/lit/ - Literature

The suburbs were never meant to be poetic, but they are free of niggers.

Citychad here -- ruralites are cool. Fuck suburbanites.

>>19350081
Because the suburbs are terminally soulless.
I’ve lived in the countryside most of my life but spent some time in the suburbs and lived in the city when I was at university.
The countryside is charming and beautiful, the city is cool (depending on the city) and convenient. The suburbs are inconvenient to traverse, they’re ugly, and they’re boring.

>>19350081
I like small towns
t. Mainefag

Suburbs are based as fuck. I grew up in a subdivision of a subdivision, surrounded on all sides by unfinished homes. Didn't even have sidewalks. Just endless squares and loops of hot, black asphalt as far as the eye could see. Same three shades of vinyl siding, occasional effort at front yard gardening only serving to highlight the sterile bleakness of the surroundings. The nearest business was a gas station two miles away. The whole area was a paved-over heatsink, reaching 115 degrees in the summer.

But we had stoner circles in our parent's garages where we discussed politics and society and culture. We had the internet for underground movies and music, and older siblings off at college on the cutting edge of every trend. I still remember the lumber skeleton of the unfinished house where I lost my virginity on a hoodie spread upon the concrete foundation. It was a crisp Autumn night, and we had to walk a really long time to get there from my parent's house. My girlfriend had snakebite piercings and a hoodie from Hot Topic. She hated Twilight. We made out for half an hour before I finally accepted that nothing was going to interrupt us this time, I was going to have to fuck her. It was so cold. I could barely get an erection. I can't tell you how happy I was when she finally told me I could stop. We broke up the next week, and I later learned that she had been cheating on me the whole time.

>>19351600
>lost my virginity
fake
>could barely get an erection
gay
Conclusion: fake and gay

>>19351600
>even when describing his cherished childhood memories the suburbanites life seems sickening and soulless, endlessly artificial
My God I am glad to have lived mine in the country among green forests and golden waves of grain.

Americans are gonna come into this thread to defend the suburbs because "stop complaining, it's better than living in the city..." because Americans have some demented idea that all cities are, Platonically, knife-rape murder holes. They think that the abject condition of their particular cities is the result of an innate property of cities in themselves. They think retreating into soulless human FARMS to avoid crime and poverty is a desirable and necessary thing. Because they associate it with being middle class, and being middle class is "good", suburbs themselves are "good" -- when actually it just means being an American makes you a cuck if these are the living conditions of the "well-off" American. Meanwhile the rest of the developed world is laughing at you...

>>19351648
>this tryhard and anti-natural way of writing that you can tell is labored and not effortless
>"muh cities ain't even that bad guise"
>"It's just NY and LA and Miami and Dallas and Houston and Seattle and Washington DC and Detroit and Baltimore and Chicago and [...] that are the way I described!"
>this tumblerina-tier existential dread at a series of pretty good houses placed next to each other
>"muh euros in extremely small houses in narrow streets, dominated by an even more degenerate breed of drunks and junkies are laughing at you"

>>19351619
My grandparents had a farm. I used to visit in the summers with my cousins. I remember my grandfather used to drag us out of bed every morning to go pick peas and dig potatoes. Nettles and fireants and dew soaking your shoes. Sometimes if we worked really hard he would take us fishing as a reward. We'd get to spend a whole afternoon at a dirty pond in the hot sun with swarms of bugs everywhere while we waited for the inevitable tug which would precede a slimy grapple with a sharp-finned, desperate animal. Grandma with her nasty-ass old lady hands couldn't even get all the bones out. But I do have some fond memories of the old farm: my uncle's Super Nintendo, late nights staying up to watch toon disney and drinking soda. LOL we'd just be in a sugar daze zoning out at midnight to Hello Kitty and the Gummi Bears.

>>19350081
what do they eat

>>19351600
I enjoyed reading this but this is fake and gay

>>19350081
>Both of them hate the suburbs
The person who breaks the mold is going to become so fucking rich.
American lit needs someone to celebrate the suburbs.
As they are. Not the stereotypes associated with them.
Most of which is dated.

>>19351600
>suburbs are based
>proceeds to explain why the suburbs are the very opposite of based
What did he mean by this?

>>19352515
Based means not caring about what others think, and anyone who lives like THAT doesn't, for better or worse.

Even people living in the suburbs don't like the suburbs. Its always a pragmatic choice moving there. Because, space, safety and money.

