The 'average person' and stupidity

If there is any overarching, symptomatic, pervasive problem with the way people communicate in the present day, it would be how it's fashionable to describe the average person as 'stupid'. I was reminded of this by a recent Cracked editorial, which chalks up the popularity of unfunny sitcoms to how "a lot of people are stupid." The popularity of this kind of sentiment doesn't really need to be explained - the person saying this and the person hearing it are both excluded from this supposedly rampant stupidity and consequently receive unwarranted ego boosts - but the problem with it isn't quite as logically straightforward, although it's still pretty obvious.

Put simply, it works on the same level as advertising: calling the vast majority of people stupid associates your intellectual superiority with common sense, without any rational basis, just like advertising associates certain values, which are in turn associated with buying a particular product, with common sense. It also discourages empathy and understanding and, this being something I probably fall victim to every now and then, causes you to associate any opinion that differs from yours as being opposed to common sense. Because the mass media encourages this particular behavior, these attitudes turn into tropes aimed at regulating a certain understanding between different people about the proliferation of cliche in various media - that is, it encourages people to accept it as a natural consequence of most people not being as intelligent as they are. People who watch commercial television who, after a point, cotton on to some of the formulaic constraints applied to the production of a number of television shows, are discouraged from analysing what signifies the lack in creativity, and why they don't like it, and are instead prompted with the simpler option of just dismissing their own, very valid concerns in favour of having their ego pampered through irrational association.

So, if you know anyone who tends to justify the lack of creativity in media produced by large, profit-motivated institutions, or the removal of political freedoms, etcetera, with a perceived median stupidity, or if you do it yourself, ask them what they think makes them more intelligent than the average person, or ask yourself, and offer some sympathy for the faceless 'average person' who is blamed for something s/he has no hand in.