The Following is a Paragraph from Shoplifting From American Apparel, a Novella by Tao Lin, selected by Randomly opening the Book:
“ ‘I’m going to use the bathroom,’ said Sam. ‘Do you want to use the bathroom?’ Kaitlyn shook her head no. Sam washed his face and peed and went in his room. Kaitlin was sitting on the mattress staring at the floor. ‘What are you doing?’ said Sam laughing. Kaitlyn grinned and said she was drunk and laid down on the mattress. Sam jumped on the mattress. He sat on the mattress. He lay on the mattress. He took stuffed animals and put them around Kaitlyn. He said his ex-girlfriend Sheila made them.”
The Following is a Paragraph from Richard Yates, a Novel by Tao Lin, selected by Randomly opening the Book:
“At the carnival they made funnel cakes under a tent with Dakota Fanning’s mother and a church pastor. Sometimes one of them left the tent to go get more milk from a full-size refrigerator. Haley Joe Osment tried to make a funnel cake in the formation of a pentagram. Dakota Fanning said they should replace the sugar powder with bacon bits. Haley Joe Osment said they should fry the funnel cakes in bacon oil and then wrap it in bacon and pour nacho cheese on it to create a family-size funnel cake for cheese beast families. They talked about having their own tent next year to sell organic vegan funnel cakes. They made funnel cake for about three hours and then walked to different areas of the carnival, sometimes saying ‘cheese beast’ or ‘party girl’ quietly while facing forward with neutral facial expressions.”
As it stands
(the 3rd Week of 2012)
with his
"Minimalism"
is the "Crown Prince" of "Alt Lit":
the Best Known
and
Most Imitated
Literary Figure
of this
Generation
my
Generation
the Very First
OnLine
Generation
or
as I like to call them:
MillenniGeni.
He’s Twenty Eight Years Old and he’s published Two Books of Poetry, One Book of Short Stories, One Novella and Two Novels.
He’s the RingLeader of a Publishing House called MuuMuu House that is staffed by his Friends, Admires & Acolytes.
He’s made his Personal Brand "Sxe" and "Cool" by cashing in on the
a) "it's Sxe to associated your Self with Young Ladies, the Younger you can get Away with the Better" Factor in the Arts by marrying and then divorcing Film Maker/Performance Artist/Writer Megan Boyle,
adding Teenaged Fashion Writer Bebe Zeva
to his Circle of Influence,
publishing a Controversial Story describing the Seduction of a Known Blogger by Twenty One Year Old, Sxually Xplicit Writer, Marie Calloway,
and by making the Plot of Richard Yates,
his “Autobiographical” Second Novel, revolve around a Relationship between a Twenty Two Year Old Man and a Sixteen Year Old Girl.
b) the "it's Cool to associate your Self with Drugs" Factor in the Arts by naming his Film Company, MDMA Films (which creates Films in a Style he calls “Mumblecore,” and that’s getting Plenty of Press in Plenty of Relevant Places), after a Drug, as Well as by writing a Column for Vice Magazine, Original Hub of Hipsterdom, called Drug Related Photoshop Art.
Despite his Detractors, and there are Plenty, Tao Lin is Obviously, to Date, the Most Significant Writer to arise out of the Generation that grew up OnLine, the Ultimate Hipster Writer, and, with a Third Novel on the Way, Quite Possibly the Person he posits him Self to be for American Letters MilleniGeni:
Because no Matter how Many People call his Literary Style "Gimmicky" or "underWheming," and no Matter how Many People find his OnLine Persona irRitating or Self Aggrandizing, Tao Lin has achieved a Big Thing: he has created, around him Self, a New Literary Movement: Alt Lit.
Critics bash his Reductive Style now, yes, but Tao Lin knows All Meaningful Literary Movements were mocked and derided in their inCeptions, and so he soldiers on, as Well America's Leading Young Writer should.
Yep. Tao Lin must be feeling Pretty Good Right now.
There Must be Times, though, Times when Tao's Alone, Perhaps, surfing the Web, Perhaps, looking for New Blogs, Perhaps, Some Thing niggles at him.
Okay, a Lot niggles at Tao Lin. But Some Thing to do with his Career, Some inEvitable Event, Some Thing, no, Some One, he's know he's going to have to face for Years:
THE GREAT(ER) WRITER
THE GREAT(ER) ARTIST
THE GREAT(ER) ICON
Tao Lin has alReady met his
Literary / Artistic / Iconic
Trump
was Twenty Years Old
and living in Brooklyn
and Tao Lin, Twenty Five, was living there too
as he still is
Tao Lin was then the Some Body of the InterNet Writers, yes
but not a Film Maker yet, no
just a Young Writer out of NYU with a Couple a Books in Print
with More than the Usual Amount of Buzz around his Name
Suspected of being Carles
the Author of Hipster Runoff
that Voice of USAlt
Teenaged
subUrban
Millennial
Nostalgia
and Fan Boy / Girl dom
he had caused a Kerfuffle in the Literary Establishment
by selling Shares for the Royalties of Shoplifting From American Apparel, his First Novella, OnLine
before it was Even written
With this Act of Originality
Tao Lin cemented his Identity
post readerofdepressingbooks.com
the Blog that launched his Career
as Part Writer
Part Personal Promotion Performance Artist
how Very MillenniGeni
He was riding that Edge
Uniquely his, Uniquely Hamster
between Terribly Smart and
Terribly Irritating
for Xample
he was Still Openly Obsessed with his MySpace “Friends” Count
the Poor Guy
and in this OCD
Quest for Greater OnLine Readership
Tao Lin sent me
ANDREA COATES
Andrea Coates' MySpace Profile Picture, 2008, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY, USA
TRULY
THE FIRST GREAT
WRITER / ARTIST / ICON
OF
THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION
a Message that Read
“Nice Tattoos.”
Well, thanks, Tao
Was it Really about the Tattoos?
Or was it Only about the Tattoos?
I mean, my Writing wasn't Great yet
I was Twenty Years Old
I was Twenty Years Old and living in Brooklyn
I was a Twenty Year Old Lady from Northwest no where of BC, Canada, living in Fucking Brooklyn, NY
a White Fucking Savage
the Way I danced
Camp Fire danced
letting All my Feelings come out my Body
while they shuffled around in their
Skinny Jeans
in their
“Semi Legal Club”
trying so Hard
to get their Fingers
on the Pulse
of Happening
it wound up
their Asses
No....
the Opposite of that
because if they’d Really had Fingers up their Asses
they'd've been dancing around like I was then
what Total Dullards they were
OMG
a Real Disappointment
to a Girl from the Stix
Any Way
besides dancing
I was having Sx with Questionable Men
and trying not to become a Hooker
I started
Andrea Coates’ Writing JUNK
and the MySpace Account (since Defunct)
and posted Poems
about being in Love
with a Philosopher
and how Much I hated
Refelxive Sxism
(I Fucking hate it)
I was an Adolescent Cougar
my Paws and my Ears were too Big
but I’d seen Tao’s Ads on Hipster RunOff
I thought his Ads about being the Last Great American Poet were Xactly
the Kind of Thing I would've made if I was Twenty Five
and had Friends
who were Writers whose Blogs I could post Ads on
back then I was Totally unKnown
I Totally sucked
but still I
believed I’d be the Person
I know I am in
no Time Flat
Back then I thought I'd be
Megan Boyle
or
Bebe Zeva
or
Marie Calloway
in
no Time Flat
Thought I’d be
sucking
Tao Lin’s Cock
Awe, how Precious
in
no Time Flat
But of Course I didn’t
that’s a Positively Apocalyptic Thing to say
it suggests Tao Lin is going to destroy Literature where it stands
make it Totally Conformist, or Some Thing, we'll see
But of Course I couldn't have been
recognized
Right off the Bat
Of Course I’m not
Megan Boyle
or
Bubu Zeve
or
Marie Calloway
Of Course I couldn't've
sucked
Tao Lin’s Cock
Awe, how Precious
I have Sixteen Times More Personality than All Four them Bitches hanging together on MDMA, Mother Fucker
But I was Twenty Years Old and my Mind wasn’t workin' Good yet
Grass Still made me Sleepy, or maybe that was just that…Bushwick Shwag…
cause after the Message
“Nice Tattoos”
I Seriously thought I'd be enveloped in the Tide of Tao Lin and his InterNet Fame in
no Time Flat
Thought I’d be gettin'
the Recognition
I know
I am Due
Right then
and
Right now:
Tao's
in no Time Flat
but thas Okay
iz Mine now
The Following is an Article arguing that Tao Lin, Currently the Most Significant Writer of the OnLine Generation, has Merely been a Place Holder for a Far More Talented, Far More Compelling, Millennial Literary Icon:
I am
and
I am
the Smartest
the Funniest
the Meanest
the Sxiest
the Deepest
the Darkest
the Most Intense
the Most Creative
the Most Unique
the Most Magickal
the Most Controversial
the Most Entertaining
and
the Most Powerful
Writer of the OnLine Generation
so this is why you should
THROW
THE
TAO
LIN
I wish that I could say that Tao Lin's Literary Out Put is a One Trick Hamster and be done with it, cause it is: the Best Thing I could say about Tao Lin's Writing is that his Prose is Very Consistent- All the Effort he puts into writing his Books must be into making his Prose so Consistent, Otherwise, Interesting Things would happen in those Books, ba dah ba ching.
