To be considered “open minded,” you need to be open to a variety of life styles and people. If you claim to be “open minded,” this includes being open minded about pop culture and interests of the mass. You don’t need to necessarily believe in those same values or be involved in the same activities, but you do need to respect them. If you are only “open minded” to values that are deemed to be different than that of others in society, you are not “open minded” but you are instead succumbing to a subset of counterculture, which by the way faces as much conformity and groupthink as the “shallow” people of society that you were trying so desperately to avoid.

Please remember this when you label yourself as “open minded” because most people that describe themselves as such have done so inappropriately.