Internet communities around reading and writing (Goodreads, Twitter, AO3, TV Tropes, etc.) have popularized an approach to criticism that is essentially ticking off a list of boxes, and if enough boxes get ticked then what you have is a work of good art.

Those boxes may differ depending on who is doing the ticking, and arguments can break out over things like what kinds of boxes are appropriate to have on your checklist, and whether it's okay for a work of art to tick certain boxes you don't want it to tick, but at the end of the day it mostly comes down to checklists.

Where do these checklists come from?