Thread 24649565

We used to worship this retard.

why? he just talked about drugs in very bad prose and did absolutely terrible art. oh i'm supposed to be impressed by some permafried guy?

>>24649577
You wouldn’t understand, zoomer.

>>24649579
I'm probably older than you, man. You can use your words, describe what the atmosphere here was like, why people found him impressive, why you did. You obviously want to talk about him.

>>24649565 (OP)
My vague impression is that his appeal is in his honesty. Him being from an era of lolsorandom irony but actually meaning it 100%(-ish) because he's an actual weirdo.

he's not very good-looking

>>24649622
sincerity is refreshing in an age of irony. the more difficult it is to share that, the more embarrassing, the more awkward, the more bizarre, the more valuable and entertaining. it is a genuine oddity, rather than a manufactured one.

>>24649644
shameless people for whom oversharing is a marketing strategy aren't exactly rare

>>24649651
the ones who can write worth a damn are

He could have been a great writer, a major writer, if he hadn't fried his brain doing drugs. Don't do drugs, kids.

>>24649667
>he could have been great, major
how so? what gave you that impression?

>>24649651
>oversharing
They are calculated in what they decide to share and what they omit, and often blatantly make things up just to sell the story.

>>24649565 (OP)
>used to
we still do

>>24649565 (OP)
Who is this guy?

>>24649565 (OP)
i didnt. westernised asian males are turbo cucks with huge chips on their shoulders. boring and pathetic

>>24650274
I love how /lit/ has such a reputation these days. We're basically infamous, and in some circles we seem to be as hated as /pol/.

>>24650009
we of the alt lit resistance are not many, but we'll keep fighting against COB like jap holdouts

I don't know who that is. Can somone mention his name at least()$;!#)+

>>24650267
>>24650283
someone who did unforgivable stuff to megan boyle's vagina

>>24650321
>megan boyle
can't believe that hag married blake butler

>>24650278
Great so now pseuds and shills will call you a /lit/tard dismiss everything you say out of hand

>>24650283
He is the greatest American writer of the 21st century. If you don't know his name u have to lurk moar.

>>24649565 (OP)
Why do so many of these trust fund kids with world class educations waste their 30s pretending to believe in magic?

>>24650278
>>24650372
>these days
That was 13 years ago, tard.

>>24650372
>mad because he won't be taken seriously by pseuds and shills

The only pseud here is you, friend.

>>24649565 (OP)
>we
???

>>24652854
you were in middle school

>>24649565 (OP)
>go to bed, Tao
kek, I remember when he used to shill here. He fried his brain on acid and now he thinks that weed is curing his autism. I DM'd him on twitter a picture of some deer on the road outside the place I was living a few yrs ago and he sent me a free copy of Leave Society in return. He's now a granola conspiracy theorist, of the type that went extinct circa... 2015? after they all started slobbering on trump's cock
>>24650278
We are not infamous, nobody knows we exist and the circles that hate us as much as /pol/ are the kind of people who go to poetry readings and say MMMMMM! after every line and are barely aware that 4chan has multiple boards. It's all just the 4chan boogeyman to them

>>24650278
Simply false.
If we're discussed at all, we're lumped in with chuddy book tiktokers and Floridian "classical learning" types as a distant afterthought.
/lit/ has had near negligible visible impact and will probably be forgotten. We are sub-samizdat.
It's easy to tell why. Unlike, say, /mu/, which can easily collaborate, or /v/, which represents a huge, lucrative market, we focus on solitary and almost certainly thankless work. What's more is that there's at least some space for chuddy musicians. Publishing is such an incestuous oligopoly and reading in general so relegated to namby-pamby moralizers that admitting any allegiance with us would be suicidal.
It's a shame, because there really are cultivated writers here who will probably never be read, let alone published. But no generation can be kind to everyone.

>>24653090
Think this is right on the money. /lit/ will be forgotten because it's seen as right-wing (inb4 anon inserts his political faggotry or starts screeching about da joos) and publishing is run by super-liberal white women. More broadly it'll be forgotten because nobody in America reads so there's nobody paying attention.

