Why is he such a normie magnet?

Because he was one of the most visible features of le underground nerd culture in the early 2000s when the normie capitalist menace started appropriating it to sell it to people. The first normie-capitalist adventurers who waded into the wood-paneled basements of existentially authentic nerds who liked cosmic horror could only see the external manifestation of it, which was "hehe Cthulhu! Cthulhu fhtagn am I right guys? :P" and so they used laser-scanning algorithmic reconstructions to capture "SAYING 'CTHULHU AM I RGIHT? :p:!!' A LOT, THAT'S A MEME I CAN SELL TO THE PLEBS" and made a lot of merchandise and mentioned Cthulhu in everything despite never knowing what cosmic horror actually is. Now we live in peak post-normie late capitalism, where everything is a memetic cube to be sold to you at the gruel station, and LOVECRAFT cube #5 is right next to I LIKE VIDEO GAMES WHICH MEANS I LIKE TO PLAY THE SAME VIDEO GAMES EVERY YEAR AS THEY RERELEASE RESKINS AND CALL THEM SEQUELS I'M SUCH A NERD cube #6 and STAR WARS FOR THE WIN XD LIGHTSABERS OMGGGG DID YOU SEE WHEN DARTH VADER CAME OUT? HE'S FROM STAR WARS cube #8 and Wil Wheaton stuffs his pygmy cock down your throat.

>>9401101
rather spergy but yeah.

>>9401101
>existentially authentic nerds who liked cosmic horror

Like who?

>>9401101
>everything is a memetic cube to be sold to you at the gruel station
why "cube"?

>>9401121
He probably worked in a data processing plant.

>>9401101
You care way too much about this inconsequential shit. It's not healthy.

>>9401033
He really isn't besides LE EBIN SOUTH PARK CTHULU meme xd. His fanbase is mostly /x/ tier people and Stormfronters who liked that he didn't like Blacks.

>>9401101
as other people have mentioned, fairly autistic yet accurate analysis

>>9401033
Because all other decent literature is dominated by repulsive pseudointellectuals

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>>9401033
Because people like big monsters and he has the biggest monsters.

>>9401101
Wil Wheaton would do that for me?

>>9401033
easily accessible therefore incredibly pleb and marketable to normies who want to be le nerd and cool by saying "dude cthulu lmao"

>>9401101
*golf clap*

>>9401033
Normies don't read Lovecraft.
They watch and play derivative media and read wikipedia articles.

>>9401805
Visit any corporate bookstore, he's at the forefront with GRRM. YA flavor of the month comes and goes, HPL stays.

>>9401033
The fact that he's PUBLIC DOMAIN means everybody can do all manner of out of context, derivative shit with impunity.

Same thing with earlier writers like Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley, look at what they did with their creations, ye mighty, and despair.

The good news is that ye olden HP had certain views on brown people that may make normies comfortable no more - I can hardly believe I actually found myself typing this, but the situation is pretty abysmal, perhaps I could speak of a comic horror.

>>9401896
Buy a shelf accessory doesn't equate to having read an author.

>>9401939
but Bram Stoker and Shelley were normie magnets in their lifetime.

>>9401961
Well we're not living during their lifetime, are we?

A-Are we?

>>9401971
I'm not sure I'd like living in their lifetime even if I had their social status because of all the diseases and the like. Then again being rich would be worth the risk.

/r/ing that picture that puts his novels and short stories in some kind of order. It goes in two directions with deep sea shit starting with Dagon, then shadow over innsmouth, then Call of Cthulhu, and so on.

>>9401033
Umm... cause his stuff is fun? I'm not really convinced he's a normie magnet, though. Most normies don't have the level of vocabulary that it takes to do more than skim the average Lovecraft story.

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Really it is about the pop culture cthulhu and how its easy to make jokes about it and so on. He has a cool name, too.

The Lovecraft-as-an-author fans I've met tend to be either general fantasy/horror/etc fans or people who enjoy dark aesthetics. I once had really nice discussions about him with an alcoholic black metal dude. Another was a guy who enjoyed role-playing and, again, metal music.

btw if any of you are interested in philosophy and enjoy Lovecraft, or maybe don't enjoy him but would be interested in a different outlook on his work, I heartily recommend this book. I don't really get Graham's OOO very well - in the sense that I don't agree with it and probably miss a lot of it - but its a nice analysis.

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>>9401939
>Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley
Pop culture almost ruined their work for me. Well, I'd argue that Stoker wasn't actually that great an author anyway.

But oh, Frankenstein. When I read it I occasionally caught myself picturing the monster similar to this, a cartoony pop culture figure. It wasn't very good for the work.

>>9402236
Lovecraft's verbosity is pretty overrated so it fits fine without normies of your caliber having to put in less than cyclopean effort to understand it.

>>9402293
But both of those writers are horrible. It's just that they were pioneers.

>>9402273
Is this another of those "________ and ______ philosophy" books?

>in this story, main character is a professor of philosophy, probably analytical sort. Now, analytical philosophy is a philosophy that...

>>9402538
Nah it's good.

http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero/weird-realism-lovecraft-and-philosophy-graham-harman/
I won't try to explain it in my own words because I don't get Harman's philosophy very deeply.

>>9401033
basically because lovecraft is a pop culture icon and he's one of those authors that other more well liked authors use to mine for ideas. very few people actually reads his books because compared to most popular writers his language is baroque and also incredibly racist

>>9402560
As someone who enjoys Lovecraft and some other writers of similar horror, I can say that this is the observation that I liked the most:

>No other writer is so perplexed by the gap between objects and the power of language to describe them, or between objects and the qualities they possess.

