Why does /lit/ hate genre fiction so much? I don't think

Genre Fiction is actually a meme that doesn't have much of anything to do with the quality of the writing and whose definition has been bastardized and redefined numerous times.

>>8668437
This

>>8668413
>DFW was able to enjoy watching TV all the time.
DFW enjoyed TV like an alcoholic enjoyed booze. He didn't own one because he found himself unable to not watch it.

>>8668470
You know that was bullshit, if he was a tv addict most of America was (inb4 hurr thats the point so deep)

>>8668413
I don't think there's any problem with enjoying both Shakespeare and Tolkien. /lit/ is mental.

>>8668498
Shakespeare, Tolkien, Dickens, Christie, Adams, Shelley. All could be described as 'genre' fiction. /lit/ has taken elitism to a ludicrous extreme.

My personal evaluation of /lit/ is that the people who post against genre fiction are the types who want to be recognized as great authors or revere great authors so when you talk about genre fiction it's always 'wait people actually take that stuff seriously? It's nothing compared to how deep DFW is!' and such nonsense.
Doesn't help that there's a constant flow of new kids coming here who all think they are at the cutting edge of literary fiction just about to explode onto the scene.
The older types are usually the ones who just realize its for fun and fun is fine because it's just fun and it doesn't need to be anything but fun.

>>8668521
Genre Fiction does not even have a description of quality or mental stimulation. All it describes is the fact that during writing the write had a purposeful genre in mind. Which describes literally every mystery novel period, the vast majority of horror both classic and not, and more. Hell, all classical political satire falls under this definition.

>>8668413
There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but unfortunately much of it functions as pure entertainment. There are expeceptions obviously, like Tolkien, Peake, Wolfe, and Crowley.

>>8668413
It's a board culture thing because letting people talk about genreshit without being mocked opens the floodgates for the most vapid kinds of goodreads/rbooks/amazon posts.

>>8668543
Essentially all political satire and discourse are written with the purpose of being political satire and discourse. Are you saying that political satire as a genre, a genre with an actually ancient history, is written as pure entertainment?

>>8668544
And yet there is a Fantasy/Sci-fi general up right now? Really it seems the genre fiction shitposting is mostly to let pseudo intellectuals stroke themselves smug.

>>8668413


Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are genre fiction. They belong to the same genre, although I wouldnt know how to call it.

>>8668556
The general works as a containment thread. Self-segregation, if you will.

They think that liking lit fic, even the shitty lit fic that they pretend to understand but really don't, makes them look smarter and more talented, even though 99% of people on /lit/ aren't talented enough at writing to produce even shitty genre fiction.

>>8668602
Because enjoying anything that can be described with a genre means they're beneath others? Enjoyment isn't a sin. Being a genre isn't being condemned to not having quality in prose and plotting, or a relevant/well made message.

>>8668606
The endgame of reading literature is not writing literature.

>>8668610
No, but being openly and unambiguously genre fiction probably means you aren't good. I have read maybe 30ish scifi novels, all of them the apparent best there is. Of that only a couple were actually pretty good with the rest either being good for scifi or weak. The talent pool is so diluted in genrefiction you could squeeze it all into a general thread and still have room for more.

>>8668684
What did you read?

>>8668692
You mean the ones I though were the best? Lem, Dick and Wolfe were the only authors I would ever consider good, though still pretty middling. The single best scifi I have read is Solaris which while it was good felt like a watered down Moby Dick. I have disliked everything else I have read by Lem.

People don't feel the same way about poetry. Probably because poetry is too arty farty and the esteem they get is generally considered pretentious.

I don't really read genre fiction novels but I fucking love short stories with that shit, and since I can knock a story out so quickly it works great for if I can't devote full focus for whatever reason, or even just between heavier things. I've been reading a lot of horror ones lately with it being near Halloween

The idea you have to cast away all shreds of "fun" reading to enjoy literature is retarded

>>8668498
>>8668515
Shakespeare can not be described as genre fiction under any definition you dipshits

>>8668834
How do you see that? Many of his works were written for true purpose of fulfilling a certain genre ideal. Most notably a midsummer night's dream. Shakespeare sell professed a desire to entertain.

>>8668842
It should be obvious to everyone but I think it is worth stating. People who hate genre-shit as they would call it don't hate all genres. Just the ones that usually fall under the umbrella term of genre fiction. I state this so we can get one of the main fallacious arguments for genre fiction out of the way where they make claims for the smaller definition but us the larger as a shield. For the sake of clarity of I will capitalise Genre for the broad definition and user lower case for genre fiction.

What makes something belong to a genre is not merely the containing of card carrying elements. Having a long realistic novel with a single moment of an extraordinarily small magical element, perhaps so small it is difficult to tell if it is magical at all, does not transform the whole work into a fantasy piece. Just because there is a detective trying to solve a murder does not automatically make a work part of the detective genre. To be part of a genre not only requires those prerequisite elements but for it also to be in a dialectic with other works of the genre and that it fulfills (or in knowingly avoiding to fulfills acknowledges the importance of) tropes characteristic of that genre. This is generally why I dislike people calling the Illiad or Hamlet fantasy.

So yes, Shakespere did write Genre, but not genre.

>>8669402
This, genre is inescapable as every work can be categorized.
"Genre fiction" however is a specific and very modern cultural-marketing phenomenon, not simply something contained within individual works

>>8668413
>Why does /lit/ hate genre fiction so much?

It's like sitcoms. There can be only so many thought-provoking or original ideas before the genre becomes one trope-filled rehash after another.