Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Martin Concagh

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 22h

probably less "unhinged" and more "will lose me some friends" but I think the contemporary lit fic trend of very short pared down sentences is meant to seem clever and pretentious when it just makes people with no attention span/will to properly pay attention feel like they're reading Real Books

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

15 9 170

Reposted by Martin Concagh

Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 16h

I'm a fair-weather fan of the England national side but the transformation from 2002-era "tabloid-appointed World Cup Winners who hate one another oh fuck we've gone out in the last 16" to "some nice role-models who make you feel disappointed for losing in the semis" isn't a terrible trajectory.

7 12 150

Reposted by Martin Concagh

Nute @nutedawn.bsky.social · 14h

Obviously this is a particular left-wing species of it, but I think this is a reflection of a very real Online trend found all over the political spectrum where people don't understand some aspect of the world and so assume their ignorance must reflect a conspiracy by The Powers That Be

8 26 160

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 15h

Idk “megalomaniac tech billionaire’s AI ends up primarily being used to generate an infinite amount of erotica” feels like a 30 Rock bit

Reuters @reuters.com · 16h

OpenAI to allow mature content on ChatGPT for adult verified users starting December reut.rs/3J8NTAi

OpenAI to allow mature content on ChatGPT for adult verified users starting December

OpenAI will allow mature content for ChatGPT users who verify their age on the platform starting in December, CEO Sam Altman said, after the chatbot was made restrictive for users in mental distress.

reut.rs

1 10

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 16h

A lot of this kind of stuff is just what people say when they don’t have the rigour and work ethic to actually explain why something is poorly written

1

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 18h

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteri...

Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

3

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 20h

They are both much more sensical when you think of them as part of the popular mid-century romance genre where the square jawed but sensitive sportsman/war hero/CEO realizes that their true soulmate is the mousy secretary who’s been by their side the whole time

4

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 20h

Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are better understood as romance novels, in the big and small-r sense of the word

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

2 5

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

A little life does bizarrely feel like one of those novels that‘s a fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, with the story-free plot and going on for an insane length

1 2

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

I unironically love that novel for a) being a beat-for-beat parody and b) how much she gets on a soapbox about the double standards around how people talk about books women like to read

1

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

If a gay male writer exclusively wrote novels about Asian women going through immense physical and emotional traumas it would be... remarked upon

1 28

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

I unironically would want to see what Fennell would do with Jane Austen

2 1

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

I am very embarrassed to admit that there was a point I liked The Twenty Seventh City, a novel by someone who’d read two Time articles about India

1

Reposted by Martin Concagh

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 22h

oh I forgot one: Hanya Yanagihara's books are misery porn that creepily fetishize the lives of gay men and it is embarrassing that the New York literary establishment so embraces them.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

25 17 350

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

Yeah the thing with a lot of writers from that era and eras before is that quite a lot of them had literally never seen what we would call today a “person of colour“.

(My favourite example of this is how Shakespeare clearly has no idea where Othello is supposed to be from)

1 2

Reposted by Martin Concagh

John C @badsocialism.bsky.social · 1d

YA is inherently bad for media literacy and literary culture because while it's meant to be the scaffolding between childhood books and adult books it offers all the appeal and benefits of "adult" literature without the sophistication or, crucially, the challenge

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

5 12 62

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 21h

I think the problem with the casting is that Heathcliff’s whole bit is that he's had a tragic life of being repeatedly excluded and discriminated against, while Jacob Elordi looks and carries himself like a man who’s never been excluded from anything in his entire life.

2 2

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 22h

The Simpsons had their finger on the pulse once again

8

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 1d

Hasan “Zap A Doodle” Piker

7

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 1d

I’d go as far as to say that every workplace sitcom and drama after the three season mark ends up becoming primarily about how the characters have no meaningful relationships outside of their work

Josh Fruhlinger @jfruh.bsky.social · 1d

around season 3 people WILL start to notice that none of the characters on your workplace sitcom have meaningful relationships outside of work

5

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 1d

Now it’s “ugh why won’t that dumb black bitch shut up and go away forever“

6

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 1d

Right up until July 2024 the prevailing narrative from the left, right and centre is “lol that dumb black bitch can’t talk”

2 19

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 1d

If you’re an ambitious and savvy progressive politico / streamer / public figure by snubbing Piker and not doing a photo op or collab you’re saving yourself the hassle of having to publicly distance yourself from him when the inevitable downfall comes and a lot of bad shit comes out

1 8

Martin Concagh @mconcagh.bsky.social · 1d

Very funny to see people still saying Hasan Piker is being smeared by the lib establishment for animal abuse when he’s currently on his third explanation of how he wasn’t electrocuting his dog

www.reddit.com/r/Livestream...

From the LivestreamFail community on Reddit: Another explanation from Hasan. He's pushing the gate button and Kaya reacts to it.

Explore this post and more from the LivestreamFail community

www.reddit.com

5 1 26

Reposted by Martin Concagh

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

a lot of people read like LLMs generate text: they don't actually comprehend the words so much as make a guess at what they think they are based on a few recognizable terms

pork, cheese, broccoli rabe @garlicbuffalo.gobirds.biz · 1d

so one of the things I’ve started to realize with having a notable following On Here is exactly how much of a reading comprehension problem we have in this country

19 57 460