Tag: woke culture

Of ‘Problematic’ Authors

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As someone who has rarely done anything “normal,” I find myself dwelling upon my fate should I actually overcome the odds and sell a pop novel in the vein of Stieg Larsson. I’ve done a lot over the years that if you rooted around in it not knowing me or the context that could definitely get my ass “canceled” by the “woke cancel culture mob.”

It’s with this in mind that I think of J.K. Rowling. I don’t have a vested interest in either her or the controversy that now surrounds her, but I do have Traditionalist relatives and I find myself torn. It’s Rowling’s “cancelation” for being a TERF that, well, is very difficult for me to defend to my Traditionalist relatives.

I’m aware that there is more going on with Rowling than just her being a TERF, but it’s her status as someone who has a more traditional belief on what a “woman” is that is the thing that MAGA Republicans latch on to because it’s simple to understand.

Out of spite to the “woke cancel culture mob” I bought Rowling’s latest self-indulgent tome out of curiosity as to how she managed to write a 1,000 page novel about herself.

So I continue to ponder my own risk of being “canceled” should I ever become a public figure because, oh boy. I was a drunk idiot for a number of years and there is plenty of bad behavior to rummage through if the occasion arose. And, of course, there is the cold hard fact that I may never even get that far, never be given an opportunity — apparently, in general, literary types think I’m too bonkers to associate with.

But all of this points to a broader issue, which is how illiberal some elements of the Left are in the United States. I continue to be dubious about the idea that the “woke cancel culture mob” even exists. I think it’s more a matter of changing social expectations between generations combined with something of a “soft Singularity” taking place.

I say all that, of course, before I get canceled because of some dumb thing I did 20 years while I was drunk in Seoul.

Have I Accidently Red Pilled Myself?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I decided to buy JK Rowling’s self-indulgent mystery tome out of spite towards the “woke cancel culture mob.” I have a feeling, given my dissipated youth that if I manage to miraculously sell my first novel, I’m probably going to get canceled pretty quick.

But, who knows, maybe I’ve overthinking things.

Something about why Rowling has been so vehemently “canceled” doesn’t set well with me. Her “cancelation” because of viewpoint that a lot of average people have is very troubling for a number of reasons. It’s because of shit like that that we got Trump.

When the average person begins to believe they risk their entire life being ruined for holding a view that seems pretty obvious and simple — then you have a serious problem. That’s when they start to doubt the very legitimacy of democracy and fascism becomes more and more appealing to them.

And I say all of this as someone who fucking hates the MAGA New Right. I suppose you might call it a little bit of political tough love. In the end, I think the “woke” era is going to end either when we have a civil war or when we turn into an autocracy.

The Existential Nature of a CIS White Male Writing a Novel With an Amerasian Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The more I learn about how novels are actually bought and marketed the more I begin to realize there may be some existential issues that I just can’t wiggle my way out of.

There are two such issues that are giving me serious pause for thought. One is that my protagonist is a POC — specifically Amerasian. The idea that THAT would make it more difficult to sell my novel kind of boggles my mind. Any modern American story has to address that American is browning and, as such, not every story can be just a bunch of white people talking to each other.

Having a non-White heroine — who, in my mind, looks a lot like Olivia Munn — is existential to the story I want to tell. And I’ve come up with a really interesting, clever story that I think is engaging and will appeal to people who liked stories like Mare of Easttown and Stieg Larsson’s stuff.

The other existential issue is, of course — me. The idea that a middle aged CIS white male would write a novel with a non-white heroine as its protagonist is, unto itself a big issue with the “woke cancel culture mob.” And the fact that I would write in the third person intimate POV and I shift POVs is another issue that could cause a lot of problems. Or not. Maybe I’m being paranoid.

This was a huge issue in the controversy around the novel “American Dirt” which was written, as I understand it, by a white woman. It told the story of, I think, an undocumented Latinx.

There are two lesser issues. One is, well, how I hope to make it clear over the course of these six novels how much I fucking hate Trumplandia. I hate it with the hate equal to the center of the sun. I suppose if I actually sold this first novel, my political views would become known and that, unto itself, might turn some people off.