In my Opinion,
Tao Lin's Books are
BORING
MEDIOCRE
SHALLOW
FORGETTABLE
Bound Pages
of
FAD
but that
Description
(my Subjective Opinion)
fails to take into
Account
Tao Lin
“OnLine Phenomenon”
Tao Lin
“Literary Voice of the Millennial Generation”
and those Monikers
(Many Times
More so
than his Books their Selves
which I find Bland and underAccomplished)
are what is so
Compelling
to me
about
Tao Lin
I gotta ask my Self, how did Some One who writes Books that are what I, with my (Self) Education in Classical Literature and Philosophy, would consider "Middle Brow" get to be the Most Famous Literary Writer of his Generation?
And what does that say about this Generation?
The Word “Literary” is Key this Analysis.
Saying that a Book is “Literary” denotes it has Poetry of Prose, Timelessness of Plot and Realism of Character.
It has Long been a Fact that Writers without Much Literary Talent, i.e.: Writers who write Books of Little Poetry of Prose, Little Timelessness of Plot and Little Realism of Character, become the Most Famous Writers of the Moment
—think Stephanie Meyer of the Twilight Series—
but it is also understood (by Frustrated Literary Writers) that these Writers are not “Literary” Writers at All, their Books are not “Literary” Books, but of an Other Breed inDeed:
“Commerical” Books, by “Commercial” Writers.
All together, a Book’s “Literary”nss can be said to be Correspondent to its "ProFunDity" of inSight into the World we live in. For this Reason, Conventional Literary Wisdom says you cannot write a "Clueless" Literary Book. Stephanie Meyer's Twilight is not Literary because it's Protagonist is Clueless. It is Difficult, as an Intelligent Reader, to become attached to a Clueless Protagonist: we read for inSight.
Obviously, Books can be More or Less Literary vs. More or Less Commercial.
The Easiest way to tell how “Literary” a Book is compared to how "Commercial" a Book is is to compare Prose to Plot:
Commercial Writers write for the Masses in a Prose that does away with the Verbal Variety and Poetry for which the Literary Writer is Best Known. In Commercial Novels, the Xcitement of the Plot compensates Both for Utilitarian Prose and the Work's Consequential Lack of ProFunDity.
Which is to say, if the Way the Words are put together in the Sentences is the Most Interesting Thing about the Book, it is a "Literary" Book. If the Action in the Plot is the Most Interesting Thing about the Book, it is a "Commercial" Book.
As Bret Easton Ellis said about Raymond Carver in Vice’s Issue 17:5, “The plots don’t really matter. The solutions to mysteries don’t matter. Sometimes they’re not solved at all. It’s just the mood that’s so enthralling.”
This tells us that Raymond Carver is a Literary Writer despite Ample Commercial Attention, like Ellis him Self.
Tao Lin, with his Distinctive, Consistent and Much Imitated Minimalist Prose Style, but Nearly Plotless Books, falls Comfortably into the Territory of Literature: in a Tao Lin Book, the Style the Prose is written in is More Notable than what is going on in the Plot, which is Usually: not Much: chatting on GMail, going for a walk, eating Food.
I would say, that Tao Lin's Work is “Commercial Literature”: Literature that is More Commercial than Literary in the End, but still Qualifies as Literature as opposed to Commercial Fiction: it is Abstract.
The Critics of Literary Writers, like my Self, are, above All Else, when judging how Good, or "Literary," a Literary Book is, judging the ProFunDity of that Literary Book: how Deep does its inSight go?
ProFunDity is xpressed in the Poetry of the Prose, the Timelessness of the Plot and the Realism of the Characters, with Much of the Weight of the Question, “is it a Good Literary Book?” falling onto “is the Prose Poetic?” and “are the Characters Realistic?” We are asking, in judging the ProFunDity of a Literary Book: how Well does this Book capture the Complxity of being Alive? Often, our Lives don’t have Plots, just Catharses. In this Sense, Plots are alMost Even frowned upon by Literary Writers, Especially Minimalists, who Often prefer to keep the Plot to a “Series of Mundanes,” the Better to show off the Poetry of their Prose and the Realism of their Characterizations. Tao Lin is here included: his Prose is More Poetic and his Characters are More Realistic than his Plots are they Eventful.
The Strange Thing about Tao Lin though, and what infuriates the Literary Establishment about him, is that while he has created a Brand of Literature that meets the Standards of Literature (the Prose is Poetic and the Characters are Realistic), but a Very Few Poetic Tricks are repeated to the Point of Absurdity throughout Otherwise Banal Prose describing Characters that are Totally Realistic in their being Mundane, yes, but, in their being Mundane, Actively devoid of ProFunDity. Tao Lin’s Characters' Lack of ProFunDity, we are lead to believe, via his Success as a Writer, says Some Thing ProFound about the Generation he chronicles: he has been crowned King Literary Writer of the Millennials by the Millennials because he, in his Affected Shallowness, a post Modern, post Xistential, sub/Urban Consumer Nihilism (Hipsterdom), represents them in their OutLook.
There is an Other Way of looking at this: Tao Lin, in his Desire to become the Leading Young Writer of his Generation, displayed in his Self Aggrandizing Personal Promotion, has decided to universalize, in Literature, the "Millennial" Xperience. He has done this by paring down his Literature and his Generation to what he considers to be the Most Essential Elements. In Terms of Literature, this means he provides a Protagonist who goes on a Journey. In Terms of the Generation this means he makes Mention of the InterNet and sub / Urban Navigation. Tao Lin has done to Literature what "Modern" Art did to Art: reduced it to Shape and Shade.
In this Regard, Tao Lin has become a Some Thing of a Literary Pop Star among the Millennials, but the Similarities between Tao Lin and an Alt Pop Phenomenon like Lana Del Rey go Deeper than that still, for Tao Lin has not just reduced his Art down to Austere Elements (a Very Asian Approach to Aesthetics, as Well as a Very Modern One).
CrimeThink, in their Life Changing Book, Work, say about Pop Stars that they “embody our creativity- the creative potential of all the exploited- purchased from us, concentrated and sold back.”
Tao Lin is not commodifying Books here
Book have alWays been Commodities
TAO LIN IS COMMODIFYING LITERATURE
He is commodifying Prose
He is commodifying Character
He is commodifying Plot
A Line of Tao Lin's Prose is repeated, in it's Elements, over and over Again in a Book (see the Quotes at the Top of this Article)
A Plot by Tao Lin features the Same Eight Subjects repeated over and over Again: Boy / Girl / Gmail Chat / NYC / Walk / Food / (Consumer) Item / Sadness
A Story by Tao Lin alWays features the Same Protagonist, Tao Lin him Self, surrounded by an inDifferentiable Rotation of Friends and Girl Friends
Every Book by Tao Lin is a Hamster Cage
Every Syllable in Every Word
is a Little Squeek
a Little Eeeeee Eeeee Eee
as the Hamster
runs on the Wheel
The Hamster (the Soul of the Book)
running in its Wheel
in its Cage
is bred for Cheap
and will be sold for Profit
to Children plied with OnLine Advertisements
"Buy me"
Millennial Hipsterism, and thereby, Alt Lit, the Hipster Literary Movement, is Remarkable for being the First Youth CounterCulture absorbed into Consumerism before it Even began.
In Other Words, Hispterism is CounterCulture as marketed to you by the Powers that be and you buying it and thinking it’s Cool / iRonic.
Megan Boyle, Writer / Artist
So, Tao Lin represents the Literary Style of a Generation taken from them, concentrated (turned into a Commodity), and sold back to them as their Literary Style via Advertisement: Tao Lin's Writing is the American Millennial Literary Style commodified and marketed as the American Millennial Literary Style to the Point it forgets that Literature qua Literature is found in the Deep Personal Search for Truth, rendering it a Depthless Repetition of Literary Elements, just like a Pop Song is a Depthless Repetition of Musical Elements.
Both a Pop Song and a Book by Tao Lin seem directed More to hitting the Nerves that make us produce / consume Products on the Market than the Nerves that allow us to understand the Emotional underCurrent of our Lives; because that's the Aim of Commodification: to make you produce / consume Products: if you understand the Emotional underCurrent of your Life, Well, you're Less Likely to think producing / consuming Products is what's Really Important in it.
Under this Light, Tao Lin’s Characters’ “Depression” seems Less like “Depression” its Self and More like an Effort to capitalize on the Commonality of Depression in Books / Readers: an Other Attempt to market him Self as the Leading Young Literary Writer of the Day; Such a Character would have to suffer Depression. Which is to say, Tao Lin’s Books seem More like Ads for Tao Lin than Books. Tao Lin's "Generational Classics"
Mock-up created by Skeleton-Jelly
are composed of the Elements of what True Generational Classics are made of (Depression, Walks, Romantic Relationships, Conversations, the Era), but without Any of the True and Honest Soul, which is One of the Reasons so Many People copy his Style: they think they can make Equally Relevant Books out of the Empty Prose / Plot / Characters he has provided for them: Tao Lin is Writing by Numbers.
