/lit/ - Literature

Sounds like pretentious pseudo-intellectual wank.

Who is to say what art is good and what art is bad. MAddox is a terrible person and if saw him in real life I would contemplate smashing his skull in with my bicycle chain while I scream I AM BETTER THAN YOU over and over. But I wont, I will just walk by and look at him with a face that says I know who you are, and I don't like it. The face suburban elitests give to the kids who write for passion and don't care about money. Live in squats and work 9-5 while writing. The kids with a real zest for writing.

>>2286382
You mean the kids that write super shitty poetry and crappy short stories that are a thinly veiled allegory for their own bullshit life? Yeah, they suck.

Wow, Maddox? Really? Is this fucking 2002?

>>2286371

The book sucks, Maddox is an unfunny tool whose overt machismo, vainglorious, misogynist shit got old 5 years ago (if it was ever not old).

>I think the message he purveys is really good: We can't keep praising our kids' less-than-amazing creative works, and if we do it over and over again, they'll have the mindset that they are amazing artists, and they'll live in mediocrity and shit will happen. Thus, we need to push people to do better.

Great idea, genius. Let's just tell our wide-eyed kid who's creating and excited about it that he's no good. That won't damage him. I mean it's not like there's the potential that he'll become diminished in his self-worth and so discouraged he becomes a passive, directionless, lump in the future, right?

I'll tell you one thing emphatically, Captain Hard-ass: Your kid is going to turn out a whole lot more messed up than the one who is told, "great job!" "That's neat" etc.

>>2286400
i don't know maybe "the truth is in the middle" and those are both reductive, unrealistic extremes

maddox is totally unfunny, tho, i'm with you on that one

>>2286397
I mean the kids you never read because your lit tutor never gave them a chance. The kind of kids that see what bullshit your MFA is. The kids who run in circles you don't know exist. The kids who grow up to be recognised after they are dead. The kids influenced by Cummings and Ginsburg, the kids you don't like because they weren't influenced by Joyce or Burns.

It's okay though because you have Maddox to support your views and so they must be true. You tell the internet that grammar and words are important when in reality language is dead. You'll convince yourself you did something right, but you didn't. No one did anything right just because they got an MFA. An MFA isn't shit. My friend got an MFA and wiped his ass with it.

>>2286382
>>2286410
yr a rl pretentious fucker + crazy romanticizing some shit right now

>>2286423
and ur cute. i think maybe we should hook up and make out. But only above the belt stuff, i don't wanna get pregnant.

Maddox was never good, he just has a massive ego

>>2286410
Quit being such a fag.

>>2286406
>>2286406

I just can't fathom saying anything other than simply "nice" "neat-o" "good job" etc. to my kid in that circumstance.

I mean, what would you say, give me a good example. Talent is a process despite its god given aspects. Anyone who expects anything more out of their little kid than the shit Maddox rips is a fucking douche.

Children need your 100% full support at everything. You have to feed them, you have house them, etc. 100%. This is no different.

Yes, children this age suck at drawing. But when Michael Jordan was that age he sucked at basketball, technically. If my kid drawing and presents me with a masterpiece like the truck on the cover of the book, I'm telling him good job. He'll probably want to keep drawing which will make him better in time. Than by the time he's a teenager and adult he might have practiced so much that he's finally got some serious talent. When it actually matters.

>>2286429
>implying you don't get pregnant by holding hands and hugging

>>2286435
hi there! just wanted to encourage you to consider your use of slurs. think about avoiding bigoted language like "fag". just a polite request! thanks so much!

>>2286437
I agree to a certain extent but I also think the "you're a shining special star, a unique snowflake, who is special and better than everyone else" paradigm of parenting is probably not 100% ideal. And I think that's probably what Maddox is addressing here, I guess, idk maybe I'm giving him too much credit and he is just really angry about parents telling their kids that they did a good job w/ fingerpainting.

>>2286435
Keep being awesome.

>>2286439
my friend got pregnant by looking at me once. it was scary, i'm not ready to be a dad.

Maddox was a narcissistic twat who impressed me when I was 13 or 14 (2003). It all went to buggery when he got his fifteen minutes of fame - his website went to shit and he started releasing really fucking god awful books and products. What an utter cunt.

>>2286454
>>2286454

You do have to kind of respect him for holding his line on the "no advertising on his website" principle. Back in the mid 2000s his was seriously one of the most trafficked sites on the net. He could have made a killing with advertisements, but he chose not to because that shit is sellout and obnoxious.

>>2286442
>>2286442

I mean, I never said anything like that. Like I said, if they give me a drawing I'd be like "That's great, son, thanks! Why don't you draw me _____ next!" I'm not going to gush and tell him he's fucking Vermeer.

>>2286456
Wait - you are Maddox, plugging your own book, aren't you?

Get back to your website and fucking write an article for a change.

>>2286458
yeah like i say, reasonable medium

we cool dude we cool

Bump.

I know you guys really have stuff to say about Maddox, but who here actually READ the book besides me? I haven't seen one reply of the sort.

I had the crushing defeat of mediocrity when I wrote a novel at 15. It was about the Romans. It was about a boy. This boy's father was killed by the Roman army.

It was essentially Star Wars.

I wholeheartedly agree. What ever happened to humility?

>>2287436

>but who here actually READ the book besides me?

Nobody, we're all older than 15 which is clearly Maddox's target audience.

Excessive bravado and crassness is a weak platform for humour when aimed at an adult audince and purposefully targeting children for a laugh reeks of desperation.
I don't need to read the book to understand that excessive praise can often lead people to delude themselves that they're doing well at something they're not good at. That's common sense. Being hyper-critical of anybody's work (child or not) in the illusion that it will benefit them is pseudo-intellectual wankery of the highest order. Go and try it, I can guarantee that no one will listen to you, it's demoralising, it actively puts people off wanting to get better and makes you look like an ass.

Maddox belongs on his lonely out-dated website, not on a best-seller list.

If you're kids are bad at shit, they'll find out. They don't need you snuffing out their dreams, the world will do that for them just fine.

What they need from you is a goddamn ally against all that shit.

>>2287574
Maddox is satire, believe it or not.

He is largely different than Tucker Max, who pretends to be something he's not. Maddox is satirising what he pretends to be.

Is it the most classy humour in the world? No. But, he's all-around good for a laugh.

>>2287607

>Maddox is satirising what he pretends to be.

I'm aware of this, I'm just concerned that most of his fanbase won't be and will lap his material up as maverick intellectualism.
Indeed, it isn't the classiest humour in the world, I'd go so far as to say it is piss poor and lazy in the same vein as something like Family Guy. But look at all the kids out there who believe Seth MacFarlane's half-baked political ideas are golden. Satire isn't incapable of outgrowing itself and I fear that's what has happened to Maddox now he is a published author.

>>2287616
>I'm aware of this, I'm just concerned that most of his fanbase won't be and will lap his material up as maverick intellectualism.

pfffththhahahahha

This is so typical /lit/.

>I'm a fucking genius for realizing something completely obvious.
>Those damned plebeians have no idea.

>>2287626
Do you know how low they get?

We can be a little nice to ourselves here.

Pic related.

his website links to CAD and ebaumsworld

It's pretty funny tbh

nobody thinks its honest criticism. the kids are like 5!

should have just stuck to blogging