how come /lit/ doesn't get smarter over time?
if you've been on /lit/ for a long time, surely you're aware of the idea that this is a pretty sophomoric board, mostly pretentious undergrads. but this has always been the case. "/lit/ has always been shit".
but shouldn't the original undergrad population of /lit/ already have graduated? or are /lit/izens a rolling demographic, bleeding out people, and acquiring new plebs at sort of equal rate (which would explain the permanence of some threads).
idk, what's the deal?
Memes
>>7420139
The pseudos either grow up or stay pseuds, and new pseuds show up fairly often.
>>7420139
Over time, you post less on /lit/ and just lurk.
>>7420158
this.
all boards work in waves. the new waves start shitposting and the oldfags look on indifferently.
>>7420152
>tripfag
>calling out any group whatsoever
You have to ground to stand on here
>>7420152
Sort of this. I've been here for like two years, at the beginning of which I had no idea who Pynchon or Blake were. Now I'm seated in a room, surrounded by unread copies of North American Novels. And I'm Mexican.
There is still some intelligent discussion to be found on /lit/ occasionally, but it acts more as a springboard for those who are just getting interested in literature on a deeper level. So yes, you have your precocious undergrads as well as a few people who have just started getting into reading, but there are many oldfags lurking.
Once /lit/ has introduced you to the more obscure or "cool" books that you won't hear about on your undergrad course (think the exit-level chart), you can pretty much go off exploring on your own while occasionally shitposting here for fun. /lit/ is a means and not an end.
You get older, get good and don't want to share your brilliant ideas with teens. Mostly everything said is beneath you. Sometimes older guys crack though and they are wonderful posts like this one.
>>7420214
>falling for the north american literature meme
It's not going to get better if you keep shitposting instead of offering insightful or lit provocative topics.
GTFO junior
who here /types out replies but then deletes/ ?
>>7420404
I do. This reply was longer but I deleted most of it.
>>7420404
I'm more of a shitpost and fire sort of lad
This might also explain it.
>>7420404
yo. I type stuff and then decide that I probably don't know what I'm talking about
>>7420404
all the damn time.
As for lit getting smarter, I think it's moving on from Pynchon and DFW a little bit, which is what undergraduates tend to go through as well. Maybe the new memes will be Gaddis and Gass, which would be amazing.
I think /lit/'s brand of anonymous and edgy discourse is really really good for avoiding certain pitfalls, so at first it's a massive relief to come here and just not be surrounded by awful Reddit-type circlejerk discussion, or the kind of kid gloves "no childbrain left behind, slow down to accommodate the retards pls" treatment you get in undergrad, but after a while you start to realize it has its own pitfalls.
If you've been here long enough you can directly observe how the board will absorb the opinions or recommendations of people who seem smart and then just turn that into the Soundin' Smart Orthodoxy. A lot of people here are undergrads who are tired of feeling stupid, maybe they're slightly better than the half-assers in their classes, so they want desperately to be part of the elect even for just one second. But then they're also lazy, because it's still 4chan, so it doesn't exactly promote studiousness either.
People come here, hit this plateau of relief from their usual undergrad context, and then just sit there. It's nice at first, but as you get above the level of that plateau you start to get frustrated that EVERY thread is split between pretentious fucks commenting on shit they know nothing about, and earnest but equally ignorant "plz recommend a book on ______?" who never actually read the thing and come back better informed.
We're all trapped forever being faggots.
>>7420139
Someone said it before: you browse this board until you leave university or take a PHD.
Be grateful that there are undergrads here, and some from very good universities. There aren't many that discuss literature on the internet.
Also, the best posters on /lit/ really love to read - they'll post rarely, but you'll see them occasionally and it really is fantastic. In a weird way, their absence and their occasional contributions inspire me to do reach similar levels of knowledge, and eventually hold the same patterns. Perhaps this is why the PhD area of /lit/ seems so barren.
>>7420584
Also, /lit/ gets some really shitty /r9k/ and /pol/ crossboarders that weigh discussion down. There was one kid who was just spamming REEEEEEEEEEE for about an hour and a half a while ago.
>>7420584
I actually am friends with man post-doc types.
I find that many of them stop reading after their degree due to burnout, or just read work-appropriate shit, and then netflix/iphone and chill.
>>7420139
The thing is, as /lit/erary as we all may be, this is still 4chan, and we are mostly here for shots and giggles.
How is /lit/ so sophomoric, pretentious and pseud if it seems to be populated by so many people who think that /lit/ is nothing but sophomoric, pretentious and pseud.
>>7420752
Because we know our deficiencies but we don't have the will to change them.
>>7420139
Because /lit/ is two camps arguing about a book neither side had read. It's about book bluffing to expose who is more illiterate.
When people graduate they stop posting on lit and are replaced by new undergrads.
>>7420185
What I said was true, and I don't consider myself to be an intellectual--just a vapid funposter with an interest in books.
>>7420476
>Maybe the new memes will be Gaddis and Gass
I won't stop mentioning them until they are. /lit/ would be better for it.
>>7421159
If you were interested in this site's ethos over your own narcissism you would remove that trip.
I find most tripfags unbearable for the simple fact that they do not seem to get much attention in real-life and clearly feel the need to compensate for that digitally.
I come to /lit/ because it's the fastest-moving book discussion online, and there's occasionally some interesting stuff discussed here. As there's a constant flow of new readers, many of the discussions here are about books that I started out reading, but I'm now more interested in other books (not to put down those 'beginning reader' books, they're a good intro). The thing is, as we all branch out into other books, there's less commonality amongst what we're reading, so the 'beginning reader' books continue to dominate discussion because those are the ones that the vast majority here have read.