Yet while the InterNet is Full of Reviews calling Tao Lin's Literary Work a Fraud, their Dismay Over the Quality of his Books their Selves has yet to depose Tao Lin of his Position as the Most Famous Literary Writer of his Generation because Tao Lin as a Phenomenon was Never about the Literature at All: it was alWays about the Commodification of Literature, as a Kind of Xperiment, because the Commodification of Literature qua Literature, the Commodification of Prose and Plot and Character, is the Commodification of Consciousness its Self, the Soul its Self.
Which is not to say that Tao Lin is Part of a Conspiracy. Rather, that the Way Capitalism as an Ideology works (see the Industrial Revolution) is it takes People's Authentic (Self Directed) Work away from them, makes them work for Capitalism inStead, and then, with the Money they make working for Capitalism, makes them buy back what was Once their Own to create and consume. The More Things it can commodify- steal from People, concentrate (for cheap) into a Commodity, and sell back to People (for profit)- the More Money it makes, the More Power it gets, the More Places it goes looking for New Things to commodify- steal from People, concentrate for Cheap, and sell back to People for Profit.
With the Books of Tao Lin, the Senseless, Voracious Commodification Process of Capitalism has made it to Literary Consciousness, which is Consciousness its Self, the Soul its Self, and made that into a Product for Consumption.
Tao Lin's Literary Style, his Literary Consciousness, his Own Consciousness, his Very Soul, is reproduced by his Followers, because that's the Way Commodification works: with his Influence on Literature, Tao Lin is franchising. No One who copies his Style of Writing will Ever be as Big as him, though, for Capitalist Industry is a Pyramid Scheme, Always with Some One on Top, making the Most Money / having the Most Infulence. Any One who writes like Tao Lin, Other than Tao Lin him Self, is not going to achieve his Success: Worse! Tao Lin is alReady a Mediocre Writer, like Subway is Mediocre Food. His Followers are Rubes: he is fleecing them: All the Effort they put in to writing like him Only reinforces him, like All the Food we eat at Subway does our Culture and our Bodies Little Good, but lines the Accounts of Xecutives with Money.
Tao Lin constructs his Prose out of noThing but Surface Observations: Words said, Food eaten, Things done. Perhaps the Most Noticeable Thing about Tao Lin's Literature is the Lack of Emotion xpressed by the Characters. Tao Lin’s Characters are Patrick Bateman with Less Money and Less Rage: they are Patrick Bateman as Broke, Listless Vegan: their Self Awareness is Totally outWard: they are Constantly thinking about how they appear, Pointedly obscuring what is going on in Side. The Millennial Hipsters are meant to see their Selves in these Characters. The Truth is that Tao Lin’s Characters lack Depth because their Identities are not inHabited: Rather, they are intended as Products for Sale on the Market, meant to be worn by Some One Else, like a TShirt from an American Apparel.
"Be a Hipster," say Tao Lin’s Books. "Here’s how to write/be." Just like an American Apparel says, “Be a Hipster. Here’s how to dress/be.”
There are Many Similarities between Tao Lin and American Apparel, I find:
- Both are Popular with American Consumers between the Ages of Eighteen and Thirty Five
- Both have Connections to the Movers and Shakers of Modern "Cool"
- Both have a Sxuality Focused on Slim, Caucasian, Brunette, Quirky & Artistic Ladies who are None the Less made Secondary Citizens the Way they are Consistently presented as the Faddish Objects de Fascination of the More Successful Men who created their Scenes
- Both claim to have a Social Consciousnesses (Tao Lin’s Veganism / AA’s Fair Trade) but Both bury it so Deeply under Capitalist Consumerism and Cult of Personality, I don't believe it's More than a Copout: "I'm not a Jerk, I eat Only Plants." "I'm not a Jerk, I pay my Mexican Employees Slightly More."
- Both use the InterNet as a Primary Media for Advertisement
-Both use Guerrilla Advertizing Tactics
- Both are Notable for their Ads More so than for their Products
- Both are post 9/11 iRonic. Which is to say, feeling Useless and degrading Every Thing around them with Snide Jokes as a Coping Mechanism
- Both are Well Traveled on Lorimer St
- Both are criticized for their Phoniness
- Both used Questionable Investment Strategies to get where they are Today
- Both over saturate the Market with their Products
Every Time I read Some Thing by Tao Lin / step into an American Apparel (Curiosity summons me, I suppose), my First Thought is “I wish I was as Popular / Recognized as this / these People,” and my Second Thought is, “Wait a Minute, if I surrounded my Self with as Many Cliquey, Shallow, Sell Out People I wouldn't be a Great Writer, I would be a Hipster. Thank God I missed that Failure Bullet.”
And out I go.
With Hipsters it is alWays about following the Surface Trends. It is alWays about Xternal Indicators, because, in Side, like a Tao Lin Character, they are All the Same: Empty. They are taught to be Empty by their Culture (American Capitalism), to xist as Consumers of Xternal Things (Clothes, Books, Identities): they define their Selves by what they consume, and so the Consumption Never Ends: they are feeding a Hole where their Authentic Personalities should be: this is why they are obsessed with "Authenticity" in the Products they consume: because they lack it in their Selves.
Tao Lin’s Characters wander around, yet No Thing happens to them, not Really. No Thing is completed. No Thing is learned. No Thing is achieved but a New, Thin Book, like a Short, semi Satisfying Masturbation you can then sell for Money OnLine to buy More Things with / get Some Other Hipster to recognize you as being Hip for having done.
In Tao Lin’s Books, Other People are Things you talk to on Gmail Chat / text / Occasionally see. Spending Time with Other People consists of saying Meaningless Things that are Vaguely Funny and feeling Vaguely unComfortable / Vaguely turned on but not Really knowing what to do about it xcept what People are believed do with their Time on Earth (under sub / Urban Capitalism): walk around, eat Food, make Small Talk. On this Account, the Characters are inDistinguishable from One an Other but for their Names and Genders. alMost Every Girl Friend in a Tao Lin Book could Easily have been Dakota Fanning Once. AlMost Every Guy Friend in a Tao Lin Book is a Member of the Alt Lit Movement.
Tao Lin's Books represent but a Meager Degree of what being Alive Today is like. But because People under Consumer Capitalism are so Alike, they think he's got Life in the Millennial Generation nailed.
Tao Lin’s Real Talent, then, is not his Writing Style—which is Only Original in being so like a Mass Produced Consumer Product, a New Trick for Literature, if not for the Rest of the Arts (Tao Lin is a Sxually Repressed Andy Warhol)—it is his Marketing of that Writing.
If he were Any Less Good at it, he would have to work in Advertising.
Lin has managed to convince us, Eager for a Literary Voice for the New Millennium, that he is that Voice based not on what used to elevate a Literary Author to the Position- the ProFunDity of their Literary Work- but via the Very Same Technique Capitalism has used to sell Mass Produced Consumer Products for Decades: market a Product as if it is Great, and People will buy it, no Matter how Xtraneous it Really is.
Tao Lin is Self Aware, to a Degree. He knows he is being Xtraneous, and so he makes fun of it by drawing our Attention to it. Tao Lin's Books glorify their Own Meaninglessness. But so they establish and reinforce the Meaninglessness of Millennial Hipsterism as a Whole.
Tao Lin is a watered down for the Median Consumer Version of Classical Literature. In his Books, he makes it Obvious he has the Elements of Classical Literature figured out (Angst, interActions, Movements from Place to Place, Era), but he has no More than that: that is why his Books are so Short.
Still, how Ever, he has a Million Hipsters, subjectable to Advertising like no Generation before them, yearning for a Generational Literary Hero, identifying their Own Mundane, Repetitive, Alienated, Vaguely Depressed, Consumer Mediated Life Styles in his Books and trying to write just like him on Account of that / their Conformist Consumer Conditioning.
What Tao Lin's Books, with his Prose using Infatuation with Surface as a Technique for Emotional Nullification (like Patrick Bateman does as a Character), is what Literature needs to be Classic: he does not have the ProFound Search for Meaning that is the Kor of the Great Literary Work: inStead he has an Affected Claim to Meaninglessness.
The First Significant Literary Writer to emerge from MillenniGeni, on the InterNet, has sold out before he was Even made. A Generation appears Lost to the Borg
Thankfully for True Artists, how Ever, marketing your Self as the Great Writer of your Generation Only goes so Far: I should know. Despite his Popularity, despite creating a “New Prose Style” based in Commodifcation + Meme Theory (create a Relevant Product Such as a Self Consciously Shallow Prose Style and reProcuce it as it is as Many Times as Possible) Tao Lin is rejected by the Literary Establishment because his Books, with their Conscious Lack of Meaning, are Only Half as Interesting as the Hype he’s created around them via the Same Technique: Commodification + Meme Theory (create a Relevant Product Such as a Young, InterNet-Based Writer and reproduce it as it is as Many Times as Possible), which works Better in Sales, which thrive on Consistency, than it does in Literary Writing, which thrives on Variety, no Doubt.
What is Tao Lin's Theme?
