/lit/ - Literature

>>19986540
Everything good has already been written.

Mid-tier bait thread

>What makes /lit/ different from the rest of 4chan?

A handful /lit/fags are literate.

>>19986540
Because long-form written fiction died in the 60s.

>>19986540
/mu/ is shit

4chan is a hipster subculture. It's not about date, it's about signaling authenticity.

>>19986540
Most music made prior to the invention of standard notation has not survived history. More music is being recorded now than it ever was. Film has only been around one hundred years and the first fifty years worth is largely unrelatable. Anime is shit. Literature has existed and survived since the invention of writing. Given that the context of the art form involves most of human history, the standard is high.

>>19986540
literature's been going on for thousands of years
the rest haven't
>inb4 music
only been recorded since like the 1870s

>>19986551
/thread

as a zoomer who enjoys modern music Kanye, AG Cook, its because music is still alive and there are genuine artists still in Electronic music, whereas there has basically been no great literature since he 60s. Similarly, idk if theres a board on here for discussing visual art, but if they had taste they would mainly discuss the classics.

Pop Music, Cinema and some japanese vidoe games (for their aesthetic) are the only art thats been good since the 60s and video games mostly suck. And film has been dead since the 90s with no new good directors and only a couple good films made by newcomers

Good question. Looking at culture in general: compared to music, the barrier for entry to classic literature seems lower, classic texts are dedicated plenty of time in school, so they aren't as foreign as classical music, which is supposedly just technical mastery etc. in the eyes of many people.
A part of the reason is also in the presentism of music and especially film industries - you must watch what is new, what is hot (and the old stuff doesn't really get reruns). Literature is a slower medium in many ways, and so it becomes more historically-minded. Even fantasytards can read texts from before the 1950s.
But none of that will explain everything. The key part is IMO that boards have their own lives, they're continuous biosystems with their own evolutions. At an early point in the boards' history, some general tendency was present, that through time blossomed into the present culture. The starting population is decisive. Then, as >>19986584 points out, the signalling is the "evolutionary selection" that the board's memes go through. Apparently enough of the early users had some experience with classic texts to establish them as the measure of value.
But it isn't hegemonic, and it isn't unchanging. In the old "/lit/ top 100" lists you could still find Harry Potter, which is a pariah today. On the other hand, today politics veiled as philosophy is the standard, since /pol/ invasions over the years have shifted the interests. Simultaneously, the genrefags from /sffg/ are leaking more and more, because there's not enough of a critical elitist culture to contain them anymore.
"What if" scenarios are to be considered. YA never would become the norm here because it is geared towards women. Fantasy and sci-fi could have dominated, I'd say it was very likely, and pure chance created the different result.
But a different starting culture existed e.g. on 8ch, whose explosion I followed after Gamergate, and its art boards were utter dogshit. Their /mu/ had more basic taste even than the current one on 4chan.

>>19986547
fpbp

>>19986590
>>19986700
Misunderstanding things so hard is impressive.
>Most music made prior to the invention of standard notation has not survived history.
And? There's still so much music from the renaissance to 1950s that it would make your head explode. The pre-medieval artistic corpus is actually miniscule even in literature, like 95% of the stuff is lost.
>More music is being recorded now than it ever was.
More literature is being written now than it ever was,
>Film has only been around one hundred years and the first fifty years worth is largely unrelatable.
Around 120 years as a distinct art form. There's absolutely nothing that would make early film objectively less "relatable" than literature from millenia ago.
>Anime is shit.
The quality of the topic does not (entirely) determine the discussion of the topic.
>Given that the context of the art form involves most of human history
But that standard can and regularly is ignored, just how /mu/ ignores centuries of music from before the Beatles. Or how a friend of mine said that GRRM is very original, and I pointed out that e.g. War and Peace does similar things better (refined characters, panoramic view of a society), he said it doesn't count - because to him, fantasy writing is outside of general literary history.

>>19986722
>>19986564
More dumb takes. Again, 4chan's basic population is not marked by having good taste, so even if you think good literature is dead since the 60s (which ignores the meme trilogy that used to rule here, but you're probably newfags so whatever), there's no reason to conclude that they would value classic literature this much.
>music is still alive and there are genuine artists still in Electronic music
Your enjoyment of one of the countless fragments of today's music industry really isn't a measure of anything but your own short-sighted analysis.
>And film has been dead since the 90s with no new good directors and only a couple good films made by newcomers
So are you contradicting your point that the current "aliveness" of an art form decides whether the board dedicated to it is focused on the classics or on the contemporary production? Or you just did not have a point in the first place?

>Similarly, idk if theres a board on here for discussing visual art, but if they had taste they would mainly discuss the classics.
This is an excellent example. In fact, yes, there is a board for visual art - /ic/.
It's not about any classics, but about advice on how to draw, mainly porn. A literal "loli and shota" thread in the catalog. Not a single
So much for these dumbfuck theories.

