I think we also underestimate how much "slop" the deep past had too. We remember great works because they stood the test of time, but if we're being generous those works may be the top 1% of that era's scene. It might be even worse than that considering the vast majority of historical documents, writings, plays, paintings, and more have been lost to the sands of time.
Slop doesn’t just mean a lack of quality, it means a lack of soul, in Dave’s very definition. I have no doubt that past eras had plenty of low quality output, but slop? It might have been there, but before focus groups and algorithms it questionable how much was there, if any at all.
This is spot on and it's the same principle for all other fields we engage in (politics, law etc etc). We remember the fateful and important decisions that led to major shifts, but we forget the mountains of unenforceable/ridiculous laws and mundane political blunders of the past, because that is often not what we seek to observe.
While Chappell roan is undeniably talented, her entire project is to glorify transgenderism and drag queens, which she repeatedly emphasizes and claims herself. It’s very bad for this generation of women to listen and look up to her
I'm not judging her on her morality but on the artistic quality and on the fact that her work has new info and depth for a lot of people. If we judge musicians for their morality first we would eliminate 99% of the greats. Now, if we are concerned about the influence she has on this generation it's imperative to understand why so many connect with her work and feel in many ways the same, chucking it off to it being "young people shit" is the mistake our parents and their parents made.
Yeah I didn’t mean to write off her influence bc of her personally, and it’s not young people shit to me bc I’m 21. I was just commenting on how negative of a celebrity she is to me. She explicitly tries to inspire Midwest christian raised girls to embrace the most disgusting moral compass that she embraced through whatever trauma she went through. Didn’t mean for any of this to criticize your piece, just throwing my two cents in as someone watching gen z girls interact with her
I didn't take it as criticism at all. Artists are not supposed to be aspirational or pillars of society, they have one job, to be a sort of conduit for societys id. Interestingly enough if you watch the video for Pink Pony Club she mocks herself and points out that the whole thing is a fantasy and a fleeting one at that.
The thing about pop music is that it used to almost reset itself every decade or so, from the 1950s all the way to the 2000s. But something happened in the ’90s, and it feels like we’ve been stuck ever since, with hip-hop still dominating the charts. Rock is pretty much dead now, at least in terms of its cultural significance.
I’ll admit I don’t listen to the Top 40, but I do hear it when I’m out—shopping malls, grocery stores, pharmacies, that kind of thing. And honestly, I can’t wait to get out when I do or put on my earbuds and listen to my own. Frankly, it all just sounds the same to me. I know who Taylor Swift is, I recognize her because her face is everywhere, but I couldn’t tell you if the song playing is hers or someone else’s.
You're a musician, I’m not. I’m part of the audience, and there’s a fundamental difference there. I’ve known a lot of musicians in my life, and the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they’ll listen to anything and probably like it.
I’m a filmmaker, and I’ve noticed the same pattern among other filmmakers. We tend to watch everything. Personally, I’ve started curating what I watch because I don’t have the time anymore, but I still have a wide range. I can go from a horror film to sci-fi to a classic Japanese film to a crowd-pleaser in one evening without thinking twice.
When it comes to the slopification of movies, I agree with Greene. However for me, it's more sloppiness rather than slopification. The standards have dropped so low across the board, in writing, editing, directing, even special effects. That part baffles me. We have the technology to do incredible effects, yet I constantly see keying that looks terrible. If you can’t pull a clean green screen key, what are you doing in this business?
Same with directors who don’t bother to block their scenes. Again, why are you here? I’m thinking specifically of the latest Deadpool. There was barely any blocking in most of the scenes. Even the ones that should’ve been interesting came off as boring from a filmmaker’s perspective.
I think there are reasons for how Hollywood got to this point, plenty of them actually. I’ve taken a deep dive into the topic, and I’d like to share it with you.
You and Dave both range so widely. A generational affliction. Saying one thing well should come back in vogue. Had a conversation with the writer JB Jackson yesterday (we frequently phone each other like humans do) wherein we talked about how we were both formatted by AOR. Shitty song? Too bad. Drink up and power through. That was commonplace. But the truly superior skill was figuring out why someone else loved that shitty song that was torture to you. There had to be something. A hook. An arrangement. Some stupid effect that works anyway. Even after all these years, our conversations regularly feature admissions of loving something we once pretended to hate. "Fuck no I don't like Boz Scaggs--I LOVE Boz Scaggs." Slop doesn't stand up to Power Listening. Slop just rolls beneath the tumblehome of our stately prow.
I appreciate your analysis, but you lack a distinction between the things of our childhood that actually have legs, and things that don’t. We used to have a word for things like teddy bears and cute toys and storytelling we were supposed to mature out of: kitsch (actually, it seems to me that slop is a sort of 21st century transformation of kitsch).