Universal throughout Tao Lin’s Books is a Sense of Despondency that is subdued by a Practiced Emotional Neutrality. Tao Lin’s Minimalist Prose elicits Little Emotion Even as Good / Bad Things happen (therefore, it is Hard to say that Any Thing at All happens in a Tao Lin Book). Amid the Stuff of their Days (Boy / Girl / Gmail Chat / NYC / Walk / Food / (Consumer) Item / Sadness), Characters are Notable Only for their Lack of a Reaction. Characters Emotions are Rarely xplored from the in Side (Even their "Depression" is not so Much described as inferred via Gmail Conversations about Suicide, which might Also be taken as Sarcastic). InStead: a Tao Lin Staple: describing the Possible Emotion a Character is feeling by writing, “he / she made a happy / sad / upset / neutral facial expression,” a Technique which emphasizes the Fact we don't Really know what they are feeling: Possibly no Thing. Any Emotions that are described from the in Side are Mild, Mere Twinges, like a Sneeze: “he felt happy / sad.” Then it passes. It passes over Small Things, like a Girl Friend saying Some Thing Funny, and it passes over Big Things, like a Girl Friend telling you she cuts her Self. By Tao Lin's Protagonists, these Events are xperienced as alMost of the Same Magnitude on the Emotional Barometer. The Characters' True Emotions Subtly manifest, how Ever, just like Tao Lin's Theme manifests despite his Apparent Ignorance of it: Haley Joel Osment becomes "More Controlling" the More Dakota Fanning Self harms. But that is All Tao Lin will let on to. Now the Book Ends. We Never know how Things work out. Do they break up? Do they stay together? Does it Even Matter? The "Barely there" Progression of Tao Lin's Plots would seem to confirm the Hypothesis that Things stay just the Same, like a Dull Drone, like White Noise, like Hamsters running on Wheels to Eternity.
An Effect of this Contrived Emotional Numbness is an inAbility to Connect with People. Tao Lin’s Protagonists are Consistently Isolated, aLone & Lonely (a Condition of Life under Capitalism, which would see All interActions mediated by the Market- Gmail Chat, FaceBook, Txting, etc). Then, when they do spend Time with Other People, inStead of feeling the Other Person out based in Unique and Internal Personality Traits, they note Clothing worn, Facial Xpressions made, Words said, Food eaten, as if these Surface Facts, in Aggregate, would amount to the Same Thing.
An Obsession with Food—the Type of Food One Eats, Scenes featuring Eating, Conversations centering around Food—are also Universal to Tao Lin’s Books.
"Central" to the Plot of Richard Yates is that Dakota Fanning is a Bulimic and that her Mother has Poor Eating Habits—she is a “cheese beast.”
Veganism is Repeatedly mentioned in All of Tao Lin’s Books, as if this, despite Little Else, were the Evidence of an Innate Morality to his Characters.
Tao Lin’s Characters are Sad Characters whose Xtreme Self Consciousness cancels Sadness out, creating Ennui. Their Shallow Evaluations of their Selves and of One an Other mimic the Shallowness of the Culture they live in: Consumer Culture. Their Relationship with Food, the Most Fundamental Form of Consumption, is, therein, their One True Comfort, the One Way they Xpress a Morality and the Main Way they (the Lady Characters Especially) Outwardly display their Internal Emotional Issues.
And yet, as we know, in Tao Lin's Books, no Thing changes. No Thing gets Better. The Static Prose remains. The Static Characters remain. The Static Plots remain. It is Pure Monotony from Start to finish and this is meant to be Funny, or Witty, or Poignant, Mostly because the Characters Some Times say Funny, or Witty, or Poignant Things.
Tao Lin’s Literature is just like a Hamster in a Cage running on a Wheel. Now the Cage is the Modern American Consumer Identity. Seeing as he cannot escape the Cage, seeing as the Banality of the Cage, Virtually Identical to Every Cage around it, desensitizes the Hamster (Tao Lin's Soul) to his Emotional Self, he can Only reproduce its Qualities by running, Endlessly, without getting Any where, observing, Pointlessly, but Continuously, the Things he sees from his Cage: not Much: More of the Same.
Isolated in his Consumer Identity (to the Advantage of the Owner of the Means of Production), Tao Lin's Hamster Soul has no Idea how to be with his Fellow Hamsters. Richard Yates opens with an Anecdote about a Hamster eating its Own Babies: this is what Animals do in Captivity: they appear without Empathy, but they are Really sparing the Nxt Generation their Misery. Haley Joel then says he wanted to give the Hamster a High Five. He is displaying his Own Deep Inner Wounds: if he had known he would be born into Captivity, he would have preferred not to have been born at All. Poor Dakota Fanning should have recognized the Warning for what it was, but she does not, and so, because the Cage fails to provide her with Authentic Xperience, and Haley fails to relate to her because he has been so numbed by the Same Oppression, Dakota pukes up her Food, her Body's unConscious Protest against the Cage, like stealing from AA was Sam's.
Yet what is the Reaction of Haley Joel Osment to Eventual Knowledge of Dakota Fanning’s Bulimia? He becomes More Controlling, More Possessive, just like the Power Structure does when People begin to rebel. Haley Joel Osment is a Man in Emotional Denial, a Passive Aggressive Misogynist who dates a Sixteen Year Old, I think, because no Grown Lady would put up with him. Emotional Repression and Denial is his Technique for Dealing with his Feelings of Anger at being Captive, and so he pressures his Girl Friend to do the Same. And because he has repressed so Much, he has no Idea why him and his Teen Aged Girl Friend are so Miserable and Stuck, though they talk about it Frequently. Perhaps, if Viewed from an Xistential Perspective, it is Even Funny, their Misery and imMobility? The Source of a Witty Book, Perhaps? Tao Lin is absorbing, into him Self, the Perspective of those who keep the Cages, thereby justifying his Own enSlavement.
Interestingly Enough, unLike Most Writers, I don't think Tao Lin writes to release his Emotions, but to continue to repress them through an Affected Neutral Minimal Prose Style. His Obsession with making him Self Present on the InterNet is endemic of a Man suffering from a Lack of Proper Grounding: All Tao Lin's Energy is being pushed to his Upper Chakras and out his Head into the World, rather than recycling through the Body to Energize it: Tao Lin has cut him Self off from his Instincts, the Lower Chakra's: hence, the Emotional Numbness, the Tepid Sxuality, and the Over Reliance on Xternal (OnLine) Indicators as a Measure of Success. For this Reason, Tao Lin is at a Risk of Writer's Block: he has blocked him Self off from him Self, and until he unblocks the Energy in his his Lower Half, he will not be able to flourish Creatively. I hope to help him achieve this Aim by telling him the Truth about his Issues.
Because this is the Truth, it may, at First, appear a Little Harsh. Stay Strong Tao Lin.
Dear Tao Lin,
you have internalized the Attitudes of those who keep the Consumer Cages we live in Today: you have internalized the Ideology of Capitalism. Despite it's Manifestation in your Literature, you behave, in your OnLine Persona, as if you are unAware that the Message of your Work is that our Consumer Identities are destroying us by keeping us Captive within them, unable to live our Lives as we ought to: Freely, Emotionally, from Instinct and Intuition.
Consumer Identities trap us within them, use us to perpetuate them, and then destroy us when we have given All to Some Thing that can give no Thing back besides Consumer Products: Capitalism raises us in a Cage of Consumerism wherein Every Action must be mediated by the Market: in the City, Capitalism feeds off us at Every Turn: it co-opts our ProFunDity as Beings by making us its Slaves and convinces us, via School, Advertisement and the Media, to reproduce its Memes of Production and Consumption in our Identities in Order to perpetuate it, and so Tao, you do: Every Thing about you screams: Brand. The Truth is, it is you who has been branded, by Capitalism, and so now you are its Slave.
Capitalism takes our Creative Identities away from us in the Conformist Pressure Cooker of School and then sells them back to us as Adults with Jobs in the Capitalist Sphere as Consumer Products it convinces us, via Advertisement and the Media, are Necessary to our Well Being and Sense of Self: just like Tao Lin, you convince us, via Advertisement and the Media, your Books are Necessary to our Collective Literary Consciousness, to our Sense of Self in the Millennial, OnLine Generation, when in Fact there is alMost no Self in your Books: just the Xternal Indicators of One.
Suicidal Thoughts, Common to your Characters, are a Suitable Response to feeling as if you are a Slave, that your Life is not under your Own to Control, but Some One Else's and to Some One Else's Advantage. At Least your Death could be your Own. But, should Suicide be rejected as an Option, and it is More Often that not, the Nxt, Easiest, Option is Conformity to the Power Structure, that Obedience might bring Favors, and the System suggests it will, to its Own Advantage, of Course: just like writing like you, Tao Lin, guarantees One a Place in Alt Lit, if Never, for being Derivative, your Success. You have chosen, Even in Face of your Depression, to conform to that which is eating away at you for what Ever Meager Advantages it may offer, just like a Hamster in a Cage who still needs the Cage Owner to feed it and therefore dare not escape its Captivity, but rather keeps running, Endlessly, Pointlessly, in its Wheel, trying to Convince its Self its imPrisonment is Worth the Good Things it brings: like Food, or Literary Fame.
Tao Lin has given his Literature to Capitalism that Capitalism might provide him with Food and Literary Fame.
If you sell out you will be Rich, said the Fortune Teller to Sam in SLFAA.
