An interesting thing I have noticed is that there is usually an inverse relationship between the kinds of music, movies, books and videogames that people claim to like and those that sell well. "Popularity" can often be deceptive because there are factors at play which are unrelated to the true popularity of something; if you like something that is not cool to enthusiastically like due to its supposed undeserved popularity, you’re probably not going to talk positively about it, but you still might buy products associated with it in a discrete way.
My favourite example of this at the moment is Nickelback. I have yet to meet a rabid Nickelback fan, and yet they get tons of radio play, sell more albums than most artists dream of, and sell out concerts everywhere they go. In contrast there are countless artists I hear people rave about, and they receive almost universal acclaim, and yet few people are willing to buy their albums or go to their concerts.
On a side note, I think that the PS3 is receiving a boost in popularity in a similar way to how the Gamecube was appreciated by so many people last generation. People can claim to like the system for its high quality exclusive games and wish that they had these games on their system because there is no threat; in a large part because of how far the PS3 trails the competition.