>>19986540
There's more money in the film, music, and anime industries than there is in books. More money means more advertising, and more advertising means that more people know about a new release as soon as it comes out. The biggest reason /lit/ doesn't talk about new books is because nobody knows what new books are even being released. Not that I'm complaining.

>>19986831
What's the difference between /i/ and /ic/?

>>19986866
/i/ has oekaki, as you can notice

>>19986831

>>19986568
always has been the worst board

>>19986584
go back

>>19986984
go back where?

>>19986980
Yes, I know you don't read.

>>19986993
>YOU DON'T READ
I'm not even that anon...just read the first line and realized you were a retarded faggot and needed to be told so.

>>19986831
>Your enjoyment of one of the countless fragments of today's music industry really isn't a measure of anything but your own short-sighted analysis.
The primary form of modern composition is not one of countless fragments, its by far the most actively made. Anyways, the youth of my generation agree with me that modern music is great, while no other artforms get any interest among my age group (20, from the PNW anfd urban).
>meme trilogy
are you gatekeeping DFW? lolll. I get zero enjoyment out of pynchon and DFW practically cannot write by older standards of literature. Joyce is light years better, if you have taste this is obvious. /lit/ has bad enough taste to venerate the postmodernists but literature has declined even further so theres no names to jack off. we still discuss pynchon regurlarly
>So are you contradicting your point
film died more recently, and many directors who started in the 90s were still doing important work later. some of /tv/' most beloved modern kino are Drive, and twin Peaks The return which are both by directors from before the 21str century.
>about advice on how to draw, mainly porn
seems to be a drawing board, rather than a media discussion board like this or /mu/

>>19986540
>this new
because this is not actually a board for people who like reading, it’s just a pace for insecure retards to collect a list of names/titles they can drop to sound smart in case they’re ever confronted by a real life SJW

>>19986540
That's such a cool cat let's all post more cool cats :D

>>19987116
No, its also a place for self-loving retards to seek dialogue and find things to read that will aid in the growth of their intellect. To buy and put on a shelf and take pictures of to impress other retard oh wait I see your point

>>19987116
Actually it’s a way to have normal internet discussions about random bullshit, but with people that at least used to be able to read and enjoy books.
>>19987127
Agreed

>>19986540
He has this “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME” look on his face

It could be how fantasy and sci-fi are stuffed into their own generals. I think most people who read new books are reading something from those genres. Then again, I don't use those generals so I don't know if they talk about newer books in there or not.

As someone who uses most media boards.

/a/, I keep up with new series because there's discussion to be had as new episodes and chapters come out. /tv/ is probably similar. Both of these board cultures revolves around memes that were popularized as things were coming out (Baneposting for example).

/v/ is like the midway point, there's a lot of talk of older games but when something big comes out it captures the board for a while. Look at Elden Ring. Memes keep older games alive and steam sales can bring new players to older titles as well. See Metal Gear Rising Revengeance.

/co/ is two boards mashed together. The comic section exists to complain about modern comics while the cartoon side is like /v/ and has a midway point between old and new cartoons. The comics side of /co/ is similar to /lit/, sharethreads are a common area but they have storytimes while /lit/ doesn't.

I would say the most similar is /mu/.

It's a personality driven board because of how bands work, /lit/ is pretty personality driven as well. Memes about musicians are like the memes about writers. David Foster Wallace could have fit in /mu/ if he was a musician. Sharethreads and recommendation threads have the same feel. It's also very interested in genre, which is something /lit/ talks about often.

>>19987311
As for why /lit/ focuses on classics, I think it deals with genre again. People have a strong interest here in experiencing the best of their preferred genres. People on /v/ for example talk about classic games but they can roadblocked from playing them due to issues with emulation or needing specific mods to get the experience up to modern standards. /mu/ is similar in that it has easy access to its classics via streaming.

>>19986547
this. literature has been solved. there's nothing else of note to add.

>>19986722
>he thinks Kanye is noteworthy
>he hasn’t bothered to read any of the remarkable fiction written in the past 60 years
checks out

>>19987271
Beautiful cat
>>19987310
Yours too

Because
>le modern world sux and I'm such a free thinker that can you believe it but I actually like the safest possible choices like Dostoevsky because I'm so discerning

>>19986831
>/ic/ is about learning to draw anime because I saw two containment threads
The general consensus on /ic/ is that only the old masters were actually good and anything modern is shit

I'd rather have people familiar with the classics than hipsters reading meme authors on meme problems

>>19986540

It's a circle jerk, not the result of some fundamental property of literary forums (source: check any other lit . community on the web). I personally stand for the anarchy that emerges from these communities, a post that could have roped a newfag into reading plato is now a bakker post, a comment inciting towards the greeks is now a cuck-anity post from /his/. Wojacks, Basedjacks, Frogs and Apus, those are the icons who will deliver us.

>>19986540
modern literature is predominantly written, published and read by women, so males who want to read end up gravitating either towards the classics or, if they're too stupid for that, towards text-heavy video games, visual novels and so on.

