I think people who talk big about hating things mainstream are honestly absolute pricks. I mean yes I myself hardly immerse myself in mainstream culture (almost all of my time spent in my video store is in the 'cult' section) and I can admit that a lot of the stuff in movies that are made to sell to wider audiences do tend to not appeal to my senses and I much prefer movies made just because they wanted to make this movie regardless of how it would sell in fact right now in my own opinion I can think of about FOUR movies in the Australian Mainstream Cinema worth watching, Public Enemies, Coraline, Inglourious Basterds and District 9.... all else is garbage and if I want anything else I go to one of the independant theatres. I can understand that... but just because a thing is popular does not automatically make it bad, it depends on the quality of the product itself. It also does not make someone special to say 'I like things obscure and rare over the blandness that swamps the industry' because that's just being annoying.
I want to say something for the record, I was never 'hypnotised' by mass marketing and media hype when I started liking the Halo series. I picked up the controller at a friend's house and played and had the time of my life (at the time, come on my life has a little more meaning) and I just got into the series from there. That's it, in fact in Australia there WAS no major media hype for the release of Halo 3, it wasn't on billboards and TV commercials and they never brought the drink here either. So my excitement was entirely based on it's own merits. That's the thing, just because it is popular by the mainstream doesn't mean everyone is drawn to it like a flock of sheep because of marketing. People do still have free will and people just happened to like that game, and I was one of those people. That's actually a great example of self righteousness I think, behaving like yours is the only opinion that is 'right' and therefore if someone's taste differs to yours then they must have been 'brainwashed by the media'. As I said before it's not the hype it's the product itself and maybe if millions of people all loved it maybe that means there was something there that maybe you didn't see as it's not to your taste. That alone doesn't make them WRONG nor does it make you RIGHT and it certainly doesn't prove you WRONG either and it doesn't prove them RIGHT. People have different tastes... that's all.