Well, my Fortune Teller, and that happens to be me, said, RESIST PATRIARCHAL COLONIALIST CONSUMER CAPITALISM and you will ascended to the Highest Heights the Cultural Arenas of Literature and Philosophy in your Life Time and Beyond.
And from the Looks of Things up here, Tao, from the Behaviors of you OnLine and the Characters in you Books, you are not helping to alleviate the Heinous Tragedy for Unique and Authentic Sapiens Self Xpression (Art) that is Commodified Capitalist Consumption. You are watching what is happening, you are recording what is happening, you are getting a Little Bit Upset about it, but in the End you are doing no Thing besides swallow down your Misery, pressure your Girl Friend to do the Same, and keep on conforming (sending out signed Copies of Will Farrel's Elf to Readers, putting AA's name on your Book, stickering BRITNEY SPEARS to the Door of a Lit Mag), and in that, you are perpetuating the Disease.
The Way People live Today, Tao Lin, in a Cage of Consumerism, is the Theme of your Writing, is the Biggest Problem with your Writing, and it is why you and MuuMuu House have Such Flat, Similar Styles. You compare your Selves to the Beats, but you are noThing like the Original Beats: Each was a Wild and Different and unConventional Writer: Every One from MuuMuu House sounds like you, and you don't sound like Much. InStead of changing this, how Ever, you have kept on going with it, commodifying your Own Literature and the Literature of your Friends for the Sake of Capitalist Comfort, believing that this indulgence of the Power Structure is "iRonic" considering your Positions as Literary Writers and, thereby, "Funny." It is Neither. It is what the Power Structure wants from you and it does no One but those at the Very Top of that Power Structure Any Real Good: not Even them, if Bret Easton Ellis' Work is Any Indication.
The Best Parallel between Real Art, like the Work of the Beats, and Commercial Art, like yours, (Alt Lit is inDeed an iRonic Choice of Name: in your Case, it should have been Lit Inc), is between Real Sugar and reFined Sugar: One is the Stuff by which we have Survived, Hand to Mouth, for Millions of Years. The Other is a New, More Addictive but Less Healthy Industry made Product pumped Every where in the Market, causing, in its Refined Monotonousness, Mass Obesity and Mass Diabetes.
Eat up, Tao.
Wait! You think Veganism makes you Different? Makes you Better? It might mean you have a Healthier Body, Sure, but it is Still just an Other Commodified, Consumer Choice in a Long, Super Market Line of Commodified Consumer Choices. It is still buying the Disease, Tao. It’s just a “Hipper,” "Healthier" Way of doing it. It Only proves you're a Slightly Smarter and therefore Slightly Better kept Slave than Some of the Other Ones: it Only proves you are a Member of the Middle Class.
Tao Lin, your refusal to denounce Capitalist Consumerism, Truly the Greatest Evil of our Day, and the Cause of your Depression, the Very Fact that you are not Even Aware that this is the Source of your Sorrows, or you wont admit it, Even as it writes its Self into your Books, your reproducing, inStead, its Memes- the Memes of Capitalist Commodification and Consumerism- and thereby your "pre Packaged" Way of Writing, suggests that you are is Naught but an Other Docile Slave to the Order of Money, like Hollywood, which is to say:
Tao Lin
you are
not
and
COULD NEVER BE
UNDER THESE CONDITIONS
a
GREAT
WRITER / ARTIST / ICON
For what makes a Great Writer / Artist / Icon Great, Tao
is the Fight
for FreeDom
FreeDom Even from the Oppression of their Own Language
Your Prose never breaks Free of its Self, Tao Lin
It is Flawless, but it is All the Same
Calculated, xecuted, Identical
Like a Row of Cages
on a Row of Cages
A More Conformist Work of "Literature" than yours has Probably Never xisted, Tao Lin, and for this Reason, you are Special: your Records of Life in the Cage have shown us just how Far Capitalist Commodification has gone: it has gone for the Very Soul of the Literary Book, which is the Very Soul of the Literary Writer, and commodified that.
In this, Tao Lin, you epitomize MillenniGeni Hipsters, who have been trained to see their Very Selves as a “Product,” a “Brand,” to be sold on the Market to the Highest Bidder. In Other Words: Hipsters are the Slaves (what Other Kind of Person is bought and sold?) of Capitalism and in your Work they see their Slavery reProduced and feel validated.
But Great Art, in its Greatness, is a Refutation of Slavery. It is an Assertion of FreeDom, an Xpression of FreeDom pushed to its Limits and beyond. Great Literature, as Great Literature, cannot be commodified or it would loose that Ecstatic and Miserable, Tremendous and Terrible, Sublime and Awful, unPredictable and unControlable Quality that makes it Last, as Great Art, for Hundreds, if not Thousand of Years.
Tao Lin, your Prose, Plots, and Characters are Empty Facsimiles of those that make Great Literature Great. With your Consistent Prose, your Generational Content, your Depression, it is Easy to confuse you with Great Writing, but just because you look like Some Thing on the out Side does not make you that Thing on the in Side and Time, Time has an Amazing Way of weeding the Frauds from the Real Deal. Currently,
Tao Lin,
you are Only on the out Side
what I am to my Very Kor:
A GREAT WRITER / ARTIST / ICON
What I liked about you, Tao Lin, back in those Brooklyn Days, was Xactly what Many People didn't and still don't like about you: that you act, in your OnLine Persona, like a Multi Media Pop Star when you are a Writer, and a Relatively unKnown One at that.
Being One of this New Breed of OnLine Writers, these—Blog-gers? via the LameStream Media… no. Blog-niks? via SLFAA… uhgk. Blog-ists? via me, Right now… Sure!— these Blogists, I was aware that Literature, for All its Ivory Tower, could not be Immune to the Fracturing, inter Breeding, and thereby, Proliferation, of Medias OnLine if it wanted to survive there, Even qua Literature.
I was aware, as Tao Lin you Most Certainly are Aware, because I found out when I moved to NYC that you had beaten me to the Position I had hoped to attain in leaving Canada: Literature, Serious Literature, of the Kind who’s Death is alWays being trumpeted, needs Multi Media Celebrity to refresh its Self from the Doldrums it has become associated with since the Invention of teleVision & Computers.
But not the Kind of Promo Heavy, Product Vapid, subServient to Capitalism, Surface distracting from Inner Emptiness for the Sake of the Status Quo Pop Celebrity Music and Film have come to rely on for Cash and which you epitomize for Literary Writing Right now, Tao.
No.
It’s Literature, Goddammit.
It needs a Celebrity of Great ProFunDity if it is going to be "Literary" at All.
Any Literary Celebrity who does not achieve this in their Works is no "Literary" Celebrity at All, just an Other Commercial Writer, cashing in on what's Popular for Glory in the Moment.
There is no Thing "Mythological" about your Books, Tao Lin. Maybe about your rise to Fame, but these are the not the Same Things: Mythology is All about Character, Tao - what drives the Character? What Forces affect the Character? - and in your Books, the Character isn't there. It is Empty, witnessing what is going about it, but not revealing Any Thing ProFound about its Self besides its Concerted Attempt to deny Any ProFunDity in its Life.
Trying to turn Some Thing Mundane (Any Thing Surface is Necessarily Mundane) into Some Thing Mythological (which xists in the subConscious Swirl of Archetypal Forces), as you attempt to do despite writing Mundane Books by marketing your Self as the Head of a Literary Movement
is doomed to Failure because it is a Ruse: that with no Thing at its Kor is bound to Collapse.
But me
Well, let’s just say that
where you are Mundane, Tao Lin
I am Mythological
Where you are Narrow in Scope
I am Xpansive
I am Wild
I am Passionate
Where you are aSxual
I am Sxual
Where you are lacking Depth
I am Deeper than xpected
Where you are Weak
Where you show how Literature can depreciate on the InterNet
I show how it can improve
Where your Life, beyond your Celebrity, is Ordinary
Mine is unBelievable
Where your Prose repeats its Self
Mine is in Constant transFormation
Where you are a Conformist
I am a Radikal
Where your Work is Industrial & Material
Mine is Organic & Magickal
Where your Style makes Sense considering the Progression of American Culture
(towards Greater and Greater Commodification)
(though there were Signs)
no One predicted mine
did they?
But, now, it is
to tell you a Story:
My Man and I were Down Town
I'd just bought SLFAA
in a used Book Store
for $Five
cause I wouldn't
pay More
It was in my
Purse
My Man wanted Food
SUSHI
he said
because it was hot out
We walked to the
Sushi Place he liked
Only to find out it was
Closed
My Man said
AHHH
WHAT THE FUCK
WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO NOW?
