Stats for nerds
0recommend
8mentions
8people
2015–2026years
50% neutral50% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I'd rather lick the pages of a fifth hand copy of Fifty Shades of Gray.
- > And the reality is that even if you write your novel without any AI assistance, unless you have a hand-typed manuscript - better still, hand-written - you're in danger of being accused of AI becomes someone finds an em-dash, or decides your words are too hard, or your skin is the wrong colour, or for some other completely arbitrary reason.
Other than the obvious red herring pearl clutching about “culture war” targeting you yoked in at the end, what you mention in the opening here is actually A GOOD THING.
I was incarcerated and wrote one musical stage play after reading some Shakespeare comedies via the jail library, then outlined and composed FOUR screenplays. All were written by hand. They are novel, all original, and clearly my own work product and I retain the manuscripts.
Publishers in music and literature and film are all middle men and that I can agree upon. They actually profit more from AI than from he “professional communities” you claim to speak for - a citation, with financial justification, is clearly needed otherwise I believe your assertion is pure speculation. Publishers have a role in quality assurance and marketing and while crap like “Fifty Shades of Gray” are a slap in the face to the profession, there was a market and it got what it demanded.
There is a lot of gatekeeping in the US “business of the arts” and it still is a multi billion dollar industry. I can’t realistically sell my screenplays without an Agent to shop them for me. FOH with the whole “the world has changed and AI is a gift and love it or be left behind” logic chain, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
- This would've been obvious to our ancestors, but not all pornography is nudity, or even visual. Even the word reflects this, "pórnos" (fornicators) + "gráphein" (writing, recording, or description). Anyone who wants to learn what women's porn looks like needs to look at the sales numbers for Fifty Shades of Gray.
- I'll back GP's thesis.
The global median reader has poor reading comprehension skills and has read few other books. Their main concern is entertainment. Entertaining as many readers as possible in order to be popular requires writing about broad-interest subjects using surface level knowledge.
Dedicated literary critics have read many more books than average and are better at extracting meaning from what they read. They're looking for "quality," which is nebulous but distinct from entertainment value, and they're less likely to be put off by abstract concepts or complexity. Specialized critics are better; if you want a sci-fi book you ask a sci-fi reader.
As anecdotal evidence I submit the sales figures of Fifty Shades of Gray.
- Sadomasochism has been in the public eye for a long time. Fifty shades of gray made it popular to carry a book about it on the bus, but this was absolutely not an unrecognized fetish prior. It was (and is) one of the more openly discussed kinks.
- Applies to a lot of industries and areas. I suspect the reason is the constant endevour to increase profits every quarter and year eventually leads to a saturation stage where the only way to increase the bottom line is to start producing cheap crap and shove it down the users throats. Superficial low quality garbage actually is what the market wants too. Check out the top ten list of Netflix most watched shows. You wont find much critically acclaimed content there. Whats the highest selling Kindle book of all time? Fifty Shades of Gray. The only channel which has been really consistent in quality over the years has been HBO.
