>The territory of the writing world, as with all artistic fields, has always been contested between the true craftspeople vs. the status-seekers... Yet most people can’t be neatly divided into such extreme either/ors. The truth is that we’re all motivated in some part by status and respect.
I've been having this argument with various people for years. It's easy to tell a romantic story about the lonely writer in his garret pouring his heart and soul out onto the typewriter and churning out masterpieces, while the dilettante who's only in it for the street cred can only put out derivative slush. Music critic and novelist Nick Hornby, in his book "31 Songs", once described an epiphany he had at a Patti Smith concert - he wrote that, watching her perform, for a moment he wished that the only people who would perform music were people who were as passionate about and emotionally invested in her music as Smith obviously was. But then he thought about it for a moment, and realised that this was ridiculous: some of his favourite songs were written by songwriters for whom composition was a day job, while there are scads of musicians who are incredibly passionate about the songs they write - but these songs suck. In the world of letters, it's trivial to find examples of beloved classics which were belched out by their authors for a paycheque (here's a good starting point: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoneyDearBoy), while probably no one is more emotionally invested in his "craft" than a housebound shut-in writing Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic.
So yeah, I'm profoundly suspicious of this idea that you can judge the quality of a book by how emotionally invested in its creation the author was, or that an author being emotionally invested in a book is a prerequisite to that book being any good. Sometimes the cynical avaricious status-seekers are just better at stringing a sentence together than the people who only do it for the love of the game.
Seeking status could also mean wanting to gain respect of talented peers as a sign that your craft is good. If you don't care an iota about such respect, you might just be deluded and arrogant.
"I’ve long thought that male comedians’ hostility to female ones was because comedy, especially stand-up comedy, is one of the very few areas where an unattractive and unpleasant man can actually leverage those otherwise negative qualities and become high-status. Women, in turn, want to have access to this ability to move up socially, and thus, the embittered comedy gender wars begin."
Ages ago, I dated a (bisexual) female comedian.
She told me being funny got her girls, but no guys.
The traits that heterosexual men value in romantic and sexual partners are very different from the traits that heterosexual women value in romantic and sexual partners.
The Compact piece that everyone was talking about last month is really really funny, not so much for anything in the article itself but because it's the *second* time this exact author wrote a buzzy article in a heterodox publication about a demographic capital-V "Vanishing" which is basically him doing identity politics but for white people: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing
What an interesting and thoughtful piece! I believe writing for TV and film used to afford a middle class lifestyle but not anymore. The value of writers has declined so much due to corporate greed 😢 Also Devil Wears Prada is one of favorite films too!
Thanks, Phan! Also, democratization of culture industries has had a lot of positive effects, but it's also incentivized a race to the bottom in terms of wages, which corporate greed will happily welcome.
I loved reading this (from the Conde Nast offices in London, no less!). It made me a little nostalgic even as it's still true that everyone here is relentlessly privileged, myself included; having to scrape for those 100 freelance bucks/that 100 freelance quid has only made it more so, of course. It just seems like being a writer was more... fun (?) 20 years ago. More stupid and silly, in a good way.
I’d recommend the BBC’s documentary on Loaded magazine from last year if you want a look in into a more working-class writing scene from the past, although it’s admittedly focussed on magazines rather than fiction – Loaded, the NME, Melody Maker, all those classic English punk or punk-adjacent mags.
Have been quietly enjoying your spot-on social and cultural analyses for some time, and just had to say “decadent cattiness” is an amazing descriptor for Trump. And also, what a time, New York City in the 2010s…
Thanks, Mike! I arrived in NYC in 2016, so I experienced a little less than half of the 2010s there. I enjoyed myself more now in this place than back then, but I can't tell if it's because of the way I've changed or how this city has.
>The territory of the writing world, as with all artistic fields, has always been contested between the true craftspeople vs. the status-seekers... Yet most people can’t be neatly divided into such extreme either/ors. The truth is that we’re all motivated in some part by status and respect.
