/lit/ - Literature

pomo? hahaha faggot

When you see a thread starting with something along the lines of "Why does /lit/ hate X? Is it because you are Y?", sage and report.

It's just OP trying to justify his unpopular opinion and/or identity by pretenting to be a master ruseman on an anonymous imageboard.

>>3323310
>faggot
Why the slurs buddy?

>>3323316
>It's just OP trying to justify his unpopular opinion

But Tao Lin isn't 'unpopular'

He only finds great resistance from anti-modernist critics

Hi Tao. You got a lot of free time on your hands now?

>>3323321
Yeah just posting on tumblr and drawing for Vice, u?

>>3323316
>Is it because you are Y
But are you?

Shit writer
Great publicist though

>>3323334
>Shit writer
Please be more elaborate

>>3323336

A writer of poor repute and poorer quality.

I hate him because he's chinese

>>3323347
But why is his writing bad

>>3323350

because you're are mother

>>3323352
are goo foo»?

i don't know. i've never heard of him. but if that's him in the picture then he's got the same haircut as my 8 year old nephew.

He's not a good writer yet. He has written some stuff but he's not well known at all. Not nearly as well known as you think. I've read snippets here and there and I didn't like any of it.

My problem with him is he gives you everything up front. He gives his readers an easy read and most of the time it makes his writing two dimensional.

I also hate any writer who includes modern mediums and forums in their work. Twitter, facebook, msn. Fuck that, honestly. I want to know about humans and their nature and the scope of the world. Good, evil, death. I don't want to get diabetes from over-emotional dialogue and annoying implications of loss. An investigation of first world problems.

He really is the bottom of the barrel for me. I don't understand anyone who goes into a bookstore and grabs Tao Lin off the shelf instead of Cormac McCarthy. I think Tao Lin is a product of media and social incessantness. I bet he's never worked a 14 hour day hard labour in his life.

>>3323439

>says Tao Lin is a product of the media
>recommends you read Cormac McCarthy instead

>>3323439

haha wow you sure do have some opinions, don't you. i disagree with almost everything you said and i think your hatred of his usage of twitter etc is a hatred of precision. macbooks and twitter and starbucks is the life tao knows and cares about. and these things are about humans and their nature and the scope of their world is right there in concrete terms. i think your dislike amounts to nothing much more than snobbery and luddism.

>>3323439
>I also hate any writer who includes modern mediums and forums in their work. Twitter, facebook, msn. Fuck that, honestly. I want to know about humans and their nature and the scope of the world.

I don't like Tao Lin either, but I like the use of modern mediums. Your statement seems to be contradictory as most western people live in a world of social media now. How can you address modern 'humans and their nature and the scope of the world' accurately by ignoring many aspects of the society we live in. Would you also exclude telephones and cars?

The average person uses a lot of technology, so writing about a character that could easily have come from a Dickens novel isn't really an accurate portrayal.

>>3323461
Hmm, let's see.

Cormac McCarthy
>lifelong recluse
>old, experienced man and father
>speaks multiple languages
>knows more about language and science than most linguists and scientists, professed by murray gell-mann himself
>has spent twice Tao Lin's lifetime writing over ten novels, excluding plays and screenplays
>Pulitzer prize winner for fiction

Tao Lin
>immature
>inexperienced
>writes about the internet
>tries so hard to be sad his work actually becomes this weird ugly ironic version of sad.
>hasn't written fucking anything at all
>has no personality and speaks like a fucking retard, "umm" "uhh" "sooo.." "hmmm" "durr" "like"
>is essentially a little kid with no fucking identifiable heart.

>>3323496

you just listed a whole lot of nothing

>>3323478
No.

Social networking misrepresents REAL human interaction. It's just all a big improv show. You can't convey emotion through text or even video accurate. Isn't that the fundamental problem of writing in the first place? Hasn't that been something people have killed themselves over?

>>3323501
Whatever. You're just a fanboy of some shitty kid who won't be remembered. I might be a fanboy too, but at least I'm attracted to the work of those who know what the fuck they're doing.

just read ann beattie n00bs

>>3323512

hahaha

Tao Lin as topic alone can't even produce a decent thread.

