Yeah…that’s exactly how I feel about my research right now.

Brown Skin, White Masks

"[The Typical Narrative Informant …] can feign authority while telling their conquerors not what they need to know but what they want to hear. (In return, American and European liberals call them “voices of dissent”.) Faced with the Islamophobic conditions of their new homes, they have learned the art of simultaneously acknowledging and denying their Muslim origins. They speak English with an accent that confirms their authenticity to their white interlocutors. The recent incidents of urban terrorism have been so good for their business that they have had to hire PR firms (such as Benador
Associates) to negotiate their speaking fees and manage their media appearances."
Brown Skin, White Masks by Hamid Dabashi (2011)

Whereas Dabashi’s thesis focuses on the intellectual as “narrative informant” (Rushdie, Nafisi, Warraq, Manji, Hirsi Ali, and Ajami), it seems a new form of “narrative informant” is among us, one that isn’t only confined to academic circles, but rather within the creative/cultural space - the pseudo intellectual cultural practitioner.