You're an author. You understand the highs and lows of the writing process. So is it OK to review the books of other authors? How about to bash the books of other authors?
At this point I don't think there is a viable defense for Carron or his oeuvre - this wasn't even the worst one in the last week (blackface). This has been a long standing issue without any editorial control or guidance.
I think that social media has degraded the authority of reviews such as these. The New York Review of Books, NYT books section, et al seem to have lost ground to apps like Goodreads, Amazon reviews and the echo chamber of Facebook and Xwitter.
I write restaurant reviews on a freelance basis for my upstate New York daily. I'm told my reviews are well-received and I get good traffic, but there are local Facebook food groups where "reviews" are posted and they get some traction and conversation. I get to a restaurant every five years or so, but Facebookers can post limitlessly about one restaurant over time.
Craft beer is another space where this is a thing. While beer media is out there reviewing beers, beer drinkers check an app called Untappd -- powered by crowd-sourced reviews -- when making decisions. Ask a brewer what they really think of Untappd and you'll get some four letter words.
New Deadspin is a mess. They cover the intersections of gender and race in sports, but they do no original reporting, and many of their arguments hinge on all sorts of common fallacies (whataboutism, false equivalencies, emotional appeals, cherry picking, etc etc). They get facts wrong, big and small. The quality of writing often resembles high school research papers, or even stream of conscious rants. I'm fascinated with what is going on there.
At this point I don't think there is a viable defense for Carron or his oeuvre - this wasn't even the worst one in the last week (blackface). This has been a long standing issue without any editorial control or guidance.
https://nypost.com/2023/12/08/news/deadspin-tweaks-story-on-9-year-old-chiefs-fans-blackface
Re: book reviews.
I think that social media has degraded the authority of reviews such as these. The New York Review of Books, NYT books section, et al seem to have lost ground to apps like Goodreads, Amazon reviews and the echo chamber of Facebook and Xwitter.
I write restaurant reviews on a freelance basis for my upstate New York daily. I'm told my reviews are well-received and I get good traffic, but there are local Facebook food groups where "reviews" are posted and they get some traction and conversation. I get to a restaurant every five years or so, but Facebookers can post limitlessly about one restaurant over time.
Craft beer is another space where this is a thing. While beer media is out there reviewing beers, beer drinkers check an app called Untappd -- powered by crowd-sourced reviews -- when making decisions. Ask a brewer what they really think of Untappd and you'll get some four letter words.
Anyhow, it's a thought. Back to lunch.
New Deadspin is a mess. They cover the intersections of gender and race in sports, but they do no original reporting, and many of their arguments hinge on all sorts of common fallacies (whataboutism, false equivalencies, emotional appeals, cherry picking, etc etc). They get facts wrong, big and small. The quality of writing often resembles high school research papers, or even stream of conscious rants. I'm fascinated with what is going on there.
I feel like the answer to Musing #3 should be obvious. And then I thought about it for a minute and ended up right where you did. So, um....thanks?