I said
what Ever
My Man said
NO
NOT WHAT EVER
I said
I Usually just start walking and see what I can find
WELL I DON'T DO THINGS THAT WAY
So my Man and I
stood on the
Side Walk
out Side the
Sushi Place
for like
Five Minutes
while my Man
huffed and
puffed
that inDecisive Pisces
about how Hungry he was
and how
he didn’t know where to go
to eat
Come on, Mr. Dragon
Let's walk down to the Water and sit on a Patio in the SunShine
FINE
On our Way
to the Water
we passed
The Lotus Pond
this
Vegan
Buddhist
Chinese
Restaurant
I like
because I'm a Veggie
My Man said
LET'S GO HERE
and I said
Okay
But the Lotus Pond
too
was Closed
for Lunch
According to the Sign
The Lotus Pond
would open
in
Ten Minutes
My Man said
COME THIS WAY
and pulled me by the Hand
(he is Very Tall and walks Very Fast)
Two Blocks Over
to a Coffee Shop
called
Bliss
I'd Never been to this
Coffee Shop
called
Bliss
before
Bliss
sold
Organic
Vegan
Local
Seasonal
Fruit
Smoothies
for like
$Eight
a
Jar
Heheheh
Xpensive Yuppie Food
I said
leaning against the Bar
looking at the
Xpensive Yuppies
and their
Xpensive Babies
in the
Xpensive
Faux Rustic
Booths
drinking
Organic
Vegan
Local
Seasonal
Fruit
Smoothies
out of Jars
for like
$Ten
with
Tax
SHHH
said my Man
and he and bought a Smoothie called
BERRY YUMMY
which we drank out Side
in the SunShine
just like I had wanted
and it was
BERRY YUMMY
inDeed
Then my Man said we were going
back to The Lotus Pond
where we sat down and my Man
ordered a
Vegan
Rice
Dish
and
I started reading
SLFAA
Very First Time
in that
Vegan
Buddhist
Chinese
Restaurant
after
just having been
dragged
Two Blocks out of the Way
to a
Vegan
Local
Seasonal
Fruit
Smoothie
Shop
I didn't Even know
xisted
by a Red Blooded Man
who is Loath to accept
alMost Any Novelty
when it comes
to Restaurants
Holy Shit
TAO LIN
YO PSYCHIC POWERS
THEY BE REAL
Ain't denying that
I didn't figure out this “Thing with the Capital Letters” (I call it "CAPITALISM" [and then I laugh so Hard I have to pee]) until I read SLFAA.
A Little Competition is Good for us All, Eh?
and Every Body loves
a Good
LITERARY
FEUD
TAO LIN vs. ANDREA COATES
Whose Literary Work comes off the More
ProFound?
Compelling?
Dangerous?
Accomplished?
ROUND 1
In Richard Yates, his Second Novel, Tao Lin names Characters who start a Casual Relationship over Gmail Chat after pre Teen Movie Stars Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning.
These are Really: Tao Lin and Bebe Zeva.
And if they aren't, Well, they Very Well could've been.
In SIS:, her First Novel, Andrea Coates names Characters who start a polyAmorous Relationship over MDMA / Alcohol after French Xistentialists Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
These are Really: Some Teenagers in a Small Town in Canada.
And if they aren't, Well, they Very Well could've been.
ROUND 2
Tao Lin's Literary Alter Egos are called Sam, Andrew and Haley, Average American 21st Century Male Names, indicating they are Average American 21st Century Males.
Each Book, their Lives are Similar: they are Young Males living in sub / Urban American Consumer Society.
Andrea Coates' Literary Alter Ego is called Happy and her Last Name is a Different Representational Color Each Book, or Portion of a Book, indicating she is a Fulfilled and multiFaceted Lady.
Each Book, or Portion of a Book, she appears in a Parallel Universe correspondent to the Color of her Name.
ROUND 3
Tao Lin’s First Novel, which is about being a Young Person in America Today, Eeeee Eee Eeee, is populated with Dolphins, Hamsters, and Bears - who talk!
Andrea Coates’ First Novel, which is about being a Young Person in Canada Today, SIS:, is populated with Goth Girls, Political Scientists, and Drug Dealers - who fight!
ROUND 4
Tao Lin wrote a Literary Novella called Shoplifting from American Apparel about a Young Writer who steals from an American Apparel because he is…Depressed? and...Poor? or…Bored? I can’t. Really. tell. I think. the Book's. about. Capitalism. causing. Emotion.al. Constipa.tion.
Not to be read while on the Toilet.
Andrea Coates wrote a Horror Novella called The Sex Magick Book about a Nineteen Year Old Girl who goes to a Witch to interpret a Dream she had while recovering from an overDose of Cocaine and then has the Witch put a Spell on the Young Man she is interested in.
But the Witch may have her Own Reasons for invoking the Spell.
Not to be read while High on Cocaine (unLess you dare).
ROUND 5
Tao Lin’s Poetry is about feeling Sad and Distant in Side of Consumer Culture.
Andrea Coates’ Poetry is about feeling Angry and Lustful out Side of Consumer Culture.
ROUND 6
Tao Lin's Books are Each Similar in Structure, Style and Plot, creating a Cohesive Oeuvre.
Andrea Coates' Books are Each Vastly Different in Structure, Style and Plot, proving she is a Creative Writer.
ROUND 7
You can read a Book by Tao Lin in a Couple of Hours if you don't get annoyed by him.
You can read a Book by Andrea Coates in a Couple of Days if you don't get overwhelmed by her.
ROUND 8
Tao Lin’s Overriding Emotional Frequency is “Ennui.”
Andrea Coates' Overriding Emotional Frequency is “fucked up.”
Whose Film Work comes off the More
ProFound?
Compelling?
Dangerous?
Accomplished?
ROUND 1
Tao Lin makes Films with Megan Boyle, a Multi Disciplinary Artist who was spotted on her Twitter Page slurping from a Subway Takeout Cup.
How Funny
Andrea Coates makes Films with jody franklin, a Multi Disciplianry Artist who was spotted on his YouTube Page writhing Half Naked on the Floor of a Dirty Art Space, howling and bashing Things into his Head.
How Intense
ROUND 2
Tao Lin and Megan Boyle make their Films on a Mac Book.
Andrea Coates and jody franklin make their Films on a Sony VX 2100.
ROUND 3
Tao Lin and Megan Boyle made a DIY Documentary featuring them walking around a City while High on Drugs.
Andrea Coates and jody franklin are looking for Investments in Order to create a Feature Length Porn Film featuring them starting a Sx Cult in which they initiate People by getting them High on Drugs.
ROUND 4
Tao Lin and Megan Boyle made a Documentary about the Life of Teenaged Fashion Blogist Bebe Zeva, who lives in Las Vegas, Navada, USA.
Andrea Coates and jody franklin are making a Feature Film about the Lives of Radikal Anarkists who live in Coastal, British Columbia, Canada.
(For More on these Film Projects, See LLWAM)
You have got to be getting what I’m saying.
But, just in Case your not:
Hipster RunOff. So into it back in my Brooklyn Days. I thought it would spread from Williamsburg and Burgs that wanted to be Willaims and be recognized the World over for having its Finger on the Pulse (up its Ass). The Moment I moved back to Canada, how Ever, it became… Totally Irrelevant ... Sickeningly Consumer MainStream / Repetitive / inSecure (Carles strikes me as a Self Loathing Sycophant), its Drop of Creative Lube rubbed to the Point of Uselessness.
Tao Lin, you, too, are the Same as back in my Brooklyn Days, Only inStead of More Consumer MainStream than you AlReady were, you've gotten "More Intense"
A Conceit that makes me laugh
Dude, you couldn’t handle One Party at my Place
All Writers ought to know this:
There are Two Ways to get Attention directed your Way as a Writer of Literary Fiction, Poetry, or Philosophy (ie: there are Two Ways to being Xceptionally ProFound, or giving People the Impression that you are):
1) Be Epic in Scope - this encompasses Most of the Great Fiction Writers, Most of the Great Philosophers, and Many of the Great Poets. This Style of Writing, "evokes of a Wide Range of Characters, Locations, Events and Themes." In Life, it means an Author is Wise.
2) Be Intense- this encompasses Many of the Great Poets, Some of the Great Fiction Writers and a Few of the Great Philosophers. This Style of Writing is, "Minimal, but Highly Evocative." In Life, it means the Author is Cool, or Hip.
Most of the Greats have a Mixture of Both these Qualities but fall More to One Side than to the Other, for the Sake of Argument. Less Accomplished Authors fail at Both, Most Often due to Mediocre Prose, or a Lack of Thematic Relevance, ie: the Work is Epic in Scope or it is Minimalist, but it fails to be Evocative, Either of Feelings or of Scenes, because it lacks inSight (Tao Lin, you, with your Numb Books, are here included).
To get Attention as a Literary Writer, Tao Lin, you could have tried being Epic in Scope, but we All know that’s the Opposite of what your Writing is. As it stands, you don't have a Great Enough Range of Emotions / Characters / Sentence Structures to be an Epic Novelist of the Level of Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Faulkner or Joyce or Proust or Elliot or Dickens or James or Bolaño or Franzen or Melville or Foster Wallace, or Any of those, and beSides, becoming Epic in Scope would mean giving up the Reductionist Shtick for which you are Best Known and Most Recognized
Better, you think, to try that Technique, Both Personally and Professionally, which has Most Often gained Attention for a Minimalist, whether that be a Writer of Spare Prose, of Short Novels, Short Stories, or Poetry, like Hemmingway or Bukowski or Ginsberg or Hunter S or Easton Ellis or Fitzgerald or Rimbaud or Baudelaire or Sartre or Shelley or Conrad or Woolf or Orwell or Pushkin or Kafka or Hesse: being Intense.
