Thanks for turning me on to the Kannan Vulture piece. I was also turned off by the essay, for largely the same reasons that Cairo disliked it.
There's this underlying premise to the piece that "white women" have done something wrong, and must atone for it, somehow. Like they need to apologize for voting Trump, check their privilege (but not in a way that is self-flagellating), avoid self-infantilization, stop using "Catholic signifiers," be less fatphobic, avoid the r-word, get more black people to write for their literary magazines, avoid writing that looks like shitposting -- because shitposting is vaguely associated with the alt-right --, repudiate "anti-wokeness," and never, ever, ever put an attractive white woman on the cover of one of their books.
It's exhausting. If this is what wokeness is, of course, white women (and most other demographic groups) are going to be drawn to "anti-wokeness."
(whispers) ok but have you considered that there might be something wrong with (#notall) white women? I’m not saying it’s constructive to challenge them on it in this way but I have noticed patterns…
I guess I'd have to consider it on a case-by-case basis. Like, to be honest, I think Cash, Levy, and Levy are not good writers, but the work of theirs that I've seen doesn't strike me as being particularly reactionary. Even if they have problematic bits that I've missed, those bits are clearly not central to their work, which is centered on young woman anomie. Kannan makes it out like starting a litmag without a sufficient percentage of POC writers is the first step towards setting up a white homeland
I haven't read enough of them to comment (just a couple of short stories by honor levy) so I'm mostly going off of ambient vibes, but tbh it does seem like it's a mostly vibes-based corpus of literature. And the vibe is "vacuous edgeladies who brunch." Maybe they've brilliantly captured the youth zeitgeist! idk I'm not gen z
re: whiteness of the litmag, ok it's not exactly white nationalism, but I feel like it doesn't say NOTHING about you if all of your writer friends are white and can only find white contributors, in these united states, in 2026
Think there is this idea that reading, for women, is part of "self care," being cozy, not fighting the downward pull, etc.
(Also "difficult" is sort of ambiguous...It can mean a story that contains uncomfortable, unsettling ideas, or it can just mean prose that's hard to puzzle out. I'm fine with the former but I'm not going to knock myself out trying to read, say, Charles Williams.)
Yeah, I think there’s this Victorian view that women are drawn to “frivolous” books, while men read “real” books. There’s also this (also Victorian) idea that men are capable of being geniuses, while women are not.
I think readers are implicitly buying into these ideas when they dismiss Infinite Jest as a book “for men”.
Exactly...women are stereotyped as liking fluff...of course there is pulp which is just as frivolous and wish-fulfilling. (I guess stuff like WARHAMMER 40K has replaced trashy paperbacks for guys?)
Presenting the idea of genius as suspect is the soft-bigotry feminist version of "women can't be geniuses," hehe.
Ruritania is the country that Cairo was thinking of at 1:32. (Had to look this up, but very interesting…)
Yes!!
Thanks for turning me on to the Kannan Vulture piece. I was also turned off by the essay, for largely the same reasons that Cairo disliked it.
There's this underlying premise to the piece that "white women" have done something wrong, and must atone for it, somehow. Like they need to apologize for voting Trump, check their privilege (but not in a way that is self-flagellating), avoid self-infantilization, stop using "Catholic signifiers," be less fatphobic, avoid the r-word, get more black people to write for their literary magazines, avoid writing that looks like shitposting -- because shitposting is vaguely associated with the alt-right --, repudiate "anti-wokeness," and never, ever, ever put an attractive white woman on the cover of one of their books.
It's exhausting. If this is what wokeness is, of course, white women (and most other demographic groups) are going to be drawn to "anti-wokeness."
(whispers) ok but have you considered that there might be something wrong with (#notall) white women? I’m not saying it’s constructive to challenge them on it in this way but I have noticed patterns…
I guess I'd have to consider it on a case-by-case basis. Like, to be honest, I think Cash, Levy, and Levy are not good writers, but the work of theirs that I've seen doesn't strike me as being particularly reactionary. Even if they have problematic bits that I've missed, those bits are clearly not central to their work, which is centered on young woman anomie. Kannan makes it out like starting a litmag without a sufficient percentage of POC writers is the first step towards setting up a white homeland
I haven't read enough of them to comment (just a couple of short stories by honor levy) so I'm mostly going off of ambient vibes, but tbh it does seem like it's a mostly vibes-based corpus of literature. And the vibe is "vacuous edgeladies who brunch." Maybe they've brilliantly captured the youth zeitgeist! idk I'm not gen z
re: whiteness of the litmag, ok it's not exactly white nationalism, but I feel like it doesn't say NOTHING about you if all of your writer friends are white and can only find white contributors, in these united states, in 2026
Think there is this idea that reading, for women, is part of "self care," being cozy, not fighting the downward pull, etc.
(Also "difficult" is sort of ambiguous...It can mean a story that contains uncomfortable, unsettling ideas, or it can just mean prose that's hard to puzzle out. I'm fine with the former but I'm not going to knock myself out trying to read, say, Charles Williams.)
Yeah, I think there’s this Victorian view that women are drawn to “frivolous” books, while men read “real” books. There’s also this (also Victorian) idea that men are capable of being geniuses, while women are not.
I think readers are implicitly buying into these ideas when they dismiss Infinite Jest as a book “for men”.
Exactly...women are stereotyped as liking fluff...of course there is pulp which is just as frivolous and wish-fulfilling. (I guess stuff like WARHAMMER 40K has replaced trashy paperbacks for guys?)
Presenting the idea of genius as suspect is the soft-bigotry feminist version of "women can't be geniuses," hehe.
The Russel Sprout bit is way funnier than it should be. Glad you’re back. Dig the new format!