Basically a repost pf things I said in the mega, but anecdotally I'm hearing that sales of fiction read by men are dropping precipitously, and English and literature classes in colleges are now dominated by women. It seems like young men are not being exposed to literature in the same way that they used to. Like, when I was in high school and college, you could be a "bro" kind of guy and read Chuck Palahniuk, or Hunter S. Thompson, or David Foster Wallace. For decades, authors like Hemmingway and Bukowski found receptive audiences in young men, not to mention all the crime fiction, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy that men have traditionally consumed. The "guy in your English class who loves David Foster Wallace" was a stereotype for a reason. I read in another thread that music is less culturally important to young men than it used to be. It seems like younger men just straight up see no value in reading literature or fiction, or exposing themselves or critically engaging with art and music, because the algorithms just railroad them into Alpha Gridset world.

Am I wrong about this? Am I being condescending and out of touch, or is this a real thing that's happening, where the whole "male" culture is turning into grindset podcasts and streamers?

Edit: Okay, so the impression I'm getting is that everything is worse but also kind of the same as it ever was, which sounds right.

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[–] 54 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

I don't know if it's attention spans or w/e but it does feel like fewer people of all generations are reading now, and when they do read, they just want slop. Anything that demands engagement or effort from the reader is denounced as 'badly written'. It drives me a bit mad tbh, because at the same time that people smugly reject good literature, you can see that they're unfulfilled reading the same old dreck for the millionth time.

A common thing I used to see on Book Twitter was people complaining at the lack of beautifully written prose that focuses on the interior life and I just want to scream THAT'S MODERNISM YOU'RE DESCRIBING MODERNISM, READ THE WAVES, PLEASE READ THE WAVES, IT WILL MOVE YOU SO DEEPLY, but the thing is that while they want that, they also only read YA dystopian fiction written in the past simple as an iron rule.

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  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Most conversations I have with people my age start with "I saw this Tiktok...". Very dire. Don't care if I sound like a cranky boomer.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Eh, this one is a funny point tbh, do you get the same reaction when someone says "I saw this YouTube video" or "I saw this on the news" etc?

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    No one has ever been "i saw _____ on youtube" and it ever been anything morally good, very occasionally my IRL friend will reference a YT video essay or something, but otherwise it's usually something frivolous (not necessarily bad) or some heinous culture war shit.

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  • [+] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That’s YouTube shorts. TikToks can be much longer than 1 min.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    I only started using TikTok cause a cool commie I follow on YouTube posts exclusive (long-form) content on TikTok 🤷‍♂️

    And tbh I found many other cool commies on my FYP. Like the algorithm is much better than YouTube. YouTube will still from time to time suggest sigma grindset videos to me, or straight up fascist shit even. That has never happened on TikTok.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Anything that demands engagement or effort from the reader is denounced as 'badly written'.

    I HATE CINEMASINS

    I HATE CINEMASINS

    soypoint-1 ding soypoint-2

    It drives me a bit mad tbh, because at the same time that people smugly reject good literature, you can see that they're unfulfilled reading the same old dreck for the millionth time.

    I think there is an unexamined craving for stimulating literature, the kind that actually provokes additional lasting thought about what is read, but that doesn't boost sales in the short term the way "My Boyfriend Is A Billionaire Navy SEAL Werewolf" or "Space Captain Murica Murderfucks The Cosmos" does.

    lack of beautifully written prose that focuses on the interior life

    From what I've seen, most people don't even know they might enjoy that and are just looking for some kind of perfect slop instead, sort of like a malnourished person that only has corn syrup options at a food desert might keep trying new food coloring varieties hoping to feel less sick.

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  • [+] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Its crazy how important a book can be. A whole concept can be understood by a culture almost entirely through the lens of one piece of literature.

    Yeah. It's unfortunate that some cultures can pick up some horrid ideas from a particular piece of literature, such as Alan Greenspan and a lot of finance ghouls like him basing Burgerland's economic policies on a feverish Ayn Rand power fantasy involving magic metal, perpetual motion machines, and actually-smart billionaires that could somehow deliver hours long speeches repeating "fuck you, got mine" and somehow winning over the masses.