Meanwhile, there is the still very nebulous prospect that Something Big and Bad might happen in late 2024, early 2025, to the point that it will be difficult for any novel I sell to actually be read because either people will be dodging explosions or a weaponized ICE will start to knock heads.

But I would like to think that, maybe, if I manage to write a good enough story that all of these obstacles might not be such such an issue. I am also the first to admit that this project is based on delusion and me having a huge ego. And, yet, lulz. Why not?

All of this gives me something to think about. Something to focus on other than how I’m about to be 50 and have nothing to my name other than a failed expat magazine in Seoul.

A Review (Of Sorts) Of ‘Lightyear’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally finished Lightyear. But I’m drunk and lazy. So, this is going to be a “review” as done under those conditions. So, the key thing that pops out at me about this movie — which looks gorgeous — is how dull it is. It’s boring. I just didn’t feel any emotional connection to the story or the characters.

It was only because of that that I noticed how “woke” it is.

It was very, very woke.

Now, let me give you some context to all of this relative to me. I’m writing six (!) novels that I’m using as a creative outlet to rant at the top of my lungs about how much I fucking hate Trumplandia and, as well, the “woke cancel culture mob.” A pox on both your houses, as they say.

But I’m going to use subtext. I’m not going to deconstruct the white savior trope. Or have characters be gay just to make myself feel better. I’m not going to bang my political views over you, the reader, in other words. But the whole thing is designed to, at the end of six novels, layout why I fucking hate extremism from both sides of the aisle.

Anyway, back to Lightyear.

If it wasn’t so dull, I wouldn’t care how woke it was. If it had a good story that was compelling and didn’t have me thinking in the back of my mind, “Ahhh, of course, this is supposed to teach White People A Lesson About Relying Upon Brown People” because it was so dull, then that would be a whole different situation.

And, I’m sheepish to admit, I found myself rooting for Zerg. I agreed with his motivation. But, then, that might mean more about me not being the kid audience more than anything else.

Lightyear is not a bad movie. But it’s very much more a movie you might want to see on Disney+ as opposed to in a theatre.

‘Lightyear’ As a Woke Deconstruction of The ‘White Savior’ Trope

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, I’m working my way through Disney’s “Lightyear” and I’ve reached a pretty woke aspect of this movie — its determination to attack the “White Savior” trope for the benefit of the plot. They even go so far as to say, at one point, “we don’t want us to save us, we want you to join us.” (Or something like that.)

Let me be clear — I’m anti-fascist and I fucking hate MAGA. But I’m not oblivious to what’s going on. Lightyear is, in a sense, woke propaganda for the benefits of the browning of America. I’m indifferent to the browning of America and definitely wouldn’t even notice this attack on the “White Savior” trope if the movie was…good.

But the movie isn’t very good. It’s boring. I just don’t care. I don’t know how much of that is it’s meant to be a kids’ movie and how much of it is, well, it really is just boring.

If Lightyear was a better movie, I would be so engaged by the plot that I wouldn’t have time to notice the “woke” elements of it all. But, lulz, nothing matters.

I suppose the point is — give me a good plot and I won’t care how woke your story is.

Uh Oh — Am I Too Much Of A CIS White Male To Ever Get Published?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw this tweet by Carol Joyce Oats and winced.

Even though I’m not young anymore, I am a male white writer. Of course, the Usual Suspects of Woke Twitter poo-pooed the tweet. And, yet, I have to admit the sentiment of the tweet rings true.

This is definitely an instance of me being far more anti-MAGA than Leftist. I hate identity politics and I’m coming to grow tired with people being “woke.” Even though the usual caveats apply of what exactly it means to be “woke” is very, very muddled and loaded to the point of being practically meaningless.

Or, put another way, I think my general angst about ever being able to get published in a traditional way really works well with the what the tweet above suggests. But I went into this literary project knowing that to get traditionally published is to, essentially, play the lottery.

It’s almost impossible to break into the literary world and to do so requires as much luck as it does talent. You have to hit the zeitgeist in just the right way for you to get through all the gatekeepers between you and success. It helps, of course, to have a relative who is already famous, but, lulz.

