Tell me /lit/, How can a discussion board that claims to be enamored by David Foster wallace indulge in so much irony and shitposting? Would he not look at this with contempt and against what he stood for?
It is such a contradiction. Help me understand.
there's something very honest about our memes
He was only pretending to be unironically ironic. He used irony earnestly and look wha happen'd.
>>7895645
Because I don't agree with him that much. He's a better meme than a writer
Saint Wallace isn't your personal Jesus.
>>7895661
>He's a better meme than a writer
This. But he's not a better meme than writer.
>>7895652
no there isn't. they're just lazy and trite attempts at sarcasm.
we only like him ironically
> implying he would browse 4chan
He hated technology and the internet, senpai.
>>7895902
and sarcasm can't be honest?
hey everyone, get a load of genius ova'eah
>>7896363
why?
>>7896577
cause he's a pseud
>>7895645
Have you actually read his books? A lot of his anti-irony talk was just misguided posturing. Don't just read Infinite Jest. Read Broom of the System, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Oblivion if you want to get a better feel for who he was. Watch some of his old interviews too. The Charlie rose one with franzen and leyner especially.
DISCERNIBLE
TALENT
>>7895645
He's right, ironic shitposters are the worst kind of faggots that have invaded neo 4chan.
I miss the days when memes were sincere and when we shitposted we had meaning behind it.
Reddit and 9gag ruined everything, it forced us to become ironic about all of our humor as a mocking gesture to the rest of the internet. And now unfunny faggots like h3h3 and filthy frank are doing the same thing, and now the entire new generation of teens are unfunny ironic pranksters.
>>7896597
You're missing the point of memes if you think they aren't sincere even when they're pranks. The proper path to being /lit/ in the 21st Century is complete and utter shitposting irony wreathed in a rich tapestry of obscuranist allegory and jokes that no one will understand. Joyce laid the groundwork for it in Finnegans Wake, follow his example.
>>7896607
No, the proper path is to actually be funny and have a real sense of humor instead of relying on a 100 proxy layers of retarded irony.
>>7896618
The ultimate joke is an act of genuis so indecipherable, and therefore apparently retarded to the untrained eye, that it reveals the true retardation of the puffed-up mediocre plebs who don't appreciate it.
>>7895645
The popularity of Dave Wallace is because he dramatized and made into literature the plebeian's dilemma, a dilemma all good writers and cultivated men resolve in their early 20s, and one he could not: how to "take life seriously" and not make snark and cynicism your organizing principles. If you are beyond this stage, his writings are quite hollow and you'll realize things like anime message boards and "literary discussion" do in fact deserve to be met with irony. Best wishes.
>>7895645
Dave was still caught in 20th century manichean mentality. Let the memes flow through you. Layered irony and sincerity eventually reach dialectic synthesis. Are you ready to see how deep the rabbit hole goes? Shitpost enlightenment awaits you
>>7896649
I'm preparing the meme to end all memes as we speak. This dankopalypse will usher in a golden age of expanded consciousness via infinitely recurring ironic shitposts.
>>7896649
>20th century manichean mentality
To be fair, his mind was on a league of his own. (inb4: shitty meme about no discernible talent); and he was also really, clinically depressed.
>>7896719
It was, but he tragically got spooked by christfaggotry instead of becoming the Joyce-Kafka crossbreed of intertexual self-effacing ego-driven suffering humor he was meant to be.
>>7896582
>"misguided posturing"
care to elaborate a bit here?
Thanks for the recommendations however.
>>7896597
You would expect that the number of people who resort to snark and irony would be offputting to 4chan which attempts to be extremely contrarian. I'd expect /lit/ to go against the norm of plebeian irony and resort to sincerity in order to be contrarian. but it doesn't.
>>7896607
>the proper path to being /lit/
so you define how /lit/ ought to be? I honestly see little sincerity in memes. There might be some but a sincere non-ironic straight up conversation is definitely less layered and much more sincere.
