4 ms·

Many years ago a friend of mine proposed a theory of his (I use the word "theory" in the loosest possible sense here, more student dorm than lab) that sounded a

Many years ago a friend of mine proposed a theory of his (I use the word "theory" in the loosest possible sense here, more student dorm than lab) that sounded a lot like this. In his version, most of everything is shit. Most music is shit, most movies are shit, most pizzas are shit. Only a minority of any given thing is actually of high quality. I haven't seen much over the years to convince me that he or you are wrong

saulpw 3y ago
90% of everything is crap. -- Sturgeon's Law
- vba616 3y ago
  Based on a couple of his best known stories that I read when I was pretty young, I revered him as an author. But a few years ago, I found out that his short stories had been collected in a multi-volume series, and I started reading them. I was pretty crestfallen; I don't use the term "cringey" much, but that's how I would describe a lot of them. I intended to read the whole series, but haven't and probably won't. Not all of them were terrible, but the famous short stories he wrote were presumably famous because they stood apart. Also he seems to have flirted with Dianetics in its early days, even basing some of his fiction on it. So, I guess when you look deeper, he himself proved the law. On an individual basis, you have to produce a lot of crap to generate a masterwork.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    That kinda prove the whole point: even for the same author, 90% is crap.
    - vba616 3y ago
      Yes, it does kind of prove the point, but you wouldn't really confirm it if you perceive an author, a genre, a category, whatever, through some sort of filtering mechanism. I think you can turn this saying around and consider that if 90% of something does not appear to be crap, and you want to understand its true nature, and maybe find some things others have missed, you need to go to the raw data source. I didn't end up thinking his short stories were as good as I expected, but I did feel like I understood the person better. And even maybe human nature, or how authors progress, a little better.
  - j_french 3y ago
    That's it! Seems my pal may have been passing Sturgeon's law off as his own invention. Definitely agree that it holds true on an individual basis. I've made some music. Most of it's crap. Some of it's alright. Definitely no masterpiece.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

saulpw 3y ago

90% of everything is crap. -- Sturgeon's Law

vba616 3y ago
Based on a couple of his best known stories that I read when I was pretty young, I revered him as an author. But a few years ago, I found out that his short stories had been collected in a multi-volume series, and I started reading them. I was pretty crestfallen; I don't use the term "cringey" much, but that's how I would describe a lot of them. I intended to read the whole series, but haven't and probably won't. Not all of them were terrible, but the famous short stories he wrote were presumably famous because they stood apart. Also he seems to have flirted with Dianetics in its early days, even basing some of his fiction on it. So, I guess when you look deeper, he himself proved the law. On an individual basis, you have to produce a lot of crap to generate a masterwork.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  That kinda prove the whole point: even for the same author, 90% is crap.
  - vba616 3y ago
    Yes, it does kind of prove the point, but you wouldn't really confirm it if you perceive an author, a genre, a category, whatever, through some sort of filtering mechanism. I think you can turn this saying around and consider that if 90% of something does not appear to be crap, and you want to understand its true nature, and maybe find some things others have missed, you need to go to the raw data source. I didn't end up thinking his short stories were as good as I expected, but I did feel like I understood the person better. And even maybe human nature, or how authors progress, a little better.
- j_french 3y ago
  That's it! Seems my pal may have been passing Sturgeon's law off as his own invention. Definitely agree that it holds true on an individual basis. I've made some music. Most of it's crap. Some of it's alright. Definitely no masterpiece.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]