This article is weirdly constructed, because it's basically a two-act piece:

1. Here are all the ways The Dark Knight had an impact on the culture.

2. Here is why The Dark Knight had no discernible impact on the culture.

I mean, that's a weird swerve, right? I'm not going to say that it's Bob validating his love of Marvel films or whatever tedious fanboy garbage, but there does seem to be a bit of confirmation bias at work here. Specifically, Bob's resolute enjoyment of Wacky Fun over Gritty Realism. It's an interesting piece, and I'm obviously not saying that an opinion piece shouldn't have a slant, but I feel like Act 1 utterly contradicts Act 2. Every single point feels like either a glass-half-empty interpretation of a glass-half-full fact or straight-up willful ignorance.

Yes, TDK wasn't nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but it almost WAS, and there was a sustained critical outcry when it wasn't. That's seriously impressive for a movie about Batman fighting the Joker. Christian Bale isn't doing as well as... what, the Batman franchise? Marvel? No one actor could do as well as one of those franchises! Plus, you know, the guy's doing pretty well, all things considered. Whether or not you like American Hustle or The Fighter, they did pretty well for themselves at the end of the day, and that they got made at all is probably a testament to Bale's lingering Bat-cred. Christopher Nolan may not have quite the cultural cred he did when TDK happened, but Bob himself says earlier in the article that TDK was a situation where the stars aligned perfectly. You might as well say that, I dunno, Spielberg today doesn't have the same level of cultural cred he enjoyed after Jurassic Park. Bad example, I realize - Spielberg is an evergreen brand unto himself at this point, whatever the fortunes of a given year's Spielberg picture. But you see my point. Nolan's name is still a reliable box office draw - even Interstellar did well enough, especially overseas. As a producer, he's been less successful (at least creatively), but dude ain't exactly out begging strangers for pennies.

All of which is a shame, because I think the piece hides within it a more intriguing argument that IS demonstrable - TDK's relative lack of impact on its own genre. Marvel utterly dominates superhero pictures, and its innovative serialized structure is being adopted by a staggeringly diverse set of franchises. Everyone wants in on a piece of the meta-franchise pie now, and why not? The potential revenue is way, waaaaaaaaaaay higher than any one movie could earn.

And yet, I would argue (as another commenter above did) that Nolan and TDK's influence on popular culture has been exactly as staggering as predicted. The weird thing is that the impact of the movie hasn't been felt nearly as keenly in film as it has been in other media. The AAA videogame industry has for years been besotted with Nolanizations of franchises as diverse as Tomb Raider and Splinter Cell, TDK memes are still going as strong as ever, the amount of genre television shows that try to ape Nolan on a budget is bonkers, and superhero comics are still in romantic love with the man. Even in the worlds of comedy and music, TDK's influence is felt surprisingly frequently.

This comment is much too long without going into the whys and wherefores of this curious development, but I do feel as though a piece unpicking them might be an interesting read.