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/lit/ - Literature

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1953206 No.1953206 [Reply] [Original]

http://www.themorningnews.org/article/much-ado-about-whatever

Thoughts on this article re: "Hipster Lit?"

>> No.1953222

> Lin is leading a group of like-minded writers that appear to be defining a brand new genre

I have glimpsed the future, and it is a dark and evil place.

>> No.1953240

I read Thought Catalog when I'm at work and bored and want to look like I'm doing work. It's basically like any magazine website but with only the "Sex" and "Entertainment" columns. Oh, and they make it black and white and serifed font so it looks more literary I guess. The quality of the writing itself is similar to any random Yahoo News article but with a bit more sarcasm sometimes. I only go on it when I've run through the interesting stories on the front page of Google News.

>> No.1953246

The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale
The next night we ate whale

>> No.1953263

>>1953240
There are the occasional really good article on Thought Catalog but these days they seem really scarce.

>> No.1953276

>>1953240
thought catalog hasn't been cool in forever

>> No.1953282

>>1953276
When do you think it was at it's prime?

>> No.1953283

>>1953263
Yeah, occasionally there's something more interesting than "this is what happened to me" or "this is a list I made" but it mostly seems like freelancers trying to be entertaining in "quirky" ways. Most of the articles I can see being written by a character in an "indie" film played by Zooey Deschanel if you know what I mean. Just that very, very tired "hipster girl" stereotype.

>> No.1953290

>>1953282
I really enjoyed this article, it was fairly recent but I'm also a smoker.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/smoking-solidarity/

>> No.1954911

>>1953206
shithead hipsters

>> No.1954935

>>1953290
>escaping the brutal physical and mental anguish of working in a factory

>> No.1954946

I'VE WRITTEN FOR THOUGHT CATALOG.

>> No.1955365

>>1954911
i second that

>> No.1955387

Copying Andy Warhol is the right thing to do..but then again, Andy was wrong about that one..it just doesn't look as good in the repressing..not depressing..repressing..che, che...allright allright..hooray, hooray..you say he was a saint..but i know that he ain't

>> No.1955432

i always get so depressed reading thought catalog and then keep coming back to it

>> No.1955444

Does "Hipster" even mean anything besides "I wanna be a writer/artist so I moved to NYC despite the astronomically high rent and lack of real jobs, and despite the fact that these days a writer can live anywhere, therefore I use my narcissism and the social media to justify New York's reputation as the sort of place with a valid and thriving avant-garde, despite the fact that it has become a Disneyfied New Bloomusalem with a Billionaire Enlightened Despot who makes Ed Koch look butch."

>> No.1955447

>>1955432

WHY DO YOU GET SAD WHEN READING ARTICLES IN "THOUGHT CATALOG"?

>> No.1955452

I enjoyed this article and didn't know anything about thought catalog.

While I have dismissed Tao Lin in the past, I think these guys are on to something.

I shall investigate further.

>> No.1955453
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1955453

>> No.1955454

>>1955444
I'm a writer that lives in Toronto. I pay astronomical rent and work a min wage job to enjoy the culture that the city has to offer, not to make it as a writer.

>> No.1955456

>>1955452

"THOUGHT CATALOG" IS NOT EVEN MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE, YOU LIAR PHONY.

>> No.1955463
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1955463

>read article from OP
>actually visit muumuu house site for first time
>thefuckamireading...

Really? Yes, the article was interesting, but who would take some of this shit seriously?

>> No.1955464
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1955464

LOLOLOLOLOOLOLOLO

>> No.1955466

>>1955456
I'm sorry, I was referencing this thread and not just the article.

I came into this Tao Lin thread with an open mind, and actually added Thought Catalog to my bookmarks to check it out.

>> No.1955467

I'm jealous that they've found a way to never grow up.

>> No.1955469

>>1954946
I'm pretty sure TC doesn't reject any submissions.

>> No.1955472

I too get depressed while reading TC, only I tend to not go back to it. I agree that their "angle" is really tired and irritating. It's testing to keep reading that upper-middle class white collegiate navel-gazing. It's like hipster runoff or Vice or whatever... sometimes I see their lifestyle-type articles and wonder how some people can stand to always be so self-aware and ironic. Eh..

But yeah, I think Noah Cicero stands out with a stronger writing voice and a far more down-to-earth and hardened perspective. His writing isn't quite the same as a lot of the other net-lit writers with better backgrounds and educations. I recommend him.

>> No.1955479

>>1955472

WHY DO YOU GET SAD WHEN READING ARTICLES IN "THOUGHT CATALOG"?

>> No.1955487

>>1955479
Every sentence in my first paragraph following the first one explains why. And that attitude I'm talking about is everywhere, both on the internet and among a lot of younger, city-dwelling people. It wears me down.

>> No.1955495

>>1955487

YES, I COMPREHENDED BUT I WANTED TO BE SURE THAT I UNDERSTOOD ACCURATELY THE REASON OF YOUR BLEAKNESS WHEN READING "THOUGHT CATALOG". "I KNOW 'THAT FEEL'".

>> No.1955506

I've no idea of what's happening in modern literature, but if Tao Lin and his friends is the shit I guess that's cool?

Also, is "hipster lit" not essentially an oxymoron? Hipster as a term seems to be getting increasingly meaningless.

>> No.1955537

>>1955506
>Also, is "hipster lit" not essentially an oxymoron?