Anyway, when it comes down to it, you just do the best you can see what happens. And, if all else fails, I can always self-publish.

‘Wokeism’ Is Extremely Corrosive To Democracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At it’s heart, I think it’s possible that what we call “wokeism” is part of a soft Singularity that causes culture to move at such a fast pace that Olds can’t figure out how to adjust to a strange new world. Add to this that something about the second Obama Administration broke the brain of the Right and we’re really careening towards a dark and uncertain future.

Now, before I continue, I’ve made my choice. I’ve picked my side. For all the bullshit that the “woke cancel culture mob” generates, I’d rather side with them than the fucking tyrannical, fascist MAGA New Right. I know this is negative polarization — something I often bemoan with others — but everyone seems to be dipping into the poison well of negative polarization so I can feel only so bad.

But, in my experience as middle aged “CIS white male,” there are, in fact, people who are too “woke” for their own good and that wokeism is extremely corrosive to our democracy. Things have obviously gone too far at this point for us to fix anything, but it’s a shame that that is now the case. If only we had collectively decided that we shouldn’t make conservative men feel bad for being conservative….then we wouldn’t have fucking MAGA to worry about.

Because, from my discussions with my Traditionalists relatives — who I love dearly — they believe that they risk being “canceled” by the “woke cancel culture mob” simply because they don’t follow the “woke media narrative.” Now, obviously, things are far more complicated than this statement might suggest.

There is a whole cottage industry of Far Right podcasts devoted specifically to banging MAGA talking points into the minds of very receptive conservative white men. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that conservative podcasts, more so than talk radio or FOX News (or OANN or NewsMax) is where the real damage is being done.

Even though my Traditionalist relatives would not admit to being Good Germans in waiting, that’s what they are — they are willful in their desire to live in a white Christian autocratic fascist state with white minority rule. That’s what they want, damn the consequences.

And it definitely seems that we’re going to turn into an autocratic state starting the moment a Republican is POTUS again. It’s an asymmetrical attack on our democracy — they only have to win once.

I don’t know what to tell you. We’re fucked. And I know that there’s a good chance I’m going to run afoul of ICE once President DeSantis is president and forces through some sort of dystpian “Second Bill of Rights” that will be, in fact, enabling acts that will assure Republican minority rule for at least the rest of my life, if not far beyond.

Good luck.

Judge A Man By Who Blocks Him On Twitter

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

“We have all fallen short of the glory that is God,” is one of my favorite Christian saying, even though I’m no Christian. None of us is perfect and we’ve all screwed up to varying degrees because we’re mortal and human. Before liberal darling “Mueller, She Wrote” blocked me on Twitter for being “terribly negative,” the most notable person to block me was Nick Denton. That hurt because, in a way, I really admired Gawker in its heyday.

But, given how obsessively I was tweeting him at one point, I guess I deserved it.

Yet, let’s go back to Mueller, She wrote. As I understand it, she’s based in Sacramento and, lo and behold, I got a ping to this very obscure, rarely viewed site from…Sacramento. The person seemed very interested in the posts I did laying out my concern about being “canceled” for my bad behavior in South Korea nearly 20 years ago.

I am notorious for taking a little bit of information and running with it to absurd lengths, so I’m mildly curious if maybe Mueller, She Wrote is not only extremely easy to trigger, but also a little vindictive. Did she want to laugh at my concern about potentially being “canceled?” Is that what that was all about?

I have no idea, and, honestly, not only is there little I can do about it, the more I learn about the woman behind Mueller, She Wrote, the less I care that she blocked me. She seems very, very sensitive to the point that she blocks and mutes people for the dumbest of reasons.

And I’m well aware that by me saying that, I’m a CIS white male part of the patriarchy who should be, by definition, “canceled.” If I was still irrated by being blocked by Mueller, She Wrote, this is the point where I would tell her to fuck off.

But, you know, she’s just not worth it. She comes across as one of the stereotypical “woke” people who is always canceling people for their human foibles and wants us all to be robots with no emotions that don’t fit the woke mob’s orthodoxy. Now THAT is something I can say can fuck off.

