Comment by magic_hamster
Comment by magic_hamster 10 hours ago
The sense of self importance and overanalysis in this writeup on a silly book called "Crap Towns" is almost as hilarious as the book itself.
I still think the idea of the book is funny. There's a certain art to taking something bad and hilariously describing its terribleness. For some reason this has always made me laugh, but honestly not everyone gets it, and this has always been the case.
This kind of book can only happen in a place and a community with enough confidence and stability to handle it. Of course you can "get away" with it today, it's easier than ever to publish just about anything - but humor has changed and I don't expect it to go "viral" the way it did. Not all old jokes age well and we have all made products that no longer fit after some time.
But the author, oh boy. Dear sir, your tongue in cheek picturebook from 20 years ago is not as important as you imagine.
It’s probably very important to the author, though, in the sense that it shaped their life and clearly became briefly very famous. So I don’t think it’s particularly fair to snipe at them for writing a reflective blog post about that. It’s not like you have to read it.