>he hasn’t heard of André Hardellet
oh no no no

>>19352435
but it's not interesting to read about. i suppose a good enough writer could make it so but the cities and farm towns have an innate charm that suburbs lack

>>19350081
I like these highly artificial suburbs like this. They have this factory line mechanical property from all the repetition that ends up being trippy in a kaleidoscopic way. I can't quite express it but I think it has to do with the lack of navigable landmarks, it shortcircuits some oogabooga part of my brain responsible for orientation, the effect is a timeless quality begins to seep in. The City and the Farm are both, in their own ways, rushing rivers of endless becoming.
The suburbs approach eternity and pure Being.

>>19353008
The flatness too. Ancestral memories of the steppe maybe?

>>19350081
I'm Team Countryside but I would definitely prefer the suburbs to the city.

From what I can gather from Hollywood, the suburbs are fairly quiet and peaceful. The biggest charge levelled against them is they're boring.

I like quiet. (Put it another way, I can't stand noise. I would literally die rather than live somewhere noisy.) And I like boring. I live entirely inside my own head anyway, so the less external stimulation the better.

The only thing I would really dislike about the suburbs, I think, is the lack of good walks. I like going for long walks in the countryside. For me, a walk is spoiled if I see a single other living person. I want to see trees and grass and (if possible) water. I don't mind the occasional car in the distance.

>>19352435
>American lit needs someone to celebrate the suburbs.
what is there to celebrate?
the end of culture?

>>19350081
>no fences wrapping backyards in most houses
do americans really?

Writers lie, OP. Big lively cities and peacefull countrysides are just more picturesque, it's easier to set a story in these kind of locations, but writers likes solitude, they live among others until they're forced to, then they lock up themselves in big isolated apartments or estates with less human contact as possible.
>Verification not required.

>>19350334
If I was forced to live in the US I'd probably live in Maine.

>>19351648

Suburbs exist outside of America.

>>19353163
Isolated big apartments and large estates are usually found in the city and country respectively, suburbs lose again

>>19351600
>I grew up in a subdivision of a subdivision, surrounded on all sides by unfinished homes. Didn't even have sidewalks. Just endless squares and loops of hot, black asphalt as far as the eye could see. Same three shades of vinyl siding, occasional effort at front yard gardening only serving to highlight the sterile bleakness of the surroundings. The nearest business was a gas station two miles away. The whole area was a paved-over heatsink, reaching 115 degrees in the summer.
souless

the suburbs are great. it would be you and your friends walking to each others houses or to the woods to build a fort. I can see why rural areas have more ‘soul’ but not cities.
I’ve also noticed that every picture of suburbs posted is always from the south

>>19351648
A lot of American cities have some inherent qualities that European cities don’t (or at least didn’t until somewhat recently.) I’ll leave you to figure out what that means.

I don't really hate suburbs, just american style suburbs. Sidewalks are often missing, walkability is pretty bad, long distances, main roads are dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. All of these things are fixable if you plan it out well, but all american style suburbs seemed to have been copy and pasted to the same gay specs.

>>19350081
i like the song subdivisions by rush but i despise the suburbs
t. cityfag who wants to move to either a small town or just a better place in the city (probably the former since i'm poor and taxes suck dick here)

>>19352515
I thought it would be funny to post something like that, essentially contradicting myself on purpose. Because somehow, despite growing up in the soulless, sterile suburbs, I have retained a sense of humor. I have lived in the country, the city, and the suburbs. I've also lived in marinas and military barracks.

Cities are full of frantic people who need someone else to put structure in their lives: they need a bus schedule because they can't choose what time to leave for work on their own, they need a hipster bookstore cafe because they can't think critically about their own taste and find new things to read on their own, they need to have access to a dozen different bars so the media-approved lifestyle of going out drinking three nights a week doesn't feel boring. They feel unsafe even having the capacity to make a decision, so they choose to live in an environment which makes home renovations prohibitively expensive and self-defense illegal.

The country is full of delicate homos who take themselves way too seriously. The thought that someone might not be impressed with their obnoxious retard machine belching black smoke into the air is so offensive that they must put miles and miles of distance between themselves and any perceived criticism. They're obsessed with making things as big and loud as possible and their culture comes to a full stop precisely at that line: pick-ups, wives, beers, bonfires. "I got da biggest I got da biggest" bleh. Look how much noise I can make, how bright these lights are. Fish I caught, deer I shot. Behold my novelty oversized beer mug, which I won by knocking over a large quantity of glass bottles at the *State* (not County, mind you) Fair. Imagine how drunk you would get if you actually consumed such an absurd quantity of beer. Here, let me act it out for you! It's amazing that not a single "genteel rural scholar" ITT debunked or even argued my description of the hallowed country ritual of "fishing."

