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Jan 27, 2025
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I have to politely disagree with you on some of this. I hope that‘s okay, even though I don’t know you.
I think the idea that because art is subjective, it’s misguided to look down on anyone’s taste as “lesser,” is not true. Our reactions to art don’t exist in a vacuum. They influence the way we think about the world, ourselves, and the way we act in our day to day lives. Even if a work of art, or someone’s engagement with it, isn’t clearly “problematic,” it still can be critiqued through the lens of how it affects someone’s actions. People who only enjoy art that they find comforting and familiar, and avoid art that challenges them or makes them feel uncomfortable, should be asked to step outside their comfort zone - not necessarily by public ridicule, but through at least some sort of negative cultural attitude towards their tastes.
In that way, I don’t think a lot of the criticism of “Tumblr prose” is anti-intellectual. Instead, I think its critics are usually saying that while this kind of writing imitates the flowery language and religious allusions of “intellectual” texts, it’s much safer, less confusing, and less challenging than they are, especially to an audience of teenagers, and therefore is praised in these spaces as if it were of equal artistic merit. In that way, the criticism hopes to encourage young people falling in love with literature to explore beyond what they find online imitating these works and dive into the real art.
I don’t know if that quite gets my idea across, and I don’t mean to explain any of this like it’s novel to you - I’m sure you’ve already considered the take - but I’d love to hear your thoughts about it, if you’re looking for a longer conversation. Great article, very well written!
xyclical i really appreciate your response seeing as discussion like this reinforces what i was trying to get at in the essay! your points came across clearly! i don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but it doesn’t seem i was looking through the same lens as you when writing. here’s where i was coming from in relation to the points you make:
i wonder where we draw the line when it comes to the term “lesser”, aside from very clear moral/ethical taboos. that’s why i want more people to explore why they’re put off by something rather than simply writing it off. the art we enjoy does color the way we navigate the world but nothing in the world is black and white, so what we engage with shouldn’t be either. it’s not so much that i’m anti-critique, but pro-constructive critique (which it seems we agree on). i do make a point in the essay to encourage the welcoming of art that is a “challenge”. but, what a challenge means depends individual and their funded experience.
i agree that negative reactions can be needed and are not inherently harmful or lead to ridicule. you don’t grow without it. but i’m more so speaking on people in internet spaces passing ridicule off as constructive criticism. that specific issue is a slippery slope in a climate of anti-intellectualism, if that makes sense. your idea of criticism is clearly coming from a good place and i wish i could say that for everyone on the internet.
i also was looking at the reaction towards tumblr prose within the context of the age of genAI, and how i think writing a flowery string of words is a lot more commendable than, say, defaulting to chatGPT to write a novel. but i do agree that while one can start with imitation, they will not grow as an artist if they don’t break free from that.
are you familiar with the painter henri rousseau? i’m not sure how much knowledge you have of art history, but as a visual artist, i approach the analysis of lot of art, no matter the form, like a painting. he was known as an “outsider artist” because he started painting later in life with no formal training, likely basing a lot of his work off of the art he had seen around him. he’s what came to mind when you mentioned “artistic merit” because, to me, that’s another case of “where do you draw the line?”. he wasn’t taken seriously by many of his contemporaries because his idea of artistic merit didn’t align with theirs. i don’t care for his work much, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t work hard or makes “bad” art. cases like his shed light on one of the points i was trying to make. a simple “good” vs “bad” is not a helpful or nuanced metric.
but thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts so respectfully and comprehensively. conversation like this is what i hope everyone can move towards someday :)
deardoveswings I do agree that consensus within the art world or a work’s adherence to norms shouldn’t be the metric for artistic merit, but there’s a big difference between the work of a painter like Rousseau or, to use my favorite, a filmmaker like Godard, who challenge these norms, and online writing like Tumblr prose that seeks to replicate those norms.
When the main goal is to make something “sound like a classic novel,” the writing becomes trite and meaningless. Rousseau’s works are so exciting because they were completely unconcerned with “looking like a classic painting.” That’s why I see the defense of Tumblr prose as the more anti-intellectual side, since it doesn’t really examine what the work’s intent is, and kind of flattens criticism to a very simple “I don’t know, people like different stuff, man,” approach.
