>mtw you realize alt lit is the beat generation of the 21st century
>mfw I probably would have despised the beats if I was living in the 50s
>mfw id probably like alt lit if I was born a couple decades later
>mfw I cant tell if I'm joining the bandwagon or if I genuinely hate alt lit
>mfw I already despise the Beats because they seem like today's alt lit
>mfw this is extremely closeminded and a sure sign I'm growing more conservative as I age
>but Howl just fucking sucks
You could be a conservative literary genius, like Ezra Pound and Gene Wolfe.
>>7830592
ginsberg = pedophile.
https://www.ipce.info/library/miscellaneous/thoughts-nambla
90% of literature was written by rich kids who had no grip on reality.
>>7830592
>tfw you don't even know what alt lit is really
On the Road was fucking garbage, its prose showed potential af times but Kerouac's insistence on pushing bop prosidy ruined it.
>>7830630
millennials write poems about twitter and partying and Bernie sanders (and sometimes literally nothing at all) and put them in free ebooks
>>7830638
pleb
>>7830685
The Beats were literal plebs, fucking retard, that was their whole gimmick.
>>7830592
The Beat generation? you mean the SHIT generation hahah
>>7830716
hahahahahaha allen SHITSberg amirite
>>7830681
are you counting 20 yr olds as millenials? Or are we actually talking about teenagers here?
most recent book I've read is Extremely Loud and Incredibly close and I thought it was shit. Didn't like Vonnegut either. Though I am not sure that is even connected to this but I always thought it was.
The Beat Generation aka the only time in history Alan Ginsberg could be considered a fuckin poet.
>>7830731
pretty much just the 20somethings - the white vegan Buddhist college kids
Steven Roddenbuck and Mira Gonzalez are the two I'm most familiar with
>>7830612
Lol. You misunderstand Ezra Pound profoundly.
what people misunderstand about the beats is that it wasn't just a bunch of lazy hipsters, they were just looking for an alternative to life instead of the post-WW2 nuclear family aesthetic. Some did it through drugs and sex (burroughs, ginsberg), others through traveling (kerouac) and others through explorations of buddhism (Kerouac, Snyder, Whalen). I think to dismiss an entire generation without looking at the context of their history is foolish. Those dudes were really scarred by the conformity of post-ww2 life, and sought to escape from it
alt lit is just another name for experimentalism, based in 'social media' esc realism. Its just a minor fad that will die away soon enough. A return to romanticism, and poetry, with a mix of internet and post-modern gotchas is on the horizon.
>>7830847
I think most if not all people understand the Beat Generation was looking for an alternative to the norm
Most just think the alternative they chose was shit, and it is
>>7830863
was popularizing buddhism in the us all that bad
>>7830866
No. But what they popularized was a washed down form of buddhism. What they introduced was the Starbucks version.
>>7830681
I hope this is the description they use in the history books.
>>7830592
Beat generation was awful. Even a lot of professors I know don't like much Beat stuff for its own sake but acknowledge some of them were talented and influential.
I think we'll have some people rise above that level this decade. Alt Lit can stay where it is.
i see everyone say they hate the beats but can never clearly explain why. is it influence from critics or?
>>7831008
their vulgar and boorish preoccupation with their own social / sexual / political identities is why i don't read them anymore. aside from borroughs the whole movement's rot, and he's only a partial exception.
>>7830592
Burroughs was the only worthwhile author of the bunch and even he wasn't that great.
