In the last decade, Brutalism has been the focus of public engagement on a level rare for architecture in our civic culture. Even more surprising is its popularity on social media accounts like FuckYeahBrutalism (FYB). Discussions of online Brutalism as nostalgic or as a meme emphasise its individualised, democratic appeal. Neither explanation is wholly convincing: most social media users lack detailed knowledge of Brutalism’s political context, while its seriousness defies meme humour. Instead, online popularity should be interpreted through the longer history of Brutalism in broad- and narrow-cast media, on television and in academic publications, associated with a series of key critics. Even on social media, figures like FYB’s Michael Abrahamson continue to act as critics online. This places brutalism within academic debates on amateur online writing and whether it can be criticism, made more pronounced on image-based social media. While this seems to undermine narratives of democracy online—with taste controlled by critics as in traditional media—what emerges is a different kind of equality. Figures like Abrahamson provide a link from education and academia to the wider architecture community and the general public. Repeated exposure to high-quality, curated images of Brutalism helps the public develop the necessary visual acuity to begin to recognise the worth and specific qualities of this architecture; a refined taste we are beginning to see reflected back into developments in academia and grassroots conservation campaigns. Underpinning this discussion is the empirical aesthetics of David Hume, and his startling notion that the greatest recommendation for a critic is their popular acclaim. It is only by recognising and following good critics that we can approach a standard of taste, and begin to make our own aesthetic judgments.