I've been having this argument with various people for years. It's easy to tell a romantic story about the lonely writer in his garret pouring his heart and soul out onto the typewriter and churning out masterpieces, while the dilettante who's only in it for the street cred can only put out derivative slush. Music critic and novelist Nick Hornby, in his book "31 Songs", once described an epiphany he had at a Patti Smith concert - he wrote that, watching her perform, for a moment he wished that the only people who would perform music were people who were as passionate about and emotionally invested in her music as Smith obviously was. But then he thought about it for a moment, and realised that this was ridiculous: some of his favourite songs were written by songwriters for whom composition was a day job, while there are scads of musicians who are incredibly passionate about the songs they write - but these songs suck. In the world of letters, it's trivial to find examples of beloved classics which were belched out by their authors for a paycheque (here's a good starting point: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoneyDearBoy), while probably no one is more emotionally invested in his "craft" than a housebound shut-in writing Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic.
So yeah, I'm profoundly suspicious of this idea that you can judge the quality of a book by how emotionally invested in its creation the author was, or that an author being emotionally invested in a book is a prerequisite to that book being any good. Sometimes the cynical avaricious status-seekers are just better at stringing a sentence together than the people who only do it for the love of the game.
Seeking status could also mean wanting to gain respect of talented peers as a sign that your craft is good. If you don't care an iota about such respect, you might just be deluded and arrogant.
"I’ve long thought that male comedians’ hostility to female ones was because comedy, especially stand-up comedy, is one of the very few areas where an unattractive and unpleasant man can actually leverage those otherwise negative qualities and become high-status. Women, in turn, want to have access to this ability to move up socially, and thus, the embittered comedy gender wars begin."
Ages ago, I dated a (bisexual) female comedian.
She told me being funny got her girls, but no guys.
This means something. I'm not sure what.
The traits that heterosexual men value in romantic and sexual partners are very different from the traits that heterosexual women value in romantic and sexual partners.
The Compact piece that everyone was talking about last month is really really funny, not so much for anything in the article itself but because it's the *second* time this exact author wrote a buzzy article in a heterodox publication about a demographic capital-V "Vanishing" which is basically him doing identity politics but for white people: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing
He's found a niche, I'll give him that!
I did not know about the "Sissy Graydon Carter" tweet until I read this, and I am now better off for it.
I did not know that was possible in 2025
“I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke” took up a lot of space.
What an interesting and thoughtful piece! I believe writing for TV and film used to afford a middle class lifestyle but not anymore. The value of writers has declined so much due to corporate greed 😢 Also Devil Wears Prada is one of favorite films too!
Thanks, Phan! Also, democratization of culture industries has had a lot of positive effects, but it's also incentivized a race to the bottom in terms of wages, which corporate greed will happily welcome.
I loved reading this (from the Conde Nast offices in London, no less!). It made me a little nostalgic even as it's still true that everyone here is relentlessly privileged, myself included; having to scrape for those 100 freelance bucks/that 100 freelance quid has only made it more so, of course. It just seems like being a writer was more... fun (?) 20 years ago. More stupid and silly, in a good way.
I’d recommend the BBC’s documentary on Loaded magazine from last year if you want a look in into a more working-class writing scene from the past, although it’s admittedly focussed on magazines rather than fiction – Loaded, the NME, Melody Maker, all those classic English punk or punk-adjacent mags.
Thanks, Tom! I'll definitely look into that documentary. Looks like I'll have to use a VPN to watch, though.
Have been quietly enjoying your spot-on social and cultural analyses for some time, and just had to say “decadent cattiness” is an amazing descriptor for Trump. And also, what a time, New York City in the 2010s…
Thanks, Mike! I arrived in NYC in 2016, so I experienced a little less than half of the 2010s there. I enjoyed myself more now in this place than back then, but I can't tell if it's because of the way I've changed or how this city has.
This one is a banger and I'm going to be sharing quotes from it to my non-reading friends for weeks.
Thanks DW! I was recently at a party and a friend cited one of my own pieces to me and it was the highlight of my night.
Very nicely done, Chris. Bravo.
Thanks, David!
Humans and their endless status games make my head hurt.
You play the game or the game plays you
Maybe for humans. I ignore such games.