/lit/ - Literature

>>3576573
I live in the deep south and virtually no one in my town has higher education, except maybe the highschool teachers (there's no college here so anyone remotely interested in studying moves away in their late teens), and I've never heard that ''poetry is for girls'' bullshit in real life. Everyone I've told about my interest in poetry and literature from here was nothing but impressed, in fact it seems that the more uneducated and humble the person is, the more they are impressed by my ''intellectual'' interests. In their heads, poetry and philosophy especially are very fancy and exclusive to super clever people.

The only people who really look down on such things are ignorant and arrogant teenagers and young adults. Actually, I remember being largely admired and looked up to in high school for being an ''intellectual'' (despite failing two years consecutively), I remember bringing poetry books to class and having people come to me fascinated asking about it, teachers complimenting me, loud bullies talking to me gently and with respect, etc. It never crossed my mind that people could be mocked for reading poetry until I came to 4chan. The thing is, the people who typically visit 4chan, that is, 16-22 year old male social outcasts who only read fantasy and sci fi and whose only hobbies are videogames and anime, are ignorant, but are still arrogant and still think they're smarter than everyone else. They're sort of in an uncanny valley between the common ignorant folk and actually educated and intelligent people. They're more articulated and arguably more intelligent than most people their age, but still not actually as smart and knowledgeable as they think they are.