>>19988073
I hate women.

>>19988075
we know

>>19987310
Poor fish.

>>19987127
based

>>19986548
This is practically a compliment

>>19987127
This cat has rendered the loaves directly next to it inedible

>>19986540
What do you mean? /lit/ the 4chan Literature board barely talks about Literature at all. This is more a board of Philosophy & Friends.

>>19986540
>Why is /lit/ so saturated with the classics?
That's a good thing.
>99% is music later than the 1960s. Similarly, /tv/ only has films from the 70s onwards
This is dogshit.
Why are /mu/ and /tv/ so saturated with crappy pop industry manufactured culture?

>>19986700
What a profoundly retarded post, kill yourself.

>>19986540
>The board /mu/ has only one thread devoted to classical music
That's why /mu/ deserves to be nuke. Long live to /lit/!

>>19986540
The image is funny. It's like the contemporary reiteration of the story of the donkey who starved for indecisiveness, being stuck between two equally distant loads of hay and unable to decide how to apply himself.

Silly cat, pick one! You'll get yourself stuck and starve to death.

The medium of film and television are different from books (and the theatre). While indie movies are a thing, it's harder to make a really good movie on a budget, and while old movies can have a charm of their own, the further back you go, the more obvious the contemporary technical limitations are.

On the other hand, a book or play written literally thousands of years ago is technically no more inferior to one written last week. And because the dross of yesteryear gets filtered by being forgotten, any given book or play still enjoyed today after more than a few hundred years probably is pretty special.

tl;dr anyone with a talent for writing can write a wonderful book or play without much of a budget beyond free time paper and pen

>>19986540
Please leave and never return if you agree with any of the following;

>you read any form of genre fiction
>you think fantasy, science fiction, detective fiction, young adult fiction or horror are literature
>you barely know your classics
>you tend to believe that if you like a given work, it is justified on an artistic level
>you think everyone's opinion should be accepted and respected
>you speak a single language
>you read contemporary versions of Shakespeare or Milton
>you read for the plot
>you read for entertainment
>you rarely read nonfiction
>you don't have a solid grounding in philosophy
>you do not at least have some understanding of the Three Tragedians and Homer
>you have little to no understanding of literature outside of your cultural horizon
>you have little to no understanding of literature within your own cultural horizon (muh african authors)
>you mostly read contemporary literature
>you believe 'the author is dead'
>you make your literary analysis proceed from ideology
>you think intricate prose is 'pretentious' and that the author 'should just get to the point'
>your rarely read poetry
>you think Rhythm and Rhyme are just useless rules and laws restricting creativity
>you have a hard time explaining why you like a given work
>you have a hard time forming structured and relevant literary criticism
>you tend to refuse to judge works for yourself, rather relying on the opinions of literary authorities
>you rarely read for more than one or two hours straight

This is a board about literature. You're not welcome here. Please take your plebeian garbage to /b/ or reddit, where you will find both a demographic and a general atmosphere more consistent with your tastes and your culture.

>>19986540
because lit is just one giant circlejerk

>>19991892
Please leave and never return

>>19991472
Based. /film/ is usually the only worthwhile thread on /tv/.

>>19986540
Because all good modern creatives go to mediums like video games, anime/manga or Tv.

>>19991892
All fiction is genre fiction

>>19986540
It's the high IQ board

>>19992341
>anime/manga
So you are saying that a good part of the good creatives of today go to a single nation?

>>19992405
Manga can include comics if you like and anime can include all animation(may as well), but yeah I don't know what happened after the nuclear bombs but it seems all the interesting ideas started coming from there, whereas the west just started limiting itself more and more creatively.

>>19986547
>>19986564
>>19986812
>>19987426
midwits

>>19992025
>/film/ is usually the only worthwhile thread on /tv/.
no

i don’t mind classicsposting one bit. what i don’t get is the hostility towards other books. i was looking thru the archive today and ten years ago people would write long, measured, informed and interesting posts about contemporary lit without sucking it off or deeming it all shit. something clearly shifted along the way and it sucks. if i screwed my tinfoil hat on a little tighter i’d think the powers that be intentionally fucked this board up beyond repair to keep it from being a force to be reckoned with, like /mu/ was in the early-to-mid 2010s. but it’s probably just /pol/

>>19992890
Do you have an example of such a post from 10 years ago

>>19992898
not atm since i’m on my phone, no

>>19991892
Based

>>19988067

>hello anon? i found someone who understands

>>19987011
> just read the first line and realized you were a retarded faggot and needed to be told so.
Your gif says you didn't read a single line. Looks like you can't even post a reaction image properly without contradicting yourself. Again, retard, you don't read.

>>19992956
Post one when you get the chance

Most men don't read and 4chan is like 99% males

good literature takes longer than good music to establish itself or to be popularized, as it takes much more time to read an average book than to listen to the average album

which, in it turn, also makes amateur music much more easier to be spread around than the works of new authors