>>3323439
>I also hate any writer who includes modern mediums and forums in their work. Twitter, facebook, msn. Fuck that, honestly. I want to know about humans and their nature and the scope of the world.
'I want to know about humans, their nature, and the scope of the world'


'But please filter out any contemporary influences'

>>3323505
>Social networking misrepresents REAL human interaction.


ah

ahaha 10/10

'I want to know about humans, their nature, and the scope of the world'


'Please ommit today's biggest mean of interaction and information exchange, I don't like it'

>>3323505
So omit it? And fuck any work throughout the ages that includes drama, vaudeville, mocking, or dishonest characters. How fucking retarded are you?

>>3323563
I'm sorry you like facebook so much, faggot.

>>3323584

lol

typical middle brow hick

go read fight club or some shit

>>3323584
It's absolutely nothing to do with liking anything; I don't use any social media and my internet time is spent on 4chan; you can't seriously just ignore a massive facet of modern life and claim to be 'true' and talking about 'humans, not whomever is human but I don't like them'. Get the fuck over yourself and wait till you get out of your teen years.

>>3323512
>those who know what the fuck they're doing
You're right there. Cormac McCarthy is infinitely better than Tao Lin at pulling wool over eyes.

>>3323575
Yes, omit it completely. I have no interest in reading about anything to do with facebook, twitter, instagram in fiction. Of course I'll read about whatever in columns but in fiction? Fuck no. How do you even write about that shit? It's impossible. I'd rather read about real shit between people in real life. The internet is just a grey sea and it has no place in a real novelist's work.

>>3323595
No, that's exactly the kind of pop of shit I hate. You just don't get it.

>>3323603

a thing isn't necessarily impossible because you don't know how to do it

>>3323603
>I don't like it so it's not real

>>3323607
You're right, poplit is awful I only read Cormac McDonalds because he is Oprah approved.

>>3323609
I don't like it because it's not real.

>>3323612
This person hasn't read fucking anything.

>>3323607
>You just don't get it

ikr

I am such a sheep

I like Tao Lin because his life and stories and modes of thought and expression are easy to relate to myself. And snippets don't do him justice. Anyone speaking on his merit as a writer based on a paragraph of what he's written is going to have about as accurate an understanding of his work as I do of who's going to win the world cup of baseball or something.

I feel conflicted about Tao Lin. Richard Yates felt, to me, offensively bad, but a couple of his short stories really touched something in me that no author has before. I think he has some potential to be something interesting, but I'm not sure he ever will in any of his substantial works.

Time will tell, I guess. He needs to get off the drugs, laziness, apathetic trend he's on and actually become a dedicated artist, I think. But maybe that's not what he wants to be, or what he should be. Maybe I just have the wrong mindset. Who knows.

>>3323617
Don't flatter yourself. You're not that useful.

>>3323613

tell me more

Towlin' is just 2mainstream4me, Oprah, he's just a product of the media
.

>>3323596
I'm 23 and in school.
And I DO ignore it. I don't have facebook or anything like that. I read good book and I have good friends and I have and old shitty fucking 40 dollar cellphone and fuck yourself I'm better than you, I just know it.

>>3323603

>how do you even write about that shit? It's impossible. I'd rather read about shit between people in real life. The [internet/television/radio/machines/tools] is just a grey sea and it has no place in a real novelist's work.

>>3323637
He has done TWO interviews in his entire writing career, idiot. He spent half of his writing life in a cabin with no electricity. Is it his fault a lot of people like his shit?

>>3323642
>casting your thoughts in to the grey sea of 4chan
why don't you go out and do shit with people in real life if you feel this way?

>>3323639

>>3323651
I'm going to do some blow tonight with some musician friends. Should be word.

>>3323603

lol this is so sad

>>3323659
then cry

>>3323642
You sure inserted a lot of shit and implied a lot of shit I didn't mean in there

>>3323662

maybe he's crying on the inside

me and this bassoonist i know are going to rail so many lines we don't need your social media apps

we bestseller now

>>3323664
It's all analogous.

>>3323671
I would like to see this in film. Are the talking animals meant to be actually there or just his mind wandering away from what is real and boring?

>>3323664
Just give up

>>3323439
But... but... that's the whole point of him, friendo. Is he not allowed to write about the current stuff that's going on? Must every book be written by a 70+yo man, about how things used to be? Facebook, twitter, msn are part of this world last time I checked.

>>3323698
>msn
check again, gramps.

>>3323698

>Must every book be written by a 70+yo man, about how things used to be?

many posters struggle with capsguy disease

>>3323309
I saw his book on the first episode of Girls and kind of freaked.

>>3323698
Age isn't a prerequisite in my book (omgpun). But experience is, life experience. And that's usually symptomatic of age.