Fairy tales aren’t kitsch. Archetypal stories aren’t always kitsch. I think you have it backwards—fairy tales are for everyone. What you describe as the mature art of our adulthood, I don’t think, is necessarily the path for everyone, because it is reactionary in nature. Dostoevsky, who I love, and who’s work is a constant churning out of eternal truths, was a reaction against growing nihilism in Europe. He wasn’t eternally necessary in the way that a great archetypal story is eternally necessary.
I think a good “in-between” is Its a Wonderful Life. It’s a movie for—almost—all ages, but its meaning matures with you. It still has the triumph of goodness in the end, even with its reaction against cynical capitalism. This isn’t some sentiment you are meant to grow out of, at least as a Christian (which I presume you are). As Christ said, you must become like children. He said other things too, of course, but there needs to be that core belief and trust that good wins out in the end, even if it feels naive by the standards of Kubrick, Scorsese or Houellebecq. And, in my opinion, It’s a Wonderful Life is a more important and, ultimately, more redeeming work than any of the works of Kubrick or Scorsese.
Our modern culture is a tragic state, and realizing that is a part of growing up, no doubt, at least for the more intellectual among us. But the reactionary art to our times, while useful and extremely edifying to some, pales in comparison to the eternally relevant. That is why we need a higher standard for “lower” art.
As C.S. Lewis said, “One day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”. I don’t think I’m quite there either.
If every previous work is a stepping stone to the one before, then the rightness of Star Wars with reality is of material concern to every higher literary endeavor.
Although I don't think I'd call it "kitsch", even if it takes some of the "low-brow" elements.
On a side note, for specifically Russian fairy tale readings and analysis I’d highly recommend Nicholas Kotar’s podcast series In a Certain Kingdom. Though the symbolic analysis of the fairy tales may seem like “reading into it too much” for someone unfamiliar with Johnathan Pageau and the like.
A serious question: what about the traditional board and counter war games? As a historian I find them illuminating — or that’s what I tell myself, lol.
I love them myself. My wife and I used to play a lot of Combat Commander. In a way, that kind of gaming is a step above the slop because there is much more required of you, from historical understanding, map reading, tactical, and strategic thinking, etc.
I'll have to go reread the whole thing when I get home. I was strapped for time this morning and this is actually a first draft unedited. I figured I'd catch typos and stuff like that on a reread when I get home.
I think we also underestimate how much "slop" the deep past had too. We remember great works because they stood the test of time, but if we're being generous those works may be the top 1% of that era's scene. It might be even worse than that considering the vast majority of historical documents, writings, plays, paintings, and more have been lost to the sands of time.
I agree. There had to be mountains and mountains of forgettable slop.
For every Cicero or Vergil we got, another 10,000 dudes carving phallus graffiti into Roman cobblestones were also born.
Slop doesn’t just mean a lack of quality, it means a lack of soul, in Dave’s very definition. I have no doubt that past eras had plenty of low quality output, but slop? It might have been there, but before focus groups and algorithms it questionable how much was there, if any at all.
This is spot on and it's the same principle for all other fields we engage in (politics, law etc etc). We remember the fateful and important decisions that led to major shifts, but we forget the mountains of unenforceable/ridiculous laws and mundane political blunders of the past, because that is often not what we seek to observe.
While Chappell roan is undeniably talented, her entire project is to glorify transgenderism and drag queens, which she repeatedly emphasizes and claims herself. It’s very bad for this generation of women to listen and look up to her
I'm not judging her on her morality but on the artistic quality and on the fact that her work has new info and depth for a lot of people. If we judge musicians for their morality first we would eliminate 99% of the greats. Now, if we are concerned about the influence she has on this generation it's imperative to understand why so many connect with her work and feel in many ways the same, chucking it off to it being "young people shit" is the mistake our parents and their parents made.
Yeah I didn’t mean to write off her influence bc of her personally, and it’s not young people shit to me bc I’m 21. I was just commenting on how negative of a celebrity she is to me. She explicitly tries to inspire Midwest christian raised girls to embrace the most disgusting moral compass that she embraced through whatever trauma she went through. Didn’t mean for any of this to criticize your piece, just throwing my two cents in as someone watching gen z girls interact with her
I didn't take it as criticism at all. Artists are not supposed to be aspirational or pillars of society, they have one job, to be a sort of conduit for societys id. Interestingly enough if you watch the video for Pink Pony Club she mocks herself and points out that the whole thing is a fantasy and a fleeting one at that.
Yeah, Chappel Roan, Barbie movie etc are misunderstood rather than deliberately immoral or whatever. They’re more commentary on the 2010s or something
Type autocorrect, not "new info" but meaning.
The thing about pop music is that it used to almost reset itself every decade or so, from the 1950s all the way to the 2000s. But something happened in the ’90s, and it feels like we’ve been stuck ever since, with hip-hop still dominating the charts. Rock is pretty much dead now, at least in terms of its cultural significance.
I’ll admit I don’t listen to the Top 40, but I do hear it when I’m out—shopping malls, grocery stores, pharmacies, that kind of thing. And honestly, I can’t wait to get out when I do or put on my earbuds and listen to my own. Frankly, it all just sounds the same to me. I know who Taylor Swift is, I recognize her because her face is everywhere, but I couldn’t tell you if the song playing is hers or someone else’s.