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  • [+] 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Oh man don't get me started. I'm so tired of Angry That The Terminal Even Exists Guy, and that's before we even get to the co-optation of the concept of 'accessibility'. NO, NOT BEING ARSED WITH LEARNING A DIFFERENT PARADIGM, WHILE UNDERSTANDABLE, IS NOT A DISABILITY

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    but the thing is that while they want that, they also only read YA dystopian fiction written in the past simple as an iron rule.

    I was watching a YouTube video yesterday tmaking fun of YA dystopian fiction and there were endless comments about how great the Hunger Games is. A lot of "Best book ever! Someday it will be seen as proper literature!" Granted, I haven't read the book (only saw the movies), but it was Battle Royale in the future instead of the present day.

    I dunno. I want to let people enjoy things, but I also think a lot of this stuff is just shit. Battle Royale was already pulp, so Hunger Games being a copy is even more pulp. The same goes for 50 Shades of Gray being Twilight fan fiction turned into a whole series.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I actually wanted to like Hunger Games, at the least, as a basic but still entertaining worldbuilding attempt at class struggle metaphors and rigged game analogies that might connect with younger people, but then it became exhaustively shallow YA romance instead. debord-tired

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    What do you mean? Love triangles are the pinnacle of storytelling.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's what a lot of my students believed in my classes and I didn't want to criticize their treats in a way that'd make the rest of the year miserable for both parties. burgerpain

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You ever watch Terrible Writing Advice on YouTube? Recurring bits include love triangles, Man with No Name spoofs, evil empire that's evil for reasons, chosen one prophecies, self-insert wish fulfillment, etc.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    It's unfortunate that that place could call itself Profitable Writing Advice and it'd be just about as correct.

    Writing absolute slop, where it's not just bad ideas but bad composition of bad ideas, can be very profitable if it panders enough.

    Just look at Ready Player One.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Still can't believe that book was not only a bestseller, but also got made into a movie. I get it, not everyone wants to trudge their way through obscure 18th. century literature or avant-garde meta commentary on English academia. But like..."The idea hit me like an anvil on the top of my head." Really? 300 pages of that? Why would you do that to yourself?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    My chuddiest relative, one that I've ranted about at length here before, holds Goodkind, Card and Heinlein all in very high regard... but Ready Player One is his very favorite book and he was shocked when I had such a strong negative opinion of it.

    He has all the pretenses and attempted pomp and circumstance of a "smart" person, up to and including waving around big words and claiming to have "studied philosophy" and all that... but his favorite book ever is the one that says that being the epic bideo bame boy and knowing lots of Gen X white boy trivia made him the winningest winner. pathetic

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Okay but Heinlein is kinda mid so that tracks lmao

    At least your chud reads. My chuddiest chud relatives think reading is for dorks and I'm pretty sure one of them hasn't picked up a book since high school (despite being almost 50).

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    My chud primarily got into reading because the Starship Troopers movie's satire completely fucking missed him and he wanted to read the book where the epic space fascism came from.

    He liked the book more.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's a

    from me considering how open the director and cast have been about the movie being satire. These last few years have convinced me you have to be explicitly and vocally anti-fascist in storytelling because these brainlets don't realize when they aren't welcome.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Even many of the people on set missed the point to the point of pissing off Verhoeven. He complained later about how "yay space fascism!" was a common sentiment among many of the actors there.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    but philosophical letters by voltaire is basically slop as is candide which is also by him.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Is it a bad thing that Pangloss was what made me seriously question my own apathy and conformism? I can see why Candide is kinda slop but I think if everyone read Candide we'd have a lot more people interested in actually changing the world, IDK.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not at all it had (if im understanding correctly) the same on me when i first read it in my teens. I genuinely thought pangloss was the bees knees

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Right, and I think that this idea of "the world is exactly as it ought to be" is just such an important tenet of liberalism (ironic since Voltaire is one of the most important thinkers behind liberalism, someone more educated on philosophy can probably explain the contradiction there) and I think that breaking out of that bliss is so important for building a pro-social worldview. A better world is actually possible!

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