Oh Please...
Jun. 6th, 2014 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxONTD has a front page article whining about adults reading YA fiction like "The Fault in Our Stars."
I've seen rants like this before and they always boil down to self-important, pretentious whinging.
Read whatever the hell you want.
Frankly, when I read rants like that I wonder what kind of insecurity the person has about themselves that they make an issue out of what they are reading -- much less what else is. It's like they feel that there is (or should be) some sort of checklist they have to meet to be 'acceptable.'
Are they trying to impress someone? Are they trying to pat themselves on the back? If they read something that's for pure entertainment it's embarrassing or something? You should spend all your free time reading Kafka? Even if you've had a hard day at work, you should be reading Dostoevsky?
Why should anyone care?
I wonder whether such ranters are either young or pretentious. (It's ONTD so I think there's a fair amount of overlap in the potential Venn diagram for that).
Seriously, guys, once you graduate no one on earth cares what you read but you (and if you're reading for entertainment at all, you're in a statistical minority these days). Read whatever you want for whatever reason that you want. Read high brow. Read low brow. Read crap. Read classics. Read YA. Read genre. Read comics. Read lit. Read best sellers. No one cares.
Read whatever entertains your whims and interests. Your summer reading list isn't going to be engraved on your tombstone no matter how impressive (or not) or edifying (or not) you think it might be.
Talk about stupid, frivolous things for people to criticize in others.
I've seen rants like this before and they always boil down to self-important, pretentious whinging.
Read whatever the hell you want.
Frankly, when I read rants like that I wonder what kind of insecurity the person has about themselves that they make an issue out of what they are reading -- much less what else is. It's like they feel that there is (or should be) some sort of checklist they have to meet to be 'acceptable.'
Are they trying to impress someone? Are they trying to pat themselves on the back? If they read something that's for pure entertainment it's embarrassing or something? You should spend all your free time reading Kafka? Even if you've had a hard day at work, you should be reading Dostoevsky?
Why should anyone care?
I wonder whether such ranters are either young or pretentious. (It's ONTD so I think there's a fair amount of overlap in the potential Venn diagram for that).
Seriously, guys, once you graduate no one on earth cares what you read but you (and if you're reading for entertainment at all, you're in a statistical minority these days). Read whatever you want for whatever reason that you want. Read high brow. Read low brow. Read crap. Read classics. Read YA. Read genre. Read comics. Read lit. Read best sellers. No one cares.
Read whatever entertains your whims and interests. Your summer reading list isn't going to be engraved on your tombstone no matter how impressive (or not) or edifying (or not) you think it might be.
Talk about stupid, frivolous things for people to criticize in others.