>>7420139
Anyone with actual intelligence and aspirations will eventually outgrow /lit/ (and 4chan) and leave. The ones who stay are the ones who are intellectually and emotionally stinted. (e.g. NEETs)
Every once in a while I come back to check up on /lit/ but I'm always reminded why I left in the first place. Don't get me wrong: there still are intelligent, well-read people here, but the more grizzled they get, the less likely they are to be coaxed into putting time and effort into a quality post.
After a while, most real readers on /lit/ realize the gains from a good discussion is no longer worth the effort input--especially with all the disruptive retards running around making noise for the sake of making noise.
>>7421258
When I get nostalgic about college, I stop back and give close reads to poets and writers who appear to be making a genuine effort. The part about it that drives me away again is how hugely surprised and genuinely grateful they are to see what substantial talk about the making of literature really sounds like. Because their reactions mean they have been completely deprived of that by their university humanities departments, which in turn means those departments have been....
I don't want to get /trash/ed.
You know what it means.
I come hear to learn.
I'm a year behind in sixth-form; all my friends are in their first years at university, and I simultaneously feel like a retard for falling behind and feel pride in the pretentious knowledge that the year I am now in is even dumber than myself. Furthermore, the thought of waking up in the morning and going for a shit, only to look at all the crazy drunk photos from your friends uni parties is just nauseating and noxious.
The reason this board doesn't get smarter is because of neuroplasticity.
>>7421372
>The reason this board doesn't get smarter is because of neuroplasticity.
nope, it's because of a constant influx of emotionally stunted, pretentious autists who post things like
>all the crazy drunk photos from your friends uni parties is just nauseating and noxious
and think they're intellectual for it.
>>7421372
>I come hear to learn.
>hear
>>7421258
>Anyone with actual intelligence and aspirations will eventually outgrow /lit/ (and 4chan) and leave.
Wrong.
>>7421258
I wish this was true but everywhere else is just a circlejerk with overly politically correct moderation.
And I mean fucking everywhere.
>>7420429
The graph should be in reverse if you wanted to explain OP's point tho familia
>>7421327
>which in turn means those departments have been....
Absolved? Deprived of good students? Feminized? No clue what you mean
>>7421477
No one studies literature anymore. It's all just identity politics. The writers who post work here are desperate for someone to tell them what they can't get through all the IP. What makes a line, what makes a sentence, what is the difference between good and cringe, how do the details of this craft work?
There might be a few MLA programs where it still happens, but you have to bootstrap everything on your own to get there. A BA in English anymore just means "I can call anything rayciss and sexiss acause I got the formula in colludge."
>inb4 /pol/
>>7421496
I'm moderately liberal, but I absolutely agree with you. I switched out of my uni's creative writing/literature program. The workshop format of creative writing classes means you don't get a prescriptive how-to-write education. Not that having your writing workshopped isn't helpful, but getting one or two stories workshopped a semester by a bunch of peers equally ignorant of the basics of fiction isn't going to transform you into a pre-eminent writer.
And half of my literature classes were structured like shitty reading-response book clubs. Motherfucker I am paying $10,000 a semester to fucking learn from the experts, NOT hear my classmates warble on about how the book made them feel.
>>7421532
Undergrad, right? What was the ratio of students to real faculty (not grad ass.es).
>>7421532
>but getting one or two stories workshopped a semester by a bunch of peers equally ignorant of the basics of fiction isn't going to transform you into a pre-eminent writer.
>And half of my literature classes were structured like shitty reading-response book clubs.
>Motherfucker I am paying $10,000 a semester to fucking learn from the experts, NOT hear my classmates warble on about how the book made them feel.
JUMP SHIP
But seriously though, that sounds horrible. I might have actually considered literature if it wasn't because I knew I'd be up against something like this.
>>7421561
1:20 after intro classes, sometimes as low as 1:8. Small liberal arts school.
>>7421562
Yeah switched my major to Econ last year. Feels good to be actually learning something. Minoring in /lit/ is honestly the way to go. You can pick and choose the good classes and not feel obligated to take the shit ones.
>>7421532
>>7421562
I went to a major conference US school in the 80s and 90s. In three workshops I had the undivided attention of award-winners to the count of:
2 novelists (one poached from Harvard)
3 poets
2 short story writers
1 editor
And they were tack-sharp on prosody, style, grammatical theory, developmental techniques, structured practice and the vocabulary of critique. Shit was real, yo.
The loss of all that is almost as tragic as the loss of Phonics a decade earlier. I feel bad for you guys.
>>7421467
No. I think most of us are in that valley after the hill and the shitposters/pseuds are on that hill.
>>7421591
I can't even grasp the idea of someone with genuine skill being relevant in a lit university education. All I see are professors treating the education like it's middle school and "everyone's right!" and as if more group work is good and not detrimental.
>>7421613
The novelist made us all memorize a poem, of all things, and recite it without the text. I thought I was pretty hot shit with Violent Storm, and one of the girls impressed with a faultless Prufrock. Everybody made it through. Then the fucking novelist rips through Fern Hill in like two breaths. The point of the exercise was about close attention and saturation of attention, but what everybody remembers is feeling three inches shorter walking out.
One of the story writers issued us a cobbled together collection of "twice told tales" he dug up in various analog sources. To Build A Fire, turns out was first published in Boys Life, or some such. Demon Lover is extant as an early draft. A Hawthorne in draft. He forced us to describe every single change of word and every deletion and explain the reasoning behind it.
It wasn't really education at all. It was training. Like the way doctors do it. "Here, take this and cut the sucker open."