But as for your general thesis that people should interrogate why they have these reactions to various types of art, I certainly agree. And I imagine a lot of the backlash to this type of writing just comes from people who used to really worship it in their teenage years and now, having gone deeper into their discovery of art, feel a little embarrassed, and feel a need to make that separation from their old tase abundantly clear.
xyclical
“Henri Rousseau tried to paint following an academic manner, where he followed the traditionalist work which was created by some of the top artists in this field.” he wouldn’t be coined a “naive”/“outsider artist” if he set out solely to challenge said norms. i don’t even like those terms as they can possibly diminish someone’s perception of his work…like, why can’t he just be called an artist? there are artists who follow form a lot more abstractly than him and a big reason they aren’t considered “naive” is because they went to school.
i had a really impactful painting professor who insisted that one should create art every day. even if it’s a shitty sketch or self portrait because that’s helping your practice way more than sitting there, crippled by the burden of choice. when i first started playing bass i grew by playing songs i knew and loved first. from a writers standpoint, i’ve often been told the same thing as in art school: just start writing and figure out if you like it later, because you’ll freeze and write nothing if not. (now, i wouldn’t post all my writing practice online but some people do and that’s their right).
i’m not operating under the assumption that people who write in that style are necessarily setting out to “copy the classics”. i’m not formally trained as a writer and i’m sure that shows, but when i was younger and wrote in a similar vein that absolutely wasn’t my thought process. not saying that’s not the thought process of some, but i think it’s unfair to assume that everyone is approaching writing that way. that also brings in the idea of death of the author and being able to let a work of art speak for itself sometimes, which is a separate convo, but something i learned a lot about in school and am revisiting again with the current art history coursework i’ve been doing. “meaningless” in and of itself is a subjective term.
i’m embarrassed (though i would like to stop looking at things that way) of my old art at times but my first instinct would never be to call out someone else’s work in a non-constructive way. i wrote in response to a specific reaction to tumblr prose that i observed in specific online spaces which offered nothing but “oh brother this guy stinks”. as a whole were losing our sincerity in a world that’s growing increasingly individualistic. my writing stems from my anti-individualism, anti-consumerism politic. i’m also getting too old to rally against cringe culture and dictate what teenagers do creatively on the internet (again unless its plainly morally reprehensible).
i don’t believe in the catch-all “let people enjoy things”. again, we should call into question why we enjoy said things, the key to fruitful critique. if one successfully critiques something constructively, then it’s not a flattening of anything. i am not in defense of tumblr prose, i’m in defense of the inevitability that people say stupid things they’re you’re young and don’t deserve to get written off with no explanation. again, my analysis is operating within the context of people using genAI for creative endeavors.
if anything, the people who professionally self published tiktok smut romantasy or tech bros who want to make a quick buck off a short story that chatGPT did for them should be the ones under the microscope. those people are professionals or at least attempting to be, and are a lot different than a hobbyist writer.
i truly am appreciative of the discussion we’ve been having, so i don’t want you to think i’m arguing with you or trying to be seen as “right” because that would defeat the purpose of my essay. to that same point, i think both of our viewpoints operate within different contexts because we’re approaching them from different experiences and directions. both narratives can coexist depending on the angle you’re coming from.
deardoveswings Yes this totally makes sense. We’re definitely coming at it from different perspectives.
I mostly agree with your sentiment in this last comment, but with one main addition. I think the critical eye towards this kind of flowery writing with somewhat juvenile instincts/meaning is equally an important part of an ecosystem that fosters young artists. As important as it is for these writers to feel emboldened to continue to write, it’s also important that our cultural reaction to their art expects them to move on as they develop.
I think, to some extent, we’re lacking that expectation more and more. What I fear is a rising trend of anti-intellectualism from almost the opposite side of the spectrum that you are talking about, part of the “let people enjoy things,” trend, that seeks to increasingly make our art less challenging and more juvenile. The adults who only watch Bluey and reread Percy Jackson, that kind of thing. I think it’s important to note that a fair bit of this Tumblr prose isn’t written by blossoming teenage writers, but by 30 year olds who have spent the last decade of their life online. To some extent, even a culture of blind non-constructive criticism discourages that.
But we both agree there’s somewhere in the middle - an attitude that doesn’t shut down young writers with fear they’ll be made fun of but does let them know that reading AO3 forever is less enriching of an experience than reading a modern novel. Maybe an “intellectual“ society is kind of a tighterope we have to walk, trying not to go too far on either side. I don’t really like that term intellectual society, but we’ve been using anti-intellectual to mean the inverse and I can’t think of a better word immediately so hopefully that gets my idea across.
xyclical to the point of your addition, yes! just like art is a skill, the ability to make a solid critique is also a skill to be built and polished. the “let people enjoy things” sentiment is also grounds for worthwhile discussion as something we should move away from, but that honestly is its own essay and i don’t think i could have concisely discussed that in this one. i think my standpoint is similar to the idea of harm reduction. people would be encouraged to do better with a support system, but the existence of ass kissers and yes men can breed stagnation. it’s a fine line.
i really like your analogy of the tightrope, which really is the main point of what i was trying to get at and the idea of tumblr prose was only a small piece is a very large machine. i also wonder what terms we can use instead of “intellectual society”, but totally understand what you mean when you use it. culturally literate? well-rounded? idk the term will find us someday.
deardoveswings In a broader sense, maybe something like progressive is the right word. A culture that’s truly dedicated to moving forward and improving things through all fields, art included
xyclical i like that term :) i may even apply it towards future writings going forward if you don’t mind