>>7896618
This. I think people resort to snark and sarcasm as a crutch to hide their conversational inadequacy and lack of wit which requires one to be clever and humorous. any basement dweller can spam dry sarcastic comments. but a sincere reply which can stand vicious attacks and is still humorous or clever requires effort.
>>7896632
Thank you so much for this sincere reply. To be honest I'm 21 right now and have begun questioning the extent to which i use sarcasm, snark and cynicism in the way i communicate. I feel saturated with it. And i feel that it requires little effort and is not too gratifying. So although I'm surrounded by extremely caustic, cynical, snarky jerks, I've been attempting to be more polite, courteous and sincere in general. I'm not claiming a moral high ground. just an alternative way to communicate.
And i concede that anime message boards do in fact deserve to be met with irony. But nevertheless i expected more for this board. I hoped that it would stand out in the cesspool that is 4chan for it's quality discussion amid sincere people passionate about literature.
>>7896799
Sincerity is impossible in mass media society. At best it amounts to self deception and at worst, you are getting cucked by some or other consumer ideology.
>>7896799
>care to elaborate a bit here?
It's not irony or insincerity itself that he was opposed to, but what he felt was the self-destructive and implicitly hopeless end goal of postmodernism. He (mistakenly) thought of writers and readers as feminine entities (as seen here http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/a-conversation-with-david-foster-wallace-by-larry-mccaffery/ ) who can only reach a facsimile of meaning through a perilous tightrope act of interacting with one another through literature.
What he failed to comprehend on any real level was that the destruction wrought by postmodernism is necessary to fertilize the ground for meaning to spring forth, and that anything that shied away from that would only be a band-aid at best. He had an immature view of this process and was caught up too much in his own personal pain to see the bigger picture.
>>7896821
>Sincerity is impossible in mass media society.
Why? That's quite tragic if true. I always envisioned a return to sincerity in mass media. In which the communication through the internet gradually returns to seriousness and in an ocean of silly, forgettable and vapid chatter, content and serious debate begin to gain popularity. Similar to how orkut eventually became outmoded once people grew out of the silliness. It is not as if critique of current mass media does not exist. I just think that this critique will eventually drive the more concerned and aware individuals to form better cliques which gain popularity due to their quality and are copied by the rest. This however can be thwarted if something such as facebook begins to set the norm which people begin to treat as the new "sincere".
>the destruction wrought by postmodernism is necessary to fertilize the ground for meaning to spring forth
when/how do you expect this spring? I do not see how postmodernism has brought upon more meaning in culture yet to be honest. Or am I missing something?
(I am very sorry if I sound like a retard to you. I admit I am a bit out of my depth here as I do not have the strongest grasp on post-modernism)
>>7896929
The problem is the media exists to sell you stuff. It's even gotten worse with social media, as most of the population was conscripted into an army of marketeers obliged to spend a good part of their lives selling hyperreal images of themselves defined by their relationship to consumer products. Kinda like reality TV, not fake, not sincere but caught in some weird limbo
>>7897113
>>7896929
You can't be sincere over social media, because in order for it not to come back to haunt you, you have to present yourself in the most sanitized, inoffensive manner. This along with PC-liberal dogma has completely dehumanized us as a culture, and is why shit like 4chan even exists. It's sad that niggaz can only be real under the protective blanket of anonymity.
>>7897723
PC as it exists today is a product of this whole culture of performance enabled by the Internet. Hyper-politics is a hall of mirrors increasingly removed from reality. See the increasing focus on fictional worlds and minor details in shitty Pop culture franchises.
>>7897765
You saying that people are more focused on the details of fictional worlds, rather than the universally relatable content?
>>7897797
Internet liberals are overly concerned with pop culture over material conditions. Also the whole privilege ideology basically to reduces politics to therapy, allows authorities to micromanage people's identity and self-perception. there's a good reason why it has gained such a hold in the military, universities and the corporate world. It's an effective instrument of control meant to neutralize threats to the power structure.