No, I don't think so. Books are consumer products, "hipster" is a loosely defined consumer mythology, which often incorporates certain books and authors. Just because many people on 4chan don't understand subtleties in social behavior well enough to employ the word correctly doesn't mean it still doesn't carry connotations that lend it to some practical use.

>> No.1955553

funny how the original 'hipsters' were the beat poets, and how tao lin et al are spending their time whacked out on the same drugs

>> No.1955557

I have very little time for any of these writers beyond Tao Lin, who traverses hsi chosen zones in such a way that he breaks through into something profound/horrifying on the other side

>> No.1955616 [DELETED] 
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1955616

>>1955506
"Hipster Lit" is an oxymoron depending on the definitions you are using. The Russian Formalists believed that literature was meant to be a sort of "sacred space", a separate and special arena set apart from the hurly burly of temporal life. This is the textual equivalent of, say, going to Mass, where certain ritual and formulaic gestures and words indicated that this is meant to be a "time set apart". It seems that Tao & Co. want to collapse this distinction between "literature as sacred space" and "literature as everyday life." This is why to them Instant Messenger chats are their emblematic genre: as a form of expression, it occupies an inter-liminal space between speech and epistle. It's a meta-critical recontexualization of the definition and place of literature in our society. I mean, it all sounds great in theory, until you read their stuff and it's all lazy and gimmicky. Personally, I think they're just butthurt at knowing that they will never write anything as good as Paradise Lost. But that's just my opinion.

>> No.1955620

They are infuriating. They meditate a state of consciousness where they are mildly dejected from everything, where they can pass of everything with casual indifference. They treat their own writing with the same indifference and imply that it's profound in its self awareness.
They probably think they are expressing the "apathy" of modern society. It's bullshit, they try to become apathetic themselves and write as though their own tiny, self-absorbed worlds are a reflection on the whole of society.
They do a good job in showing that society is not apathetic by so artificially becoming embodiments of it's supposed apathy, proving that society does not naturally produce such apathetic people.

>> No.1955633
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1955633

>>1955506
Hipster Lit" is an oxymoron depending on the definitions you are using. The Russian Formalists believed that literature was meant to be a sort of "sacred space", a separate and special arena set apart from the hurly burly of temporal life. This is the textual equivalent of, say, going to Mass, where certain ritual and formulaic gestures and words indicated that this is meant to be a "time set apart". It seems that Tao & Co. want to collapse this distinction between "literature as sacred space" and "literature as everyday life." This is why to them Instant Messenger chats are their emblematic genre: as a form of expression, it occupies an inter-liminal space between speech and epistle, quotidian communication and crafted art. It's a meta-critical recontexualization of the definition and place of literature in our society. I mean, it all sounds great in theory, until you read their stuff and it's all lazy and gimmicky. Personally, I think they're just butthurt at knowing that they will never write anything as good as Paradise Lost, so they are flaunting the fact that they aren't even going to try. But that's just my opinion.

>> No.1955635

>>1955620
In other words, they embody the spirit of everyone on the internet ever?

>> No.1955696

why do i get depressed reading thought catalog? maybe i will start a list and submit it as a piece.

>> No.1955755

Sounds pretty lame, but "i went fishing with my family when i was five" is a good poem. Tao lucked out on that one.

>> No.1956070

>>1955755
there's more where that came from. _much_ more. - tao

>> No.1956291

>>1955755
>>1956070
both tao

>> No.1956300

>>1956291
So is that post up there.
Go to bed, Tao Lin.

>> No.1956301

>>1956070

As good as that one?

>> No.1956320

Does he really post here?

>> No.1956330

Oh my god, I wish people would stop using the fucking word "hipster"

>> No.1956332

>>1956320
Either him personally or one of his parasite hangers on. Probably the latter.

>> No.1956337

>>1956320
I don't post on /lit/ as much as I used to but I remember last summer being in a thread and it was pretty much a bunch of bitching about Tao Lin so I went to this twitter page and the actually linked the thread.

He deleted the tweet a few minutes later.

>> No.1956339

>>1956332
symbiotic hangers on
we're symbiotic

>> No.1956342

>>1956337
went to his*

>> No.1956346

>"To submit to Muumuu House,” it instructed in typical Tao Lin deadpan, “find a person published by or associated with Muumuu House and read their writing. If you like their writing, make comments in their comments sections or message them expressing your feelings in a natural manner. Eventually someone will read your comments or messages and find your internet presence and maybe communicate with you. If that person likes you to a certain degree they will maybe tell other people about you, causing a further amount of people to maybe communicate with you. After an amount of time, if communication is sustained with various people, other things may happen, including maybe being published by Muumuu House.”

Oh god, I was almost trolled by that

>> No.1956357

>>1956346
That's how it actually works, though.

>> No.1956361

>>1955620
I think some of their work is effectively representing the apathy found in the society they live in.

This is why it is probably infuriating to read some of their work.

>> No.1956365
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1956365

>>1956357
Oh

>> No.1956608

>>1956361
they aren't trying to represent that, though. (at least lin isn't.) in his blog/interviews it's explained that he writes autobiographically to connect with people with the same sense of humor, aesthetic, and history of depression as him.

>> No.1956610

>>1956346
shitass

>> No.1956703

>>1956608
this seems totally unreasonable to me guys

>> No.1957557

>>1953206
>>1953222
>>1953240
you are all shitheads

>> No.1958737

>>1957557
you, sir, are also a shithead

>> No.1958997

>>1958737
you, sir, are a polite shithead