So, in Order to balance out your Cuteness / Minimalist Prose by upping you Intense Cred, you started “doing Drugs.” You started writing a Column for Vice Magazine called Drug Related Photoshop Art.
(like Tao Lin, I too have to balance out how Cute I am by being Intense
For Good Meaure, how Ever, my Literature is Also Epic in Scope)
I was Super Xcited when I heard about this cause I like Drugs and Art a Lot More than I like Sulky Hipsters, Average American Days, or talking Animals in Minimalist Novels, so, Fully prepared to accept this, New, More Andrea Coates Accessible Tao Lin, should he have warranted it, and crossing my Fingers the Drugs had xpanded his Perspective Some what, I dug in.
Gee
How you disappointed my Optimism
DRPA is an unReadable Pastiche of Self Conscious Pop Culture Reference and InterNet / NYU Hipster Jargon Complete with unNecessary & unUsual Punctuation meant Only to denote you have [no Emotions out Side of 'iRony'].
It reads More Difficultly than Any of my unEdited Blog Posts about Sxism, and it’s a Humor Column published by an interNational Magazine.
The Impression gathered from DRPA is that Vice is publishing it because it's got the Word “Drug” in the Title and you wrote it but they don't bother reading the Thing before it goes out to Print, cause, why bother? it's got Drug in the Title and Tao Lin as the Author.
You have a Lot More Friends in High Places than I do, Tao Lin, which could be because I live in Victoria, BC (pop 78,057) and you live in Brooklyn, NY (pop 2,504,700), or because I’m Twenty Three and you're Twenty Eight or because I’m a Lady and your Man, or Maybe it's because I’m Brilliant and Raw and it scares People and you're a Fluffy Pet People think they might look Cool / Cute /Approachable carrying around in their Bag with them. What do you think?
Daniel B Roberts, in his Review of MuuMuu House, calls you and your Followers Writing "Lazy" and inDeed, that is a Good Description of your Style: posting on the InterNet, you don't have to try Nearly as Hard as when you're attempting to get your Work published via More Traditional Routes.
Question: would you call my Writing "Lazy?"
The Fact is- and this is Endemic of Vice Magazine as a Whole- talking about Drugs will not save you from your Moral Laziness. Tao Lin, at Some Point, if you want to be a Great Writer, you will have to shackle off your Privileged North American Consumer Vegan Hipsterdom and deal with the Ugly / Beautiful Depths of Sapiens' Society and the Emotions as a Whole. It doesn't matter whether your Books are Long or Short, Minimalist or Loquacious, if Every Sentence is as Much of a Jolt to the System as a Line of Blow. If you want to be a Great Writer, Tao, there can be no writing along the Surface of Society and Self, posting an out of Context Twitter here, depriving Words of their 'Meaning' there, dropping a New Photo of your Self on that Blog here, sticking to defining a Narrow and Shallow Segment of being Alive Today in your Books; no, you have to go Deep, Deep down into the Belly of your Species and your Self, and that's Some Thing the Drugs can't help you with, not on their Own, not without your Initiative. Otherwise, they aren't a Tool of Enlightenment, but an Other Effort at Emotional Repression.
Just because you do Drugs now doesn’t Mean you understand the underBelly, Tao, Either your Society's or your Own, Especially if you're Primarily doing Drugs for Attention / continuing to obscure your True Feelings about Things. If you were willing to go Deep into Sapien Xperience, you would stand up to the Autocracy for Authenticity of Self Xpression (Art) that is Commodification, but beSides the “Drug Use” I’ve seen no Evidence you stand up to the Oppressive Power System at All, in Any Way, Much the Opposite in Fact, and we’ve talked about this, Tao: Resistance to Oppressive Power is the Most Essential Element of Any Great Writer (at whose Essence, as I said, is FreeDom: Pure, Absoulte, Anarkich FreeDom).
No, shoplifting from an American Apparel does not count as a Protest if you then go and put their Corporate Name on the Cover your Book and then fairydust that Book All over the InterNet, Tao. You might as well be working for them.
An ( iRonic) Ad for American Apparel
Tao Lin, underCover Employee. Ha ha. That’s Funny... Xcept it’s... Truer... than it is Funny.
You may be a Writer of Poetry and as of Such have to shoplift to get by, or you Might see your Actions as Some Kind of Righteous, but when you then turn around and put a Corporate Name on your Book, just like Franzen wouldn’t let Oprah do it his, for Real you’re saying you're Okay with All the Obnoxious Capitalist Shit we the Creative Nature Oriented People of this Earth suffer from, irRepressibly, on a Daily Basis.
My Guess is, you've Never spent Longer than a Walk in Nature and that's why you don't state it Xplicitly in your Books, that's why you act in Contradiction to the Very Message of your Own Oeuvre:
HOW FUCKING SICK
PATRIARCHAL
COLONIALIST
CAPITALIST
CIVILIZATION
IS
!!!! IT'S FUCKING SICK !!!!
!!!! I FUCKING HATE IT !!!!
!!!! I WANT IT DONE !!!!
!!!! I WANT IT GONE !!!!
!!!! I WANT THE ECO REVOLUTION !!!!
!!!! AND I WANT IT !!!!
!!!! NOW !!!!
See, that’s how it Works, Tao. That’s how you have an Opinion about Society.
Now, Let’s try you:
And that, that Right there, is your Problem, Tao. That's the Problem with All of Muumuu House: you are inDifferent (and for the Reason why inDifference is an Evil, see the post Script by Antonio Gramsci).
Opinions about Society are the Great Writer’s Bread and Butter, Tao. It’s how they Distinguish thier Selves from the Crowd of Eager Little MFA Birdies, twittering Away about the Same Silly Shit Other People are, not rustling the Bushes too Much lest they Actually have an Impact on Society beyond Entertainment, cause that's how their Masters would have it.
You have to feel
LOVE
PASSION
RAGE
SORROW
GUILT
ENVY
&
HATE
but you
you're just
Neutral
on Every Thing
it's Worse than Boring
it's Dangerous
Without a Moral Centre, which is to say, without feeling Genuine Anger at Oppression— the telling Sign of a Strong, Free Being—there is no Chance your Work will be Any More Memorable than a Hamster from a Mill, a TShirt from AA, or Takeout Cup from Subway Restaurants. Without focusing on your Lower Chakra Issues, without Developing a Concrete Sense of Self and the Personal Opinions this entails, you will be blown hither and tither with the Fads.
Succeeding at been a Great Writer is a Lot like succeeding at been a Great General, Tao. Attack that which needs to be attacked. Defend that which needs to be defended. Know how to topple Shit. Know how to protect Shit.
You are a BillBoard, Tao, yes, I see that, but if your going to be a Great Writer too it’s Time to be a BillBoard for Some Thing More Substantial than your Personal Fame. It’s Time to stand up for a Truth People can believe in, Tao, a Truth that gives them hope of freeing their Selves from the Repetitive, Mundane, Hamster Wheel of American Culture in the 21st Century: Some Thing that goes Deeper and Realer than Fame.
Hamsters can live in the Wild, Tao. There is Hope for you yet. Use your Influence to organize those who are Also in Cages. Use your Influence to organize an Escape to FreeDom.
Tao Lin nibbles his Vegan Snack
Right now, Tao, you are being xploited by Capitalism, in Side the System, observant, but too Bored, Generally preOccupied, Under fed, and Well kept to make a Significant Point about it; Even Worse, you perpetuate the Disease of Commodification through your Style.
Your Work, Tao, is no Thing but Consumer Propaganda, your outLook so sunk in Apathy you might as Well be a Dispatch from the Pentagon whose Ultimate Goal is making Sure our Generation Never lifts a Finger in Politics.
And Even if your not, the Effect of your Work is the Same: we don’t need to take Command of our Lives, we just need to write Funny Little Sentences & make Funny Little Videos about Every Thing Ordinary and Consumer Mediated that happens to us. That Mild, Controlled Creativity is supposed to make up for People's being in Captivity, Tao? I don't think so.
Here's Megan Boyle, a Performance Artist, sipping from a Subway Cup
and you Guys think that’s an “iRonic JuxtaPosition”? Ya think that’s “making a Comment about Consumer Society?” You are spreading the Cancer, Tao. When Corporations convince Artists, Artists who (think they) are at the Top of their Game, to hawk their Products as Some Kind of “iRony,” don’t you see they’ve won? Don’t you see they own your Very Soul? Don’t you see that’s why you're Depressed / your GirlFriend is making her Self Puke / your Hamster is eating its Own Babies? Because its Life is not its Own, Tao. It's Life belongs to Capitalism, and until you renounce this Ideology and go seeking Self Xpression beyond Surface Consumerism, you will not write a Truly Great Book.
I know what makes me Angry, Tao: it’s the Society I am forced to live in, which has created its Self in the Image of the Factory, which demeans and oppresses Life in its Diversity and Spontaneity. It is being kept from my FreeDom that makes me Depressed, Tao. It is being kept, for Years, by School and Employment, from Authentic Self-Xpression: I refuse to give up my Authentic Self Xpression, for Any Thing, and that is what makes me a Great Artist. Great Artists are Constantly and Fully engaged in the Battle for their FreeDom of Xpression, Tao, and when Some One tries to take that FreeDom away from us, we are the First to Martyr our Selves for it, and the Most Dramatic about it. I don't see you rebelling, Tao. I see you conforming to what the Oppressors want from you: your Soul. You are creating your Soul, your Self, in the Image of the Commodity, not in the Image of Art, and until that changes, you cannot be a Great Artist.