The suburban man is king. Unlike the trailer dwelling inbreds of the countryside or the timid, scampering human mice of the city, he does not fear the stream of power, nor does he hand himself over to it body and soul. Finance, debt, interest, zoning laws, and civic responsibility. These are the raw clay from which he sculpts his personal empire. If he wants to expose himself to culture, he makes a conscious decision to do so and follows up on his desire by purchasing a theatre ticket or scheduling a trip to the museum. If he wants to get in touch with his natural side, he takes a hike in the forest, perfectly content to go home with a head full of pleasant memories instead of feeling compelled to stain his hands with the blood of wild animals to assuage his sense of inadequacy.

Of course authors don't heap praises on the suburbs. Book writers are, to the hilt, neurotic bloodthirsty degenerates. God forbid someone should force them to have a shave and eat a balanced breakfast for a day or two.

>>19354945
And the true based choice
>need eggs for dinner
>have no eggs?
>eat no eggs

>>19354945
It is midnight and your neighbor's residence has caught on fire, what do you do?
Rural Farmer: The fire brigade will take hours. Ugh guess I have to get out of bed and go help haul buckets of water from the frigid cow pond. No way he can afford a hotel, his entire family will probably want to camp out in my living room until the weather clears up and we can all find the spare time to hammer some corrugated steel sheets over the burnt remains of his home. We can hardly expect him to move out, Grandpappy Shitbrains hammered that shack together with his own two hands. Can't turn your back on that kind of history. How can I possibly afford the extra utility expenses? Well, no cops around, I guess it wouldn't hurt to cook a little meth...
City Dweller: Oh god what if it spreads to my apartment? This building existed for 300 years prior to invention of electricity, it's practically a tinderbox. It'll take decades to approve the permits for a new construction, and decades further to actually rebuild amidst the chaos and traffic of this urban jungle. I'll be homeless in the meantime, shivering amongst the dumpsters in the cold alleyways, living off of pigeons. Hmm... I've heard that crack cocaine can soothe physical discomfort...
Suburbanite: *rolls over and goes back to sleep, confident that the fire brigade will arrive shortly, having been promptly notified of the emergency by his neighbor's fire alarm. Of course, the fire will have long since been extinguished prior to their arrival, unable to find a foothold in the synthetic materials of modern construction. Shame about the hassle, but since the HOA requires comprehensive insurance he can at least look forward to overseeing the construction of a new kitchen while nightly he treats his family to the exciting array of restaurants at the local shopping center*

>>19350081
i never think

>>19354945
>eating eggs for dinner

>>19350081
American suburbs are just the scapegoat for negative cultural and architectural trends that affect every part of the country. Most of the US is "suburban" in character thanks to the interstate highway system, the only exceptions are expensive downtown areas and parts of the countryside where few people live. Describe the "suburban experience" and you'll describe the experience of the average American, no matter where they live.

>>19351600
>>19351692
>>19354729
I enjoy your writing

>>19354729
Nice. I like this thought. There is certainly something in choosing the middle ground.

>>19355311
we got too cocky citifags, how could we forget the daily experience of fire
>>19355355
Have you never used egg batter?

>>19355311
I sincerely hope that you are from reddit or that this is a pasta somehow, because otherwise you have no excuse for writing such a bone-crushingly cringe post

>>19355515
No cringe is all the faggots who read too much sentimental Steinbeck horseshit about the countryside and now masturbate themselves to sleep every night dreaming about retreating to a homestead with their tradcath wife.

Yeah fresh air is great and all that, but I can tell you, through direct personal experience, that eating homegrown crops is not worth the effort. There is no great feeling of holy communion with nature when you have to drag yourself out of bed and spend half a day hunched over in a wet field, plucking beans from a bush beneath a hot sun. You like fresh, organic, free-range eggs? Chickens feel the same way about organic food, and will happily ignore the corn you provide for them in favor of wild cockroaches. Go to fucking church, you'll find out quickly that reddit was right: religious people are just as selfish and narrow-minded as all the stereotypes portray them. The only reason reddit sounds so annoying when they say that is because they refuse to acknowledge that "scientific" people can be the same. My wife is a catholic who lived her entire life in one town, and guess what? She still likes celebrity gossip and dying her hair and buying useless shit to hang on the walls. You think urbanites are pretentious? Imagine living in a society where the Big Money drives a brand new, shiny pick-up truck and has lofty discussions about the inherent superiority of certain brands of cowboy hats.