But no, I liked Frankenstein, still do, read it more than once also. And Anne Frank's writing is actually crazy good. Both works written in their teenage years (double check Anne Frank, not sure).

Anyway, both of those teens destroy Tao Lin in my eyes.

There's clearly only just enough room for one writer on this planet. And besides who's ever read more than a couple of books? That's right, no one. So this discussion needs to happen, and it's beneficial for everyone.

towel in is a gook

>>3323675
Internet has no place in fiction =/= internet is useless.

Naturalistic Fallacy committed.

>>3323721
But Tao Lin is the funniest. Almost as funny as Anne Frank.

>>3323722

i think i cut my eyeballs reading that

>>3323751
Whoa, this guy is E.D.G.Y

>>3323722
CASUAL DETECTED. REMOVE YOURSELF.

>>3323464
This guy nails you sad sack 18yo classicist wannabe patricians. Be real wif yoselves for one minute in a day.

Go to the bed, Tao.

>>3323439
I'm not even kidding when I'm saying Tao Lin is too deep for you. Also, your dislike for modern media in works of literature shows your escapist tendencies. Tao doesn't let you escape, he keeps you where you are but from the outside looking in.

>>3323639
Don't drop your pipe on your typewriter now.

>>3323840
>I'm not even kidding when I'm saying Tao Lin is too deep for you.

Implying that it sounds like a joke a normal, thinking person would tell.

LOL GTFO and take your garbage chink lit with you, fucking scrub.

>>3323850
You mean spliff
You mean $1,700 gaming laptop

>>3323904
Why don't you try reading Tao's work. 2real4u escapist fedorist.

>>3323908
>gaming laptop

my dad works for nintendo

>>3323926
My dealer works for mindbendo

way too self-indulgent. I recognize that a lot of authors are, but reading an interview with him is insufferable. his casual (but so frequent that it seems contrived) references to his drug regiments and stuff like that just screams "I'm edgy, but not edgy, so look at how edgy I am".
anyway I have been meaning to read some of his books and did try to get past the first page of once.

>>3323923
dont give a fuck, I make more money than you and I work harder too.

>>3323915
too real eh?

seeing how my chief criticism of him is his disingenuousness and his manufactured bullshit content, I would expect somebody who has even skimmed this thread to two-line better than this.

And oh my god the rage, just look at that fucking faggot, god damn I would love to fight him, I could fucking beat that clown into the fucking pavement. Get me a shot a beer beforehand and it's on. I bet he would fucking cry and try to write about it afterwards and then fail and then cry more.

>>3323978
>thinking you can beat up an azn person
>ever

i hope you know kung fu

>>3323954
I hope you do because I'm on welfare and I don't do shit. But at least I'm not a filthy stoner playing vidya all night.

>>3323978
he'd wreck u m8

also learn2postirony

>>3323993
>makes decent money
>works pretty hard

"filthy stoner" yes, that's what I'll call him.

>>3323984
>implying kung fu has ever hurt anyone

>>3324003
Check out the faggot with all the pics of his faggot idol

>>3324016

implying thats not why the reptilians had bruce lee murdered

>>3324016
>implying implications

>>3324022

>>3324026
heh. don't you have something better to do this afternoon, tao?

>>3324024
Not to diss the man, because I love him, but he would get his ass handed to him by any mma champ

>>3324031
yeah right. when those faggots try to do their bjj he'd just bite them. i've seen it. then he'd punch them in the dick and be on to the next fight

>>3324031

is that that thing where dudes spoon and the announcers talk about how dominant they are

>>3324030
i just finished editing the taipei manuscript. now doing research for a 'piece' for vice re my 'fanbase'

>>3324036
you shut your filthy gay mouth. you just see that because you don't appreciate the art of fighting and mixed martial arts.

>>3324039
please make sure to mention your fanbase thinks you know kung fu

>>3324031
Doubt it. He would lose to Lesnar, Overeem, Silva and a some other heavyweights that can grapple well; guys that know some BJJ, but he would beat anyone below middleweight.

>>3324048
>Implying my fanbase is a couple of guys on /lit/ and not hundreds of thousands of people.
>Implying I don't wake every morning and stand on my balcony in front of a sea of adoring fans.

>>3324059
Do you ever think about jumping?

>>3323623

i feel that. i love his stories on bearparade. i like his retarded drawings too. richard yates bored me though. i like when he mixes his style with absurd content, like the story he did about the woman with cancer, and boy who became a dolphin, and the kid who had sword legs and was taken away by a knight who gave his life purpose.

