There’s this idea that floats around — the one where critics are mostly just snobs and know-it-alls, the people who have heard everything and live to tell you why your taste is bad and what you should be listening to instead. But that isn’t really the goal, right? – Nitsuh Abebe

It can be difficult to grasp the speed at which the internet has moved, and, in moving, changed our perceptions of what is both normal and possible. Just ten years ago the web was a very different place. Blogs were only just gaining traction, and if you wanted any kind of group interaction with someone, small web boards and e-mail listservs were sometimes your best bet. No Twitter. No Facebook.

Ten years ago, current New York Magazine pop music critic Nitsuh Abebe was toiling away at a desk job, spending his lunch breaks and free moments sifting through threads on various message boards geared toward fans of independent music. Laboring in obscurity like any young twenty-something with literary aspirations and a boring day gig.

Over time he became acquainted with another young man, Ryan Schreiber, whose small music website, Pitchfork Media, would one day grow to become the most influential taste-making site in the history of internet-based music criticism. The Rolling Stone of a web 2.0 generation. Abebe began writing for Pitchfork in 2002, when it was still a fledgling startup. He still contributes regularly to the site, most recently in the form of his insightful “Why We Fight” column.