No different than the retards I went to school with in the suburbs who fetishized the cities. "In the city its always concerts and cafes and brownstone walk-ups where cool poets all drink coffee together and nobody will ever tell me I'm just pretending to be bisexual for attention!"

You can really see the profound hobbling effect that such environments have on the human spirit, in this very thread.
>my place is me and I am my place! this is the only way a person can be! ooga booga place give me soul!

>>19350081
How do americans and anglos even live in these places? How soulless one ought to be?

>>19355750
k nigga

>>19350334
Maine is insanely based and needs to be walled off.

>>19355393
This is accurate, and one could tie it in with the supremacy of the automobile and the relegating of the pedestrian to second class citizen.

>>19356449
Like in Infinite Jest

>>19352805
I disagree. Many fortunes are made and lost in the suburbs. Many life's begin and end. People kill and people die. Family's are made and family's are broken. I get it dosent have all the "hustle" and "bustle" of the city. But its far from boring. Good things do happen there. But the transplants that come to the city are annoying as fuck. They overcompensate.

>>19353041
Suburban people tend to get more into subcultures usually. Because there is nothing else to do really. You cant just go to the movies or the mall on the bus and you aren't in a rural enough place to hunt and shoot guns. Suburban youth tend to be more social because there is less to do. More parties and shit. I grew up in a very dense major American City and we didn't party for shit. Just went to the mall afterschool and got food.

>>19350081
Not being from the suburbs sounds extremely gay and uninteresting

>>19357140
>mom, can you drive me to a party?
>no, I have work tomorrow

>>19351728
Applebee's

>>19355393
>that image
I went to stay with my Godmother in Florida a few years ago for Christmas (I’m from rural England), I took a trip driving down to the Florida Keyes for a few days, drove all the way back to Fort Lauderdale from Key West one evening. I swear, an hour of the journey in south Florida approaching Miami all looked exactly like that image, it might’ve been because the traffic was slow at times but it must have been dozens of miles unending of the same parking lots and stores surrounding.
It’s pretty bad in my country now but I’ve never had an experience of geography that was so bizarrely monotonous, and I grew up close to the fens, truly burgerpunk. I had a similar experience when I walked through my the suburbs where my Godmother lived to go to a publix one evening, but nothing like the hundred mile stripmall.

>>19354729
>no you don’t understand, the last men are actually the supermen

>>19357561
>my idea of paradise came to a screeching halt with the romanticists
>i have outsourced my entire personality to my living environment
>but you're the soulless drone who's already dead inside!
*yawns* Yeah no clue if you're a countryfag or a cityfag, but come talk to me when you have a little life experience, you'll realize there's more to life than scratching in the dirt or neurotically fighting for personal space with homeless people on the subway.

>>19357681
>you didn't grow up in the suburbs, you grew up in developing countryside which is where most great memories happen.
Eh, my house was built in the 80's we moved in during the early 2000's. I moved out in 2010, and by then most of the new construction surrounding my neighborhood was wrapping up and fully half of the younger kids I rode to school with in the morning were black. I'm not sure what the distinction was, like I said it took forever to even reach the new construction on foot, like half an hour.

>>19350081
I'm tired of suburb bashing. Suburb's are the best. City is a neurotic sensory overload with ghetto's, and countryside is boring after a while. Suburbs are comfy with a good balance of social stimulation, outlets and organic-synthetic beautification. OP is always disingenuous with his suburb pic, positing the most uniform and insular examples that can be found. There's a lot of variety and mobility in suburbs I grew up in.

>>19351600
a bit different from the other shit you're getting, you didn't grow up in the suburbs, you grew up in developing countryside which is where most great memories happen. your community was being upgraded from hick to spic and you got all the benefits out of it. be grateful, not obnoxious.

>>19350081
surburbs are perfect for parents but if they put in little effort to their family its hell for their kids.

>>19350081
>americans

>>19351600
> She hated Twilight

was it ncessary?

>>19350081
I don't have anything published, but I can't imagine many writers actually prefer to live in the city as opposed to a more isolated domicile. I'm not talking about off-grid-innawoods either, but like, ~5 minutes from the nearest stoplight kind of exclusiveness.
>That's the kind of dream I'm trying to build at least