>>24653108
I legitimately believe this place would be seen at the very least as worthy of attention, say, thirty years ago. But such are the times.

>>24649565 (OP)
You did the fucking thing again: posting a picture without any name. Yes, I know, it's Tao Lin but you need to do the basic common courtesy of any civilized person and state the fucking name to the person you're shitting on for everyone to hear.

>>24649577
Honestly, based on your writing style, Tao Lin seems right up your alley.

>>24649622
He's "honest" and yet we always uncover from him more inconvenient lies.

>>24649632
I tend to agree.

>>24649644
There's sincerity, and then there's writing like a goober.

>>24649651
It's less common than you think, and Tao Lin is among the prime examples.

>>24649667
It's not the drugs, it's laziness.

>>24650283
Tao Lin.

>>24651729
Bold take. Hard to defend, frankly.

>>24653115
Honestly, it's a possibility. But nobody knows what the future brings.

>>24653108
Supreme irony: these types are able to exert such outsized influence on the publishing sphere because new literary fiction is dying or dead and therefore no longer subject to any market logic save that of a pyramid scheme.
Their cultural project of centering alternative voices or such has won a pyrrhic victory. It claims as its territory a burial ground.
I don't know sales numbers too well because I don't care: but I would be shocked if classics and such didn't still outsell the NYT list schlock.

>>24649565 (OP)
As always it was maximum of like 5 autists, still probably around like 10% of people who regularly made posts at that time. They were never going to meme me in reading anything published past like 1960. If Tao Lin is still talked about when I’m in my 80s then and only MAYBE then will I consider reading him

it was a better time

>>24653172
This place is ten times better than it was then. Ten times more miserable and hateful too, yes, but that is the cost.

>>24649565 (OP)
he really fell off the map huh

>>24653133
>based on your writing style
you don't know what my writing style is, but good try champ.

>>24649565 (OP)
>retard
Sorry idiot, but he brags about having a tested 142 IQ in Taipei

>>24653067
>people who go to poetry readings and say MMMMMM! after every line
lol I namedropped the Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra last night at an open mic and a guy cheered, then afterwards he told me he wrote some of it.

>>24653090
/lit/, in my narrow view, has never had the same cultural cachet /mu/ once had, probably due to its unwillingness to read contemporary authors. Maybe that was a little different in Tao's era (I'm a newfag who wasn't there for it), but it's an obvious blind spot now. If /mu/ only ever discussed classics it wouldn't have been as influential as it was, though music is also a much easier medium to get into as a consumer, so throwing a chart at a newfag and saying "start here" is way more likely to be effective.

>Unlike, say, /mu/, which can easily collaborate
You're right to a certain extent, but /lit/ has had many collaborative projects over the years. The difference is that for a reader you have to put in much more work than a music listener, and the bar is higher as a musician in terms of requiring at least some skill to even take part in collaborative projects. Any /lit/ wannabe can dump pages of terrible text and it'll bury anything else because it's not so easy to skip around and find what's good/funny/worthwhile like you can in an album. Good work does come out of collaborations here, but you'll only come across it if you have an inherent interest in /lit/ that makes reading all the crap interesting in some way.

It's also not like any /mu/ projects saw commercial success. Anything made by anons is in the end going to be made for anons, and at most interest outsiders as a novelty. The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra is now in the Bavarian State Library because it was included as part of an art exhibition---and not because the curators read the thing (or the two sequels) front-to-back, but because they represented a modern way of collaboration and spirit that took advantage of print-on-demand; see:
https://www.apod.li/the-legacy-of-totalitarianism-in-a-tundra

I was writing an article on the /lit/ wiki trying to summarise some of these projects before it got locked down:
https://lit.trainroll.xyz/wiki/Collaborative_Works
and here's some folders of them:
https://mega.nz/folder/2gsHSSbA#Sl46P4LljGlk9mnpAf3Mlw
https://mega.nz/folder/CoN2GbzQ#7puNpTNUTQ05QTha4H6-WA

>>24653828
>>It's also not like any /mu/ projects saw commercial success. Anything made by anons is in the end going to be made for anons, and at most interest outsiders as a novelty. The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra is now in the Bavarian State Library because it was included as part of an art exhibition---and not because the curators read the thing (or the two sequels) front-to-back, but because they represented a modern way of collaboration and spirit that took advantage of print-on-demand; see:
>https://www.apod.li/the-legacy-of-totalitarianism-in-a-tundra
damn

>>24653828
>lol I namedropped the Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra last night at an open mic and a guy cheered, then afterwards he told me he wrote some of it.
Where?