So, live long an prosper Mueller, She Wrote. The only thing that annoys me now is I keep fucking seeing Twitter liberals using eye emojis on her tweets that I can see because I’m blocked. I, unlike her, am not easily triggered and so that’s something I can live with.

Confessions of a CIS White Male Writing From A Female POV

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m trying to populate this first novel with as many provocative characters as I can. I really want the main characters to be well thought out. And, to do so, I’m doing some fancy footwork. I’m really, really leaning into what I remember about the kooky characters associated with ROKon Magazine in Seoul way back when. Including me!

The protagonist of the first three novels is meant to be something akin to a journalistic equivalent to Mare of Easttown. At least, that’s kind of bar I’m setting for myself. I want my protagonist to be as rich and well developed as Mare of Easttown. That’s the dream.

I’ve also recently figured out the dynamic between two characters — just going to use what happened between Annie Shapiro and me back in the bad old days of ROKon Magazine — and this sets up something of a conundrum. I’m well aware that for many within the “woke cancel culture mob” by definition, a CIS white male writing from a female point of view is a mortal sin, never to be forgiven. Ok, I get it. But, what’s worse, is I really want to make this particular character problematic. She, in a sense, is the person to prompts a six novel series and, as such, she really needs to be interesting.

I fucking hate the woke cancel culture mob…when it tells me what I can’t write as a man.

But my definition of “interesting” could be another person’s definition of, “you’re a CIS white male, just shut the fuck up.” I mean, if Fleabag had been written by a man, would the reaction have been the same? If Mare of Easttown is who I’m striving to be like with my protagonist, then it’s Fleabag that I’m striving for in this very important other character.

I want her to be endearing, and yet so be so problematic that you, the reader, are ambivalent about her and you care about her, but when Something Bad happens to her, you don’t quite know what to make of it. Of course, I’m not nearly the write I need to be to pull off such a feat. But if you for the moon, you just might fall into the stars, as the hackney saying goes.

My greatest fear is I’m going to write from a female POV and write something so absurd that all the female members of the audience throw the book across the room in disgust. I’m trying to be as conservative as possible when it comes to elements of the female experience that I can’t reverse engineer (which is most of it) but the more I push into making my would-be Fleabag character as problematic, the more I have to touch on sex, etc. The very things that CIS white middle age authors like me aren’t supposed to broach when writing from a female POV. (Which we’re not supposed to do in the first place.)

The late Annie Shapiro was my personal Fleabag.

But no one ever got anywhere in this world without taking a risk, as my father says. So, lulz, once more into the breach. I’m going to write what I can — even thought I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend to be my “reader” — and hopefully, I won’t embarrass myself too much.

So THAT Is What Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ Is About?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, so what I suspected is apparently true — the reason why Taylor Swift is so worked up TO THIS DAY about her relationship to Jake Gyllenhaal is he punched her v-card.

Ugh.

So, I suppose, the whole issue with the “scarf” is really her talking about how he took her innocence? Is that what the fuck she’s complaining about? So, just from a brief glance what may have happened via a very lazy Google search — Tay-Tay wanted to keep her virginity until marriage and she was so smitten with Gyllenhaal that she gave it up after three months.

The thing about stories like this is you can never figure out how much of it is image management and how much of it is true. Swift has so much potential to be a really great pop star…and yet she is so wrapped up in fan service when it comes to her music that she continues to produce just…meh…music.

And, I get it. All her fans are woke and they publicly rant about how much they hate men then turn around and date the biggest fucking assholes they can get their hands on. So, they see Tay-Tay as a vessel for that idologiy. If only evil Jake Gyllenhaal had kept it penis to himself, then Tay-Tay could have kept her v-card and maybe even never had heterosexual sex and live happily ever after with Karli Kloss like she was meant to be.

Jesus Christ.

What I think really happen — as a CIS white male who should never say anything about anything — is was fucking inevitable that Tay-Tay was going to have sex and some of her complaining in “All Too Well” is kind of like her version of Meatloaf’s “Paradise by The Dashboard Light.”

Swift is very sensitive and awkward and she struggles with what it means to be a woman who’s had sex and so she writes 10 minute songs about it.