Her style of argumentation being derived from millennial message board culture is exactly what I thought when reading Authority. I’m glad to see I’m not alone in that.
I am trans and I sometimes find Andrea interesting and funny but overall she leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She’s just a mean girl who seems preoccupied with being too cool. I really don’t like people like that, if I wanted to be bullied again I would go back to high school.
Also I can’t help but think her popularity is a reflection of the cruel and mean direction the culture has taken. Like how Kendrick Lamar’s most popular song is a giant mean takedown. Is it because she is a great writer or is she filling a need for cruelty in the late stage capitalism world. So is she being lauded for being trans and radical or being a troll?
I'm definitely with you on the strange uptick in antagonistic art, though I think I'd add that a materialist analysis of mean kids might reveal that they'd be taking swipes regardless of the state of capital
I’m reading Authority now and love it. She’s a fantastic stylist and I particularly love her essays, “Pink” and “China Brain.” Her literary and cultural criticisms are sometimes vicious, but that’s just, in queer parlance, reading.
Very fair. I'll add that I remain in enthusiastic agreement with the work she did in "On Liking Women," and I certainly get what you mean by the read. Let's call this a reading-back then.
💅🏻🤌🏼🔥 Phenomenal points, with citations to back them up, and not a lifted idea one! ALC could take a page or two from your book. {insert funny quip about plagiarism vs. learning from someone’s writing approach} Thanks for making some sense of the confusion soup we’ve been collectively swimming in for too long.
I only understood a portion of this essay lol, but really enjoyed what I did understand. I remember Chu saying in her Zadie Smith essay that old school heads assumed that young people rejecting a book with a problematic main character were prioritizing politics over aesthetics. And Chu said in fact they were creating a new Aesthetics. But she never defined it, leaving me to wonder if that new Aesthetics isn’t just… politics. So yeah, let’s call it “a criticism of Good Politics™.” And while I like reading Chu, I agree the foundation of her criticism is just not broad enough to be interesting over the long haul.
Stylish, thoughtful writing, Raf. I enjoyed your piece (even though what little I know of Andrea Chu doesn’t make me want to read her. Kind of like how I liked All the Pretty horses even though I’m not interested in horses, or men in the desert with horses- it comes down to the magic of good writing :)) Keep at it, aim high, people who insult and get rageful are all too common while people think hard are too damn rare. Btw I liked Zadie Smith’s On Beauty :)
Her style of argumentation being derived from millennial message board culture is exactly what I thought when reading Authority. I’m glad to see I’m not alone in that.
You know you may have been staring at screens too much when your idea of a brilliant riposte is “go home Bret Easton Ellis, you’re drunk!”
I am trans and I sometimes find Andrea interesting and funny but overall she leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She’s just a mean girl who seems preoccupied with being too cool. I really don’t like people like that, if I wanted to be bullied again I would go back to high school.
Also I can’t help but think her popularity is a reflection of the cruel and mean direction the culture has taken. Like how Kendrick Lamar’s most popular song is a giant mean takedown. Is it because she is a great writer or is she filling a need for cruelty in the late stage capitalism world. So is she being lauded for being trans and radical or being a troll?
I'm definitely with you on the strange uptick in antagonistic art, though I think I'd add that a materialist analysis of mean kids might reveal that they'd be taking swipes regardless of the state of capital
I’m reading Authority now and love it. She’s a fantastic stylist and I particularly love her essays, “Pink” and “China Brain.” Her literary and cultural criticisms are sometimes vicious, but that’s just, in queer parlance, reading.
Very fair. I'll add that I remain in enthusiastic agreement with the work she did in "On Liking Women," and I certainly get what you mean by the read. Let's call this a reading-back then.
💅🏻🤌🏼🔥 Phenomenal points, with citations to back them up, and not a lifted idea one! ALC could take a page or two from your book. {insert funny quip about plagiarism vs. learning from someone’s writing approach} Thanks for making some sense of the confusion soup we’ve been collectively swimming in for too long.
"If I have seen further, it is by climbing atop the shoulders of women much shorter than me" -- 3/4 of my undergrad epistemology class.
WHOOP! 🔥
Kudos for doing the work. I can't be bothered to even try and understand her appeal, let alone the work itself.
I only understood a portion of this essay lol, but really enjoyed what I did understand. I remember Chu saying in her Zadie Smith essay that old school heads assumed that young people rejecting a book with a problematic main character were prioritizing politics over aesthetics. And Chu said in fact they were creating a new Aesthetics. But she never defined it, leaving me to wonder if that new Aesthetics isn’t just… politics. So yeah, let’s call it “a criticism of Good Politics™.” And while I like reading Chu, I agree the foundation of her criticism is just not broad enough to be interesting over the long haul.
Yum. Wonderful pistachios bad, Iranian pistachios good. This had me remembering "Limits of the Bit" https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-limits-of-the-bit/
Was a huge fan of this review when it came out though tbh I think she could've gone even harder in the paint
Stylish, thoughtful writing, Raf. I enjoyed your piece (even though what little I know of Andrea Chu doesn’t make me want to read her. Kind of like how I liked All the Pretty horses even though I’m not interested in horses, or men in the desert with horses- it comes down to the magic of good writing :)) Keep at it, aim high, people who insult and get rageful are all too common while people think hard are too damn rare. Btw I liked Zadie Smith’s On Beauty :)
Thank you for your kind words as always, Katherine <3