Just looking at the Patreon list [of 50 largest grossing recipients], my uneasy conclusion is that, in the culture war between the mundane and the grand, the grand has already lost — and without the battle ever having come much into public view.
If you think that the banality of popular culture is a new phenomenon, I’ve got some episodes of My mother, the car to show you.
At Tyler’s George Mason University they have curious notions of the grand:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/penis-ring-toss-lubricant-taste-tests-featured-at-public-universitys-sex-ed-carnival/
Stirner says “Moral influence takes its start where humiliation begins; yes, it is nothing else than this humiliation itself, the breaking and bending of the temper down to humility.”
When you realize Jobs may come back in one of those old Apple I’s…
I think you missed an opportunity to use your ‘narrower, deeper, older’ mantra. Grander, more intellectual pursuits likely tend to be more niche. While everyone looking for brainless Leninist drivel goes to Chapo Traphouse, enthusiasts of, say, history do not (in my observation at least) gravitate toward some popular general history podcast; rather, they scatter among the myriad of well-done region or era-specific history podcasts. The less vulgar, more intellectually inclined probably tend to have narrower interests, so the patreons for their individual podcasts or YouTube channels or whatever would be less likely to make the rankings. It’s also generally my observation that the content is superior in quality, intellectually speaking, in podcasts narrower in scope (therefore with fewer listeners). E.g. Mike Duncan’s history of Rome podcast or Robin Pearson’s history of Byzantium one are far better than any general history podcast I’ve come across.