelion, often not having seen shows like Ideon it's heavily pulling from), or is it an unrelated failure of media literacy going in a different direction, both stemming from an overvaluing of novelty as a virtue in a product?
(With reference to this post here.)
I suspect they’re separate (albeit related) issues – if only because, in my experience, the folks who are most given to playing the “this is just X” game tend to have very poor media literacy themselves, frequently misidentifying common tropes within their respective genres as specific references to the one work they happen to be familiar with in which that trope appears. For the most part, they’re the ones doing the misdirected praising, not the ones getting honked off about it.
(The irony that those most concerned with rooting out derivative media also tend to be those most likely to erroneously credit works for having originated tropes that are merely common features of the genres in which they participate is not lost on me!)
