Mastodawn

Krzysztof Sakrejda

@mekkaokereke I guess it was important to show people that even though it resembles a great story it just has no depth, the author has no spine, and he lacks the intellectual ability to live in the present moment.

La Guiri 23h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke when you said that "the author has no spine" I remembered something. I liked the film "The Martian in spite of the obvious political message of one good man surviving "in the wild".

but then I read that it was a book adaptation and you could get it with or without swearwords, the censored version being for schools.

You just have to be very shortsighted not to realise you're writing educational YA and adapt your style accordingly (or you just despise YA readership)... or you just have no style and no respect for your finished work, just dollar signs for eyes.

@laguiri @wronglang @mekkaokereke

Jackie 23h ago

I genuinely liked the novel, when I was a kid

La Guiri 23h ago

@burnoutqueen @wronglang @mekkaokereke The film cheered me up at a terrible time in my life! I was just suspicious of the authors "non-political" act.

@burnoutqueen @laguiri @mekkaokereke yeah, and that's ok, I think the author is just showing his limits as a person now

@laguiri @mekkaokereke I imagine the reason this happened is he was nudged by the publisher to go make the book/movie well received by fascists and he was just a little too excited to comply and not principled enough to say "guys, it's a book, you have to interpret it yourself". He had many ways to avoid this but he chose to prioritize the 🤑

@wronglang @laguiri @mekkaokereke Except there are fewer fascists than non. If I ever get the chance, I would go on the wokest podcasts and talk about how the lack of intellectual curiosity on the right is a sign of why they think they need someone to tell them what to do.

(If I didn’t chicken out anyway.)

@queenofnewyork @laguiri @mekkaokereke it's definitely a group of people who were taught the patriarchy, swallowed it whole, and are now perpetually looking for daddy. They likely just need direction and they'd behave (as in so their daily jobs and not start wars in the middle east) but they'd always be susceptible to the next talking head who feeds on their racism and xenophobia.

@wronglang @laguiri @mekkaokereke I think there's at least a subsection of them that think they will be the ones giving the orders. But yet, there's a lot more that do seem to just want someone to tell them what to do so they don't have to make the scary decisions themselves. Which I can sympathize with to a point. But not the point that it hurts other people!

Dana Fried 23h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke that sounds like he's fucking with the interviewer, but maybe I'm giving him too much credit.

@tess @mekkaokereke I mean there's many ways to read it and I read the transcript rather than listening to the interview, but he seems to be really into the interviewer, so I'm getting fawning vibe

I wish that were true. It's not, but I wish it was.

@mekkaokereke @tess I'm ok with mourning this loss and moving on. It's become such a common pattern and I hope he doesn't go full jk Rowling but that's up to him.

Dana Fried 22h ago

@mekkaokereke @wronglang it's wild. What self-respecting author would ever say, "No I don't use themes or symbolism. I don't think about what I'm writing at all."

argonaut 22h ago

@tess @wronglang @mekkaokereke perhaps i worked too long in advertisement, and i’ve seen too many AI responses, but that to me is textbook promotion-savvy sycophancy: take the point and explode it using as much formulaic bromide to support it, flood-the-field-style.

@argonaut @tess @mekkaokereke I'm not sure I understand this, would you mind clarifying a bit?

argonaut 22h ago

@wronglang @tess @mekkaokereke
interviewer: “you dont shove identity politics into it”

interviewee: “yes, i think like you (identity matching), i don’t shove politics (confirmation), or meaning (widening), or symbolism (broadening), or politics (again), or symbolism (again), i add *nothing* (full escape) but pure banality.

argonaut 22h ago

@wronglang @tess @mekkaokereke
(now compare to a culpable person asked if they’re culpable and you’ll find similarities in the amount of “not culpable, really, swear it, would never do it, like at all” explanation they’ll go into)

@argonaut @tess @mekkaokereke thank you! Yeah I see that.. I think the downside is as an author you have to live with the words you put into the world so that's why it's getting a negative reaction here.

Trezzer (aka Helvedeshunden)23h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke The comment is spineless – but the story itself is very political whether he intended it or not. Simply giving a main character a core of empathy and decency towards someone seen as alien IS political today.

@trezzer @mekkaokereke he totally had the opportunity to ask the interviewer to interpret the story and lead it in a direction that wasn't fawning. The trouble with many authors tends to be that they don't do well in the moment seeing how meaning is made without revisions... so yeah of course we can read the work separate from the author... but then he should stay away from podcasts and shush... 🤷‍♂️

Trezzer (aka Helvedeshunden)23h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke Absolutely.

@trezzer @mekkaokereke 😭 I just want people to live up to the political moment, but I work in academia where fawning is the easiest route to success so this pattern has gotten very old for me.....

@wronglang @trezzer @mekkaokereke I disagree on that being an author thing. I absolutely consider theme and politics and symbolism. It is often in the revision process that I see the symbolism and sharpen the theme. I have a couple of stories that I want to tell that don’t have themes that resonate with my values. They lurk in my head in case I can find ways to fix them.

If you’re not thinking about this stuff… I question how good of an author you are!

/pretentious ramble

@queenofnewyork @trezzer @mekkaokereke I'm reading this as agreeing... he got caught out where he has to speak without getting a chance to do revisions (live in a podcast) ... some authors are great conversationalists and can handle that well and others.. well, it's good to know your limits, or get better at it

@wronglang @trezzer @mekkaokereke Gotcha. Though I suspect he wouldn't take the words back. That's one of the very teeny minor benefits than we have in this stupid time -- people don't feel bad about letting their views fly, even if they should. :\

Oggie 23h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke
I just reread this book very recently ( before the movie came out), and the book is absolutely political.

It has a lot to say on the strength of education, science, faith in the goodness of people, drives, and is extremely heavy ( kinda unrealisticly so) on anti censorship and similar.

It he wants to pretend those aren't political things, so be it, but really it's just I want to not be noticed. Shame nobody brings up the chapters (multiple) on climate change.

@Oggie @mekkaokereke it's definitely his choice if he thinks the fasc need to see his book/movie more than mastodon so I'm just straight up mourning his failure as a public figure in the context of work I was ready to like. The fasc will happily reinterpret all those positives in their own framework (overpopulation panic, woke censorship, white replacement theory, etc...), so I just think he's doing the work a disservice.

Oggie 22h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke

Oh yes, I probably could have been more explicit in my condemnation of this horrible behavior from him, I just was trying to point out that he very much was including things they would have a problem with, but pretending there was no message because he didn't have any characters who were infected with the gay, etc.

I am extremely disappointed in him.

@wronglang @mekkaokereke Just because he thinks he’s not using symbolism and talking about politics doesn’t mean that’s true. It just means he’s talking about the politics and using the symbols he is too incurious to realize are part of his own language and identity and political views. Not the sort of shallowness you’d expect from an author. But I guess it takes all sorts?

demofox 22h ago

@queenofnewyork @wronglang @mekkaokereke for me "feeding the nazis" is a deal breaker, whatever else he may or may not be doing

Dean Martineau 20h ago

@mekkaokereke @queenofnewyork Ah, good old whiteness! My ideas are,mafter all, the accepted norm!

@queenofnewyork @wronglang @mekkaokereke

jcriecke 15h ago

people who claim neutrality: "I have no politics"

Everyone else: "buddy you've got politics and politics has you. better check which side your 'neutrality' benefits."

🔥torstein🔥21h ago

@wronglang @mekkaokereke i mean, once you agree to go on the show of that constipated, media-illiterate incel you basically have waved good bye to all self respect, so why not go the full mile.