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If the only metric by which you judge your media consumption is enjoyment then I could see how a term like guilty pleasure is not relevant to you. If you gener

by davkan 2y ago

If the only metric by which you judge your media consumption is enjoyment then I could see how a term like guilty pleasure is not relevant to you. If you generally seek media that challenges your comprehension, or grants you new insights into yourself or the world around you, then a Dan Brown book may feel a bit like eating a cookie. It’s not bad for you or anything, you might enjoy it a lot, but the calories may feel a bit empty after.

GMoromisato 2y ago
I actually do buy your argument. Yes, people have multiple goals for reading a book and pleasure is only one of them. And there are finite hours in your life, so you have to choose. But I'm mostly arguing against having an absolute, objective scale for "good book" other than popularity. If a book grants new insight, but it's so boring that few read it, then maybe it's not a very good book.
- davkan 2y ago
  My friend is a poet and will be the first to say we can objectively judge art. I agree to the extent that there are certain criteria we can look at and objectively make a judgement on the quality of the work. I think bad and good are probably reductive, but we can evaluate prose or cinematography for example and make objective judgements on the qualities exhibited by the work. I think largely though the problem here is that “good” is too vague to mean anything to anybody without expansion. Good why? There’s a difference between saying a book is good and a book is well written. Likewise if someone tells me Dan Brown is bad they’ll have to tell me why. Maybe I’ll agree and no longer like the book, or maybe I’ll agree it falls short in plot or characterization but I’ll still like it, and then it will be a guilty pleasure.
  - cryptopian 2y ago
    The closest you can really get to objectivity is to observe which patterns of attributes tend to correlate well to people saying that that piece of media is good. In the end, "good" or "bad" is just my emotional reaction to receiving a piece of art, and there's plenty of art that have all of the usual attributes I associate with good art that leave me completely cold. I prefer to ask whether a piece of art is "effective" or not. An EDM club banger, a classical piano sonata, and a rap battle are all trying to achieve very different things with valued qualities coming from their various subcultures, so ask what the artist is trying to achieve (intricate composition, or shifting units etc) and judge it only in that context
- otherme123 2y ago
  I read books that I know they are bad as I'm reading them, and still keep reading them. One example is Dan Brown's books, other examples might be Twilight Saga, or books that are very repetitive to send the message like "Leaders eat last" or "Surrounded by idiots". They are written in an addictive way you have to keep reading, and makes them popular (not good). They have a lot of paragraphs or full chapters that are very clearly written in one go and never looked back to fix mistakes. Usually you could get rid of entire chapters and the book would be the same. Then you have good books, where you can feel that the author took care of doing a good job. They are not redundant, and they don't use dirty cheap tricks to keep you engaged. They might be even repulsive or unnerving (I'm thinking of Kafka's The Metamorphosis or The Trial), and some people can find them boring. The point is that you can read both of them. It's like watching a quality TV show (maybe The Wire), but also watch some Kardashians. You can easily tell which one is good, and which one is bad but made in some way that you want to keep watching even when you know you are wasting your time and getting nothing in return other than a goog feeling that disipates as soon as you end watching. It's like reading a danluu blog entry or wasting one hour in TikTok or Instagram: one of them is good, the others are tricking your mind to keep you engaged. There's nothing bad in wasting some time, but IMO it's important to be aware of what is happening, that not all content is the same, and that popularity doesn't necessarily means good.
croes 2y ago
Too many cookies are bad, and it's easier to eat too many cookies than to eat too much broccoli.

by davkan 2y ago

GMoromisato 2y ago

I actually do buy your argument. Yes, people have multiple goals for reading a book and pleasure is only one of them. And there are finite hours in your life, so you have to choose. But I'm mostly arguing against having an absolute, objective scale for "good book" other than popularity. If a book grants new insight, but it's so boring that few read it, then maybe it's not a very good book.

davkan 2y ago
My friend is a poet and will be the first to say we can objectively judge art. I agree to the extent that there are certain criteria we can look at and objectively make a judgement on the quality of the work. I think bad and good are probably reductive, but we can evaluate prose or cinematography for example and make objective judgements on the qualities exhibited by the work. I think largely though the problem here is that “good” is too vague to mean anything to anybody without expansion. Good why? There’s a difference between saying a book is good and a book is well written. Likewise if someone tells me Dan Brown is bad they’ll have to tell me why. Maybe I’ll agree and no longer like the book, or maybe I’ll agree it falls short in plot or characterization but I’ll still like it, and then it will be a guilty pleasure.
- cryptopian 2y ago
  The closest you can really get to objectivity is to observe which patterns of attributes tend to correlate well to people saying that that piece of media is good. In the end, "good" or "bad" is just my emotional reaction to receiving a piece of art, and there's plenty of art that have all of the usual attributes I associate with good art that leave me completely cold. I prefer to ask whether a piece of art is "effective" or not. An EDM club banger, a classical piano sonata, and a rap battle are all trying to achieve very different things with valued qualities coming from their various subcultures, so ask what the artist is trying to achieve (intricate composition, or shifting units etc) and judge it only in that context
otherme123 2y ago
I read books that I know they are bad as I'm reading them, and still keep reading them. One example is Dan Brown's books, other examples might be Twilight Saga, or books that are very repetitive to send the message like "Leaders eat last" or "Surrounded by idiots". They are written in an addictive way you have to keep reading, and makes them popular (not good). They have a lot of paragraphs or full chapters that are very clearly written in one go and never looked back to fix mistakes. Usually you could get rid of entire chapters and the book would be the same. Then you have good books, where you can feel that the author took care of doing a good job. They are not redundant, and they don't use dirty cheap tricks to keep you engaged. They might be even repulsive or unnerving (I'm thinking of Kafka's The Metamorphosis or The Trial), and some people can find them boring. The point is that you can read both of them. It's like watching a quality TV show (maybe The Wire), but also watch some Kardashians. You can easily tell which one is good, and which one is bad but made in some way that you want to keep watching even when you know you are wasting your time and getting nothing in return other than a goog feeling that disipates as soon as you end watching. It's like reading a danluu blog entry or wasting one hour in TikTok or Instagram: one of them is good, the others are tricking your mind to keep you engaged. There's nothing bad in wasting some time, but IMO it's important to be aware of what is happening, that not all content is the same, and that popularity doesn't necessarily means good.

croes 2y ago

Too many cookies are bad, and it's easier to eat too many cookies than to eat too much broccoli.