Is pretentiousnes a valid criticism?

>>9306308
No, people who use pretentious as a criticism have their own pretensions of being humble.

>>9306322
not necessarily

>>9306308
Any criticism such as boring, thrilling, pretentious, base, etc. is useless. The critic should be able to describe things in such a way that another person can decide if they'd find a work boring, thrilling, etc. That being said, professional critics are easily the most useless people on the planet.

>>9306322
>>9306338
Good points, thought I was in the minority by disregarding anyone's opinion who used the word "pretentious". Most of the time it's a buzzword, they don't explain what makes it pretentious, or they just equate it to condescending.

Depends on context and reasoning.

If a thing being criticized is defined in such a way that pretentiousness becomes conflicting, then yes.

low iq buzzword, also possible projection

people who call everything pretentious live with a huge amount of pretense, who go out of their way to make sure everything they consume can never be seen as pretentious

yes

pretentious = going for a high level of seriousness and importance, and not succeeding

its a valid criticism

>>9306308
>implying

>>9306375
if so then this post is very pretentious

>>9306375
More common definition is 'attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed' which would be part of the reason people don't like it as a criticism. Claiming an author is trying to impress people seems vapid and almost like a personal attack towards the author, in a way that is pretty unrelated to the quality of the text. Even if used in your sense, it should be adequately explained, as it is too often used as a jab at 'high-culture' or, more accurately, a claim that the author is being fancy and the fanciness is meaningless/pointless.

yeah, it's often misused to take jabs at high culture, but there is a proper use for it, and thats for attacking bad imitations of genuine high culture.

>>9307012
Exactly, but as a result of its common mis-usage, it must be explained, as any good criticism really does anyways when using a term.