In suppressing your Emotions, you are acting like Robot, a Literary Robot, released on the InterNet for the (unConscious) Purpose of making into a Commodity to be bought and sold the Very Soul of you Generation, just as your Own Soul was made a Commodity to be bought and sold.
REAL
FUCKING
MAD
TAO
LIN
because you deserve Better and MillenniGeni deserves Better.
Readers might be entertained and shocked by your Antics for the Moment, Tao, but the Feeling will wear off when they realize your Work is Empty of Meaning, and Purposefully so. When they realize that your Books give them no Thing to feed on but their own Consumption: the Source of the Meaninglessness that permeates your Books and their Lives. Your Apathetic Literature leads to One of Two Places, Tao: Suicide or Complacency to the sub/UrBan 9-5, a Car, a Mortgage, 2.5 Kids (if you don’t eat them First), a Retirement Residence & then Death, and they will reject you, Tao, those whose Intellects crave Great Art in their Lives to remind them that FreeDom and Originality is Real and Possible, to help them through and help them learn and grow. Those, like me, who look to Literature to find the Meaning of Life will reject you, Tao Lin, because you have no Thing to offer them but More of what they are alReady suffering from: the Compulsory Consumption of Commodities under Capitalism, the Compulsory Repression of the Living Instincts under Capitalism, the Compulsory reProduction of the Memetics of Capitalism in an Endless Cycle of Self enSlavement.
As it stands, Tao, you are a Pawn to the Order of your Day, and so you are a Trifle to Literature, whose God is Liberty and Individuality at what Ever Cost, be that Madness, be that Solitude, be that stepping out before a Young Writer Quite Possibly on the Verge of his MainStream Break and saying to him, “Is that the Best you've got, Tao Lin? Cause, Boy, do I got Better. So, the Time is now to step up." I am looking for Equals, Tao Lin. I want Equals. I want Great Writing in this World and you are not yet Great Writing.
See, where you offer no Respite from the crushing Drone of Capitalism but Conformity, here I am, me, with a Whole Plan for the shackling off of Capitalist Xploitation plotted in the Resplendent Details of my Life and Art.
I am your Shadow Tao, your rejected Self, your Doppelganger, come to face you as a Real Person with Real Feelings and a Real Past and a Future, and you can Either accept me as I am, incorporate me into who you are and flourish from that, or be driven to Creative Bankruptcy trying to pretend I don't xist. I xist Tao. I am your unSpoken Feelings. Mine is the Voice of the Great Writer that lives in Side you, waiting to be released.
Maybe in America, and thereby in Letters as they are in English Today, the post Modern Mentality makes you and Other Hip Young Writers Wary of Grandiosity (Grandiosity of Emotion, Grandiosity of Literary Style), but I think its Truer still that the Oppression of Capitalism has you and your Friends by the Soul, Tao Lin, and thereby, you don’t know what Grandiosity is: you've confused it with Recognition. You've confused the out Side with the in Side. You can make a Fake Cover proclaiming your Self a Great Novelist and laugh over it and hope it’ll get you that Place via Association, the Trick of All Advertising, but keep on repeating a Single Simple Style of Prose, keep creating Characters Consciously devoid of Depth of Feeling and see how Many People consider you a Relevant Literary Author in 20, 50, 100, 200 Years. Chatting on Gmail and wandering around the sub/Urbs isn't Universal, Tao. Emotions are.
As it stands, I don’t think you have the Creative Self Understanding, the Life Xperience, the Depth of Soul, Even at Twenty Eight and on your Third Novel, to write Any Thing to stand up to SIS:, and I’m Only Twenty Three and it’s my First. But we'll see, won't we? This is why I've done this Tao: to sell my Novel, that we might compare our Selves Afterward: that the Thought of Such a Challenge might spur you on to Greater Innovation and Achievement. Every One needs a Rival, Tao Lin. OtherWise, the Game ain't Fun. You are Lucky I'm not a Petty One; SIS: is Better than Any Thing you've written so Far, but there's Room for More than One Great Writer this Generation, Tao, there is Room for Many, and though I am the First to arise, I hope not to be the Last.
I am not Wary of Grandiosity, Tao Lin. I am not a post Modernist. I am a Pagan.
Paganism, from the Video, Burn the Tao Lin (Bottom)
And for this Reason - my Connection to the Ever Changing Powers of the Earth and the Instincts - I look to see as Much as Possible of Life and I look to portray as Much as Possible of Life. And this includes Matters from the Worlds out Side of and the Worlds in Side of me. I have Opinions from what I have xperienced, seen and felt, which are Mine and which I put forward Strong and Clear and so I will be respected for being Good and True and Brave, Tao Lin. This is why I am called Happy while you are called Sam.
I live my Revolution, Tao Lin. You live your Fame; but if you want Any Thing Close to what I’ve got - the Spiritual and Intellectual ProFunDity of my Work - you will take what I have said here, you will understand that it is True, and you will use that Knowledge to transform your Work from Okay into Great. The Potential is there in you Tao, but the Rage, the Violence, the Sorrow, the Splendor and the Love is not. Turn away from Fame and towards your Self, Tao Lin, go looking to your Emotions and write down what you find there: then you will have a Great Book to write. There can be no More this sitting in Apartments on Computers, no More this Purposeful Neutrality covering True Feelings if you want to be a Great Writer, Tao. Being a Great Writer is a Lot like being a Great Lover: if Neutrality is what you're going for, beyond Seer Consistency, I can't Imagine the Xpereince is Any Thing at All Xceptional, let Alone Fun.
You are Popular, Tao Lin, because your Work captures Some Thing that plagues our Generation: Commodification of the Soul. But because you indulge it, because you offer no Solution to it, and no moving Forward from it, so the Future will pass over you and your Works, Tao. They will have been a Phenomenon of MillenniGeni and no More, like a Pop Song is forgotten after its Immense Success. There can be no imMortality for Art without the Glorious Power of Life shining through with All its Hope, and in your Work, as it stands, that Hope is Absent, Tao Lin, turned over to a Complacent Endurance that is Never Satisfied, Never Ecstatic and Never concluded, but in Death. I hope to open you to Hope, Tao Lin: Hope for a Better Life beyond what can be bought - beyond the Commodity.
I have said my Peace, now, Tao, and I have no More to say. This has been an Arena, and Tao Lin, I’ve won, cause you, you couldn't've written an Article like this about me, Even if I had been on the Scene a while: you don’t have the Stomach for it, and besides, I'm not that Easy to summarize: I don't have a Schtick. So, if you want to join the Great Writers, Tao, scrap yours. Look at your True Feelings inStead, the Whole Wide, Wild Range of them, and write about those.
Sincerely
Andrea Coates
MillenniGeni's
First
Great
Writer / Artist / Icon
(but not its Last)
Post Script, by Antonio Gramsci:
Indifference is actually the mainspring of history. But in a negative sense. What comes to pass, either the evil that afflicts everyone, or the possible good brought about by an act of general valour, is due not so much to the initiative of the active few, as to the indifference, the absenteeism of the many. What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be. They allow the knots to form that in time only a sword will be able to cut through; they let men rise to power whom in time only a mutiny will overthrow. The fatality that seems to dominate history is precisely the illusory appearance of this indifference, of this absenteeism. Events are hatched off-stage in the shadows; unchecked hands weave the fabric of collective life - and the masses know nothing. The destinies of an epoch are manipulated in the interests of narrow horizons, of the immediate ends of small groups of activists - and the mass of citizens know nothing. But eventually the events that are hatched come out into the open; the fabric woven in the shadows is completed, and then it seems that fatality overwhelms everything and everybody. It seems that history is nothing but an immense natural phenomenon, an eruption, an earthquake, and that we are all its victims, both those who wanted it to happen as well as those who did not, those who knew it would happen and those who did not, those who were active and those who were indifferent. And then it is the indifferent ones who get angry, who wish to dissociate themselves from the consequences, who want it made known that they did not want it so and hence bear no responsibility. And while some whine piteously, and others howl obscenely, few people, if any, ask themselves this question: had I done my duty as a man, had I sought to make my voice heard, to impose my will, would what came to pass have ever happened? But few people, if any, see their indifference as a fault - their scepticism, their failure to give moral and material support to those political and economic groups that were struggling either to avoid a particular evil or to promote a particular good. Instead such people prefer to speak of the failure of ideas, of the definitive collapse of programmes, and other like niceties. They continue in their indifference and their scepticism.
I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help ing a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent.
The Video: BURN THE TAO LIN
by the Psychedelic Realists at LLWAM
2 comments:
This 2000 era No Logo anti-globalisation thing you're doing is an interesting parallel emergence to post-positivity. I think in the end you're just sacrificing yourselves on the alter of Tao Lin and Muumuu House; which I think is very dark very cool.
hi. i am confused and a little excited.
bye.
Post a Comment