>>3324036
Yes it is. But insulting the sport does not change the outcome, my friend.

>>3324063
That all sounds just riveting. NOT.

>>3324075

sorry what exactly about what i said was insulting?

>>3324080
the blatant sarcasm, maybe?

>>3324080
he thinks it is an insult to call his favorite past time as glorified homoeroticism

>>3324052
Middleweights could beat him, too. He can't grapple.

someone ask tao lin if he is posting in this thread

>>3323336
I find tao lin and all the people around him (Megan, Steve, Crispin and the like) the whole Alt Lit a celebration of mediocrity.

It's either people that are incredibly stupid or people that fake to be stupid. 90% of the time they talk how they fuck each other and get drunk because in a sort of imitation of gossip tabloids, but everything it's so boring because they are not attractive people, it's like watching the fat kids on band camp making out.

Tao and Megan are the only one that have read a little and have a little bit of taste but obviously they hide it as hell. Tao is mostly busy putting up his quirky asperger persona while megan spends her time writing about how she feels bad for skipping gym practice, or that time she made up a lie because she wanted to stay home and eat icecream and not volunteer at her coop griocery store.

Under the excuse of being relatable they don't only present you by the act like the most boring people you have around. It's Ellis' portrayal of shallow empty mediocre people without his glamour, humor or criticism united with Wallace's obsession for authenticity, secret anti-intellectualism and mushy midwestern-sentimentality.

It's a trainwreck. It's as if they took seriously Diesel's slogan "be stupid" and made it the motto of a literary movement.

>>3324078
hurrr muh 14 hours of labour muh real men muh americana

>>3324052
why match him with different classes? everyone in his own weight class would kill him.

>>3324062
Yeah you should consider jumping

>>3324091
Not even american, not even mad, try harder qt;)

>>3324100
Thought you were the McCarthy guy, excuse me.

>>3324085

where the heck do you see sarcasm? it was a very straightforward description

Any criticism I make of him would be dismissed because 'that's the point'.

And I already know that.

>>3324108
that's the point

Tao Lin tries to be economic, but he just has no idea what he's doing. He tries to convey emotion but he hasn't got a grasp on anything he feels. His writing is disjointed and hollow. The media references are annoying. His books are barely passable as books. I've read Richard Yates and EEE and disliked everything is both. 3/10 for pretty weak "deadpan" humor. If you can even call it humor at all. Would not read anything by him again.

>>3324106
It's sarcastic because it's a fucking superficial as fuck description. Do you even know the shit you type?

>this thread

all you cunts bitching at each other about wwf or wcw or ufc or mma or whatever the fuck faggot theater-sport that gets you hard, fuck right back to the homework board because you sure as shit aren't welcome on /sp/

>>>/hm/

>>3324119
LOL, nice try. Obvious troll is obvious
>back to the homework board

>>3324119
i think people who go on both of these boards must have /sp//lit/ personalities or something

>>3324118

superficiality and sarcasm are two different things friend

that said it very well might be superficial since i'm not that familiar with mama, if i've got the wrong idea of the sport by all means correct what i said

>>3324124
OHHH!!! THIS GUY RIGHT HERE!

>>3324127
You're not worth my time

>>3324133

i'm on my back and i'm not even slippery yet why aren't you going for the reverse armbar

>>3324139
too busy cumming on your moms grin. Have fun on your back, son.

>>3324157
brilliant!

>you're gay
no i fucked your mum

>>3324157

can you at least tell me why joe rogan screams "unbelievable" after every match

like he's seen thosuands of them you would think he'd start believing it at some point

>>3324158
I didn't say fuck. I said I blew my smelly fucking load all over her face while she looked at me with those curious eyes you see in a teenage girl at her first party-fuck. Then I put my dick away, spat on the floor in front of her and thought about her getting back down on her knees later on to clean it up.

>>3324161
get out
/lit/ is not for discussion of stripping down to your underpants and fondling other men

>>>/hm/

>>3324169

dude there are threads about mishima all the time

>>3324078

lol as if i'm going to give a fuck what the guy who talks like some bitch from a 90s highschool sitcom thinks.

Hey, everyone! You're all an enormous bunch of faggots! I'm going to read a book by Tao Lin and come up with my own opinion! See you around!

because hes a shit writer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjcOK2T0lPo

>>3323496
Cormac McCarthy
>lifelong recluse
>was on Oprah

pick one

Tao Lin is posting adverts on /lit/.
Don't reply. He's useless as an author and a fucking idiot. Or at least let's make him kill himself.