>>24653891
Montreal. Also showed him the copy of pic related I'd brought along. (If I ever get around to it, Edward Burtynsky of Breezewood/burgerpunk photo fame is supposed to receive two copies.)

>>24653882
I heard Hypersphere is in the Library of Congress.

>>24652861
doubt it

>>24649565 (OP)
he listed the heights of all his gfs and they were all pretty short

All the old Tao Lin threads, as well as this thread and most of, if not all of, the replies, are Tao Lin himself. No one knows who Tao Lin is except Tao Lin and his dumb girlfriend.

If TAO LIN's writing career is really over, hwat should he do now? WHy doesn't he become a creative writing teacher? I'm sure some department would be proud to have him on their faculty list? Somebody as talented and famous as him. Is it really that hard to get a teching job?

>>24654616
Most universities aren’t tripping over themselves to hire someone with sexual assault allegations in their Wikipedia page

>>24654616
Market bullshit online courses
Write for a column
Learn to code
Shovel shit
The possibilities are endless. The world's his oyster.

>>24653828
>/lit/, in my narrow view, has never had the same cultural cachet /mu/ once had, probably due to its unwillingness to read contemporary authors
Huge part of this whole question for sure. /lit/ fucking hates anything contemporary, and it's because /lit/ is filled with people who want to sound intelligent/think they're intelligent, not really actual readers.
>>24653148
Pyrrhic victory isn't quite the framing I'd use. Reading in the US was on the decline before publishing libbed out, and IMO the lib-capture of the publishing industry has little to do with literary fiction dying as an art form -- that's got far, far more to do with cultural and economic forces outside of the publishing industry.
>I would be shocked if classics and such didn't still outsell the NYT list schlock
Of course they do? Everyone knows classics are good, most schools/colleges require students read some, they're in the public domain so you can print them cheaply, etc etc.

>>24654623
Would it help if he moves to China?

>>24655618
Would it help if I stopped sucking your cock?

Never did, was always team #meghead though.

Decade-ly reminder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2BJSV8Q1Yw

>my cat Nini has autism

shut the fuck up man.

>>24655528
>not an actual reader if you don't read contemporary slop
bro i get hives, don't make me read that horseshit.

>>24656779
Do you think all writing at present is like Tao Lin? or what's the image you've got of it that puts you off it? /lit/ trashes a lot of contemporary stuff, but out of the small selection I've read (mostly from recs on here) there's only been one book I didn't like.

Two novels I've read recently and really liked:
Nobber by Oisin Fagan, set during the Black Death and uses an interesting narrative structure.
My Stupid Intentions by Bernardo Zannoni is a nearly parable-like novel of animals who behave as if somewhere between nature and a European slum.

>>24656539
dis dat 2010s hipsta culcha take me back

>>24657176
>My Stupid Intentions by Bernardo Zannoni

nice rec

>>24654512
he used to rule the new york literary scene

I am Tao Lin

>>24658003
what are you working on now Tao?

>>24658882
Autistic shitty vegan food

>>24658896
Eating it or stuffing it in your butt?

>>24649565 (OP)
how did this ricecel get prime age white pussy? charisma? statusmaxxing?

>>24659017
>charisma
lol wat
https://youtu.be/d2BJSV8Q1Yw

>>24656779
Right, yeah, exactly like that
>>24657176
Thanks for the recs, haven't heard of those two. Just finished The Obscene Bird of Night and loved it.

>>24659017
Women love passion, competence, and height. If you're very passionate about something, if you're good at it (stop typing and x out of the reply box, he's published multiple novels and you haven't), and if you're tall, it doesn't matter what you look like. Really you only need two.

>>24659017
He's a world-famous author. Of course he's going to be swamped with pussy.