It is a relatively basic observation - surely most readers of Lovecraft can instantly recognize this of his work - but the way the book develops this further is fascinating.

>>9402560
lol that's one of nick land's spawns

pass

nOrmies don't actually read lovecraft, they just like cthulhu marketing
see: reddta

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>buy my first lovecraft collection today after reading through some of his work online

Shit, this doesn't make me a normie, does it? I just wanted to read about insanity, false gods and spooks

>>9401267
I'll go with this.

>>9401033
Reminder to some of the fools here: being an ironic edgelord on 4chan who cares about what's normie and what isn't... is pretty damn normie.

>>9401033
There was a time where I kind of liked when one of my turbo-normie friends had no idea what Cthulhu was when my hot androgynous writer friend and I talked about how kids are all about him on Normiebook. Now I'd rather not even associate myself with the stupid Geek culture shit.

>>9401033
Cthulhu. Eldritch. So Obscrrrr.

There, that's basically why. He can be reduced to a bite-sized "obscure" reference by people who have heard a bite-sized "obscure" reference to him and never read any of his work.

>>9403643
I actually am far more intrigued by entities such as Yog Sothoth and Hastur. Cthulhu is interesting, don't get me wrong, but even it is dull compared to more complex beings

>>9401033
MUH KUTHULU XDDDD

seriously though call of cthulu was literally whatever. I think he's a pretty decent writer, nothing legendary but he's interesting and kind of unique. I liked Colour out of Space a lot.

>>9401033
because normies can relate to some nebulous threat of some foreign invader

>>9403610
lovecraft is for alt-normies, true normies don't even read books and just know cthulu from video games or tv or maybe browsing a wiki article once for a school project.

once you get past the meme veneer I find him pretty enjoyable to read. He uses a lot of anachronistic words which really tickles me. I got to use the word fuliginous in casual conversation the other day and it made me absolutely giddy.

>>9403660
I'm talking about the people who know him by osmosis, and who make most of the normie chatter.

>>9401150
wrong, he's normie as fuck

people like him for the same reason they like surface-level 'nerd' culture and 4th rate horror flicks. >>9401101 is absolutely right.

>>9401101
This aspie is correct

>>9401101
Pretty accurate desu. What the public is attracted to is basically the Cthulhu memes and the constructed idea of that being the essence of "ultimate cosmic horror". It's a capitalistic brand. None of them have actually read any of his stories.

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I genuinely enjoy reading Lovecraft. One of my guilty pleasures. I just like things that are otherworldly and bizarre.

>>9403610
Not at all friend

>>9401033
He basically became public domain right when the big bang theory got popular on TV, and everyone decided they were nerds. So since he'd just gone public domain, every gaming company in the world made a cthulu themed game. Now he's synonymous with "I'm such a nerd" types.

To be honest, I like what he's done for horror (though some say he's ruined it).

Things that are beyond our comprehension are fucking radical. Things that exist beyond time and space and are maddening to even speak of are radical.

>>9403761
are they also tubular?

>>9403777
Radical, tubular, and some new little diddy that I've come up with which combines radical and cool. I call it, "Radicool."

There was a thread this morning with other mother asking me why i allienate myself from normies. I think this anon really nailed it

>>9401101
>>9403794
Forgot to reply

>>9403781
I don't think you came up with that at all. Radicool is older than my pubes. I'm 40.

>>9403808
I came up with it. Everyone but me is a spook.

Lovecraft is actually pretty cool. If you don't like him because of his popularity, why not just ignore him like James Patterson or Grisham?

Reminder that anyone who pronounces it "Ku-thoo-koo" is a normieeeeeeee!

>https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/698781/hp-lovecraft-explains-how-pronounce-cthulhu

>>9401101
wow son you ANGERY etc.

>>9403738
>foward

His writings speak of Spirit without the packaging that most normies hate.

Lovecraft's Godhead is the Demiurge, by the way.

>>9403821
because plushies sell? Why isn't Ligotti, 10 times the writer HPL is, more popular?

>>9406164
He's an atheists and his 'gods' are space aliens.

>>9406866
how much of a pleb can you be

>>9401033
because his writing is mediocre and it makes normies feel smart

>>9401033
Normies are all secretly racist

>>9403610
please don't worry if the book is "for normies"

>>9401101
Kys Kys kys

I'm balls deep in this nigga right now and I can tell you that he has almost 0 substance in a heartbeat. It's just scary stories, period. Even though masterfully executed, just scary stories.

However what's really different about him is that he leaves a lot of space for you to imagine things, picture vistas in your head by yourself based on subtle markers that he placed for you.

Also you can enjoy it on a meta-level where you watch what strings he pulls to make you scared, what tricks he uses.

because all horror is normie shit.

>>9401101
You forget the recent insurgence of nerds getting mad at him for being a staunch racist.

>>9410434
If you want to see how numales treat classics, just read foreword to Mines of King Solomon. Basically Rider Haggard is this icky, shitty person but we can somewhat ignore it because - poor he! - he did not know any better, dumb colonial white male.

>>9411323
>"icky"
Opinion disregarded. Fuck you.

>>9411574
I see I conveyed the tone rather well.

>>9408139
So then they just like the "nigger man" in "Rats in the Walls"