Wow this is still going

Anyway

Tao Lin is a legitimately amazing artist on many levels

He's met with much detraction because literature as a medium tends to attract a certain kind of posturing dime-a-dozen premodern romanticizing pseudo-intellectual that's afraid of any change, boundary pushing and betrays the ideals of the very same dead authors he worships

This kind of behaviour would be ridiculed in a medium like music, or fashion, where innovation, or at least distinction, are highly encouraged (not so much film, at least in america, because hollywood's grasp is too strong and native arthouse directors are shunned and ridiculed)


I get the feeling that the type of people who hate Tao Lin are the same type people who go on long tirades about 'fucking hipsters', 'fucking faggots' and label things as '''''pretentious''''

>>3324313
>I get the feeling that the type of people who hate Tao Lin are the same type people who go on long tirades about 'fucking hipsters', 'fucking faggots' and label things as '''''pretentious''''
lol, read the thread.

>>3324313
You've told that he's an amazing author because he contradicts established literary convention.

A pile of shit defies literary convention, too, you haven't said how anything of his work is itself meritorious.

And I really hate the argument that a work has merit solely because it defies convention, and that detractors are pseudo-intellectual stiffs who fight innovation; that's ad hominem.

My own opinion of Tao Lin is that he's clever, but nothing I should mind.

He writes for Vice, eh? I guess I won't bother finding out who he is then.

/lit/, you ought to feel bad for encouraging these shitthreads.

>>3324313
I live in Bushwick. I still think tao lin sucks.

>>3323926
>>3323930

You guys are both on shonendo.

>>3324089
I liked it. Just saying. It's nice to know at least one person agrees with you.

>>3324112
He's Asian. What do you expect? Emotion?

>>3324543
thank you anon

>>3324413
He never said it's good solely because it defies convention. However, it does get mocked a lot solely because it defies convention. He's right to point that out.

>>3324563

Well i criticize it because it's empty.
Take Amy Hempel, she is pretty smart and her sentences are incredibly elegant.

But Tao? "He is sincere"
Well that's not enough and neither true.

>>3324576
I think his style is great. It's no easy feat to write simply. Why would you say he is not sincere? He may mask his sincerity a bit, but most of the writing is for a large part autobiographical.

Does Lin's work illustrate post-irony or does it propel it? I think the former. That's why I think he's a product of the times. He's not grabbing the movement he exists within by the balls. He's just floating along the pleasant waves.

I think because he tries to do so little, it's very hard to dismiss his intent. He does what he tries to do very well. At the same time I don't appreciate it one bit because he's not doing anything I care about.

I spent a while trying to figure out mumblecore. I figured I can't say it's crap because logically it doesn't try to be anything but. I think Lin is similar in that post-ironic subversive state. All I can do is allow it to grab me or not. It doesn't grab me though.

>tfw /lit/ archive linked on Tao's twitter a few days ago
>tfw he mentions 4chan in his most recent interview

Bed Tao, to. go the


,

>>3324271

the whale poem is a legitimately hilarious poem/joke

nil oat

His introverted behaviour seems like a big phoney act. I have not known many Asian men to be humble.

>>3324604

You really don't know if Tao is being sincere or ironic? Really?

>>3325163
Personality is not defined by race, you fucking pig

>>3325201
No, but I agree. His autism seems very affected and entirely at odds with his lifestyle.

>>3323316

>It's just OP trying to justify his unpopular opinion and/or identity by pretenting to be a master ruseman on an anonymous imageboard.


lol newfag.

It's just Tao Lin.

Atleast pinecone is subtle about his threads.

>>3325177

No, he doesn't know if Tao Lin is being New Sincere or post-post-ironic.

Just throw the towel in, you'll never make it.

>>3325201
>Personality is not defined by race, you fucking pig

Oh fuck off back to tumblr with that weak insult, traveling cum slut.

>>3325201

I'd have thought race would possibly have a huge impact on personality.

>>3325266
Culture and nationality, maybe. But not race.

>>3325280
>Implying there is no genetic difference between the neurological make-up of different global communities, ultimately having some effect on personality.

>>3325238

No, my point is he's not even post-irony. He's just regular pomo ironic trash.

>>3325280

You're a black man born in the south raised as the adopted son of the plantation owner during the Jim Crowe laws.