>>24649667
>>24649577
what drugs did he do that permafried his brain?

>>24653528
Yes, I do: it's fucked up, gay, and retarded.

>>24659252
Nah, that's a rigid worldview. The world isn't a video game. It's chaotic and all about luck. I know passionless incompetent shorties who have gfs.

>>24659341
mainly acid and incessant weed abuse, but also ecstasy, amphetamines, benzos, etc. taipei is about this period in his life

>>24649565 (OP)
It was just the novelty of reading something written by someone who is 100% full-retard autistic. I recommend listening to his Red Scare interview it is somewhat interesting.

>>24660290
He cured his autism with cannabis don't you know

>>24649565 (OP)
you'd still fuck tao dont lie

>>24659017
>prime age
the girl was mid. white women are not that attractive desu

>>24660290
yep was just a pathetic car crash that this retarded ESL thought he could even try lol. chris chan of lit

Hi, I'm Tao Lin.

Thank you for reading my thread.

>>24663287
Have you figured out how to cure cat autism yet? I think that could be the subject of a new book if you are lookign for material

>>24663287
No, I'm Tao Lin.

>>24663747
I'm now interested in autism in other animals. My cat Nini is a good example. I don't think I can cure him, or that it's required.

>>24663984
>I'm now interested in autism in other animals.
I would read a book on that especially if you tie it in somehow into how all vegans have to die, because we hate their fucking guts

>>24664180
I'll think about it. I'm glad you're interested.

>>24664389
Tao you don't seriously believe the new age slop shit you're reading, right

>>24649565 (OP)
>we
Someone bought into the shilling huh

>>24664389
And it should take place in mainland China, in some third-tier city so you can complete the city series after doing TAPEI. This one will be like CHENGDU or something like that and you will wander around a little bit cluelessly asking to inspect the animals of hte locals and trying to learn their Sichuan dialect but communicating in English and them hating you for not speaking Chinese and being fake and gay while you tell them you are a good provincial boy from the province of Taiwan and you are just trying to bring enlightenment and the Tao to all sentient beings, especially their household dogs and cats, and you go to the tea houses where the old men bring their birds and you carefully inspect the birds for signs of autism and an old man says that problem has already been solved in his little yellow canary with Traditional Chinese Medicine, and you tell him about how you wish you were born in the motherland and TCM would have cured you but instead you have to Shoplfit at American Apparel or steal batteries and eBay them and how something like that would never have been necessary in a People's Paradise like CHENGDU or CHONGQING or even XINAN.

>>24664448
I do. But only after I experienced it myself.

>>24664472
It would have to be called HAWAII because that's where I live now, but I would likely name it something else. I'm not interested in non-fiction anymore, now that I feel comfortable with spiritual reality. Many of the animals in Hawaii do seem autistic. My hypothesis is that it is an adaptation to island environments.

>>24664509
this is a great larp you've nailed his writing style lmao

>>24664509
Why don't you make a trip to Galapagos where they have a lot of animals. It'll be TAO LIN's GALAPAGOS. Problem with Hawaii is that there's already a pretty famous Michener novel with that name and you will just confuse the autistic population.

>>24653090
/lit/ is indirectly responsible for Big Chungus, so there's that.

>>24664528
You would retrace Darwin's footsteps but from the angle of autism in all the island species. You will look at their adaptation not in terms of their gills or winglets but their head and eye movements as well as their mysterious speech. At the same time you will combat the Chinese fishing fleet circling the island with gillnets and shark fin slicers as the story moves to its stunning climax when you autistically imitate a large Chilean sea bass and fool the crew into putting you into the hold, from which you emerge merely hours later, pretending to be one of the many slave fisherman working the high seas until they bring you back into port in Shanghai where you expose their whole fraudulent shark-finning enterprise and are lauded as the national hero of Ecuador.

>>24664528
Sorry, Michener named a novel TAO LIN'S GALAPAGOS? or was it TAO LIN'S HAWAII?

>>24664585
That's exactly it. It's too confusing.

I still do. Tao is my king. I aspire to be his gay lover someday. I bet that autistic bussy is simply sublime.