Hot off the press! Or on the electron superhighway, as it were.
Mere hours ago, I joined pop culture commentator and rosary warrior John F. Trent, lately of Bounding Into Comics, on his new show The Trent Report.
John is on a mission to save Western culture from the Death Cult. And it’s encouraging to see him enjoying rapid growth.
By his own testimony, John has been a big booster of this blog and my fiction works. You should head over to YouTube and follow him.
To watch the rousing and insightful discussion we had today, which revolved around this eye-opening post, see below:
That point about the total aesthetic disenfranchisement of Western Millennials and Zoomers can’t be stressed enough.
The standard format didn’t give us time to go into more detail. So I’ll use this post to address how younger creators can overcome their artistic impoverishment.
First, know that it’s not your fault.
Your elders strip-mined your cultural patrimony when you were in grade school or before you were even born.
That includes Gen Y, who still obsessively replay 80s and 90s entertainment product instead of managing the last few good cultural influences to make something new and good.
How to get past that dead end?
We have to go back.
How to do that?
Read.
Widely. In and out of your genre.
But even more important, deeply.
Read stuff written before Gen Y (before 1980).
Read 200 such books.
And read them all twice.
Once as a reader for enjoyment.
And again as a writer to learn better authors’ tricks.
Then learn to manage your influences.
Resist the temptation to take a Ninja Turtles or Sailor Moon character, tape over the serial numbers, and drop her in your book.
Do something original – some new quirk, motive, or challenge.
Because odds are, the reading public isn’t interested in your junior high waifu.
So find out what does interest them, and give it to them in a fresh way.
That’s the trick.
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You mentioning “high art” got me thinking about how conservatives see art. It’s not that they aren’t capable of understanding art, they just understand only one kind of art – high art. Most conservatives are k-species individuals: only the best of the best, high of the high, is valid. If you aren’t making a Renaissance painting, then you aren’t an artist and not making culture. These guys aren’t iconoclasts, but rather animaclasts. Art isn’t something that is supposed to entertain you. The intellectual doesn’t seek entertainment because entertainment is typically seen as a brain dulling activity, it’s for the stupid masses. (TV/Videogames rot your brain mantra).
Times have changed, people live through entertainment. It’s the rule of the era. As much as I love the high art in the Sistine Chapel, I don’t get much out of it other than admiration and a since of pride. Film and animation move me and impact me more.
Speaking of changing times, conservatives forget that static images were the prime medium for telling stories, entertaining people, and passing along a message back in the day. In the advent of film, we now have moving pictures to accomplish the same mission. Static images are less effective in today’s world.
Errors come in twos. The animaclasts are the equal and opposite number of the Pop Cult. The latter are fine slurping down mid agitprop made by people who hate them. The former dismiss anything that’s not by Bach, Michelangelo, or Dante.
While I acknowledge a hierarchy in the arts – hard to see how a Christian couldn’t – I recognize that pop entertainment now has far more immediate impact on the culture. Conservatives disdain it to their peril.
May not be related, but when I watched this video, I felt that Rothman exhibited the wrong way of doing things (Like other Conservatives have) while Yakov is demonstrating the right way of going about it.
https://youtu.be/DKO5j3AddHs?si=0HMdumQuVponW3-V
Conservatives have become beholden to economic policy. Obsessed with productivity, they don’t see anything of value without proper metrics. They are no more into high art than the death cultists are. They exist to serve their masters.