You're a musician, I’m not. I’m part of the audience, and there’s a fundamental difference there. I’ve known a lot of musicians in my life, and the one thing they all seem to have in common is that they’ll listen to anything and probably like it.
I’m a filmmaker, and I’ve noticed the same pattern among other filmmakers. We tend to watch everything. Personally, I’ve started curating what I watch because I don’t have the time anymore, but I still have a wide range. I can go from a horror film to sci-fi to a classic Japanese film to a crowd-pleaser in one evening without thinking twice.
When it comes to the slopification of movies, I agree with Greene. However for me, it's more sloppiness rather than slopification. The standards have dropped so low across the board, in writing, editing, directing, even special effects. That part baffles me. We have the technology to do incredible effects, yet I constantly see keying that looks terrible. If you can’t pull a clean green screen key, what are you doing in this business?
Same with directors who don’t bother to block their scenes. Again, why are you here? I’m thinking specifically of the latest Deadpool. There was barely any blocking in most of the scenes. Even the ones that should’ve been interesting came off as boring from a filmmaker’s perspective.
I think there are reasons for how Hollywood got to this point, plenty of them actually. I’ve taken a deep dive into the topic, and I’d like to share it with you.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cultureshock/p/stop-trying-to-save-hollywood?r=1qfapa&utm_medium=ios
You and Dave both range so widely. A generational affliction. Saying one thing well should come back in vogue. Had a conversation with the writer JB Jackson yesterday (we frequently phone each other like humans do) wherein we talked about how we were both formatted by AOR. Shitty song? Too bad. Drink up and power through. That was commonplace. But the truly superior skill was figuring out why someone else loved that shitty song that was torture to you. There had to be something. A hook. An arrangement. Some stupid effect that works anyway. Even after all these years, our conversations regularly feature admissions of loving something we once pretended to hate. "Fuck no I don't like Boz Scaggs--I LOVE Boz Scaggs." Slop doesn't stand up to Power Listening. Slop just rolls beneath the tumblehome of our stately prow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQZBaJAngH8
I appreciate your analysis, but you lack a distinction between the things of our childhood that actually have legs, and things that don’t. We used to have a word for things like teddy bears and cute toys and storytelling we were supposed to mature out of: kitsch (actually, it seems to me that slop is a sort of 21st century transformation of kitsch).
Fairy tales aren’t kitsch. Archetypal stories aren’t always kitsch. I think you have it backwards—fairy tales are for everyone. What you describe as the mature art of our adulthood, I don’t think, is necessarily the path for everyone, because it is reactionary in nature. Dostoevsky, who I love, and who’s work is a constant churning out of eternal truths, was a reaction against growing nihilism in Europe. He wasn’t eternally necessary in the way that a great archetypal story is eternally necessary.
I think a good “in-between” is Its a Wonderful Life. It’s a movie for—almost—all ages, but its meaning matures with you. It still has the triumph of goodness in the end, even with its reaction against cynical capitalism. This isn’t some sentiment you are meant to grow out of, at least as a Christian (which I presume you are). As Christ said, you must become like children. He said other things too, of course, but there needs to be that core belief and trust that good wins out in the end, even if it feels naive by the standards of Kubrick, Scorsese or Houellebecq. And, in my opinion, It’s a Wonderful Life is a more important and, ultimately, more redeeming work than any of the works of Kubrick or Scorsese.
Our modern culture is a tragic state, and realizing that is a part of growing up, no doubt, at least for the more intellectual among us. But the reactionary art to our times, while useful and extremely edifying to some, pales in comparison to the eternally relevant. That is why we need a higher standard for “lower” art.
As C.S. Lewis said, “One day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again”. I don’t think I’m quite there either.
If every previous work is a stepping stone to the one before, then the rightness of Star Wars with reality is of material concern to every higher literary endeavor.
Although I don't think I'd call it "kitsch", even if it takes some of the "low-brow" elements.
On a side note, for specifically Russian fairy tale readings and analysis I’d highly recommend Nicholas Kotar’s podcast series In a Certain Kingdom. Though the symbolic analysis of the fairy tales may seem like “reading into it too much” for someone unfamiliar with Johnathan Pageau and the like.
A serious question: what about the traditional board and counter war games? As a historian I find them illuminating — or that’s what I tell myself, lol.
I love them myself. My wife and I used to play a lot of Combat Commander. In a way, that kind of gaming is a step above the slop because there is much more required of you, from historical understanding, map reading, tactical, and strategic thinking, etc.
In the last sentence before the section Painting Miniatures etc, is the word ((not)) a misprint.Should it be (now) instead?
If it isn't what did you actually mean by that sentence.
I'll have to go reread the whole thing when I get home. I was strapped for time this morning and this is actually a first draft unedited. I figured I'd catch typos and stuff like that on a reread when I get home.