The Age of Sentimental Schlock
...Is that all there is?...
There’s a certain kind of language very pervasive online, but particularly on Substack, that profoundly annoys me. Mostly because of its ubiquity and repetitiveness, but also because it’s drenched in a level of saccharine that rarely comes across as genuine. What it reads like instead is a calculated performance of sentimentality manufactured to pander to popular sentiment. And while I don’t doubt real people are writing it, its sheer omnipresence has made it feel less like the work of a 21st century human being and more like the output of an artificial intelligence system specifically customized to speak in the overwrought parlance of a 19th-century Victorian poet.
It’s hope-core, fairy-core, cottage-core, Sylvia Plath-Virginia Woolf-core, sunflowers-and-tulips-core, 35mm-photos-featuring-a-copy-of-One Hundred Years of Solitude-or-The Alchemist-resting-delicately-on-an-unmade-bed-with-crumpled-sheets-and-a-cup-of-coffee-backlit-by-sunlight-peering-through-a-cracked-window-with-a-stray-pink-ribbon-and-flower-petal-peeking-out-from-the-corner-core. (Etc.)
Sometimes I’ll start reading an essay that sounds interesting and by the second sentence it’ll feel like a Sisyphean task just to wade through the copious amounts of maudlin schlock and pre-chewed platitudes before reaching the purported point.
I posted a note a few days ago that included a list of words, imagery, archetypal titles, and other general miscellany to illustrate what I meant. Please see an updated version below.
ONLINE MAUDLIN SCHLOCK I HATE (UPDATED):
The words “YEARN,” “MUSE,” and “MUSINGS”
I have nothing against these words themselves—it’s simply the number of times they’ve been used that’s made them particularly untenable.
Anything of the “30 Things I Learned By 30” sort
These are always so preachy, which is rich when the kernels of wisdom offered are typically some of the least revelatory and most commonly repeated truisms of all time.
I recently saw one that offered the following before the rest was locked behind a paywall:
“Rest isn’t genuine rest if your phone is in front of your face.”
The words “QUIET,” “SOFT,” “GENTLE,” and “SLOW” as modifiers. Recent examples include:
“Slow reading as an act of quiet rebellion”
“Quiet living” / “Soft living”
“The soft, slow magic of getting to know yourself”
“The gentle rebellion of a slow life”
“The quiet ache of being”
“Gentle noticers” (to describe shy people who are observant)
“Slow dopamine”
“ROMANTICIZING”
This one hardly requires further explanation, although I did just see a great one which suggested “romanticizing journaling” as a “radical act of self-love.”
Pieces titled “What My ___ Taught Me About Grief” because, again, this is just another self-sermon. Rather than simply pairing the subject at hand with the word “grief” and letting it speak for itself, the focus had to remain on “ME!”
Rosewater / rose petals
This one can’t really be described in words because it’s more of a vibe. (Thank you.)
Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion (etc.) invoked as an aesthetic rather than in reference to their work
Unless you’re speaking about these people for who they were and what they wrote rather than just using them as vehicles to curate a moodboard, please let these poor women rest.
Anything that references “unsent letters” as a melancholic, antiquated aesthetic
This one’s astonishing if only for the fact that it’s mostly used by people born in the year 2000 and after who probably have no idea that people used to lick the back of envelopes to seal them.
“The feminine urge to ___”
The only proper way to use this one (besides not doing it at all) is when it’s done sarcastically.
“Give yourself permission to ___”
This one destroys me because it assumes everyone is sitting around waiting for some internal clearance to do the most mundane things imaginable, like going on a walk. (I’ve seen multiple people earnestly grant their readers permission to walk.)
“What I Learned After Deleting My Instagram” / “What I Learned After Getting Off Social Media”
This one is especially rich because it’ll be someone pontificating, in what they believe is something akin to the transcendental detachment of a Buddhist monk, about rising above the addiction of being online while doing so—bet your boots!—online.
My criticism of all this isn’t just about sentimentality or even the language itself, it’s the superficiality of it. I’m talking about the false sincerity that comes off so treacly because it’s masquerading as authenticity. I’m not criticizing the personal aspect—I’m criticizing the shallowness.
There’s a difference between talking about yourself as a conduit to something larger and talking about yourself in a way that leads nowhere beyond the immediate self. I’m referring to the use of “I” and “me” that doesn’t explore anything broader because it just circles around itself endlessly. There’s rarely an “and” after “I” and “me” because “I” and “me” is the whole story.
People use this language to make you think you’re being invited into their inner world, but the only thing you’re really being invited to do is to look at them while they perform looking inward.
Someone who truly believes in the tenets and importance of “slow living” wouldn’t, to be sure, be on the internet posting about it. Someone who actually wanted to improve their mental health by spending less time online wouldn’t come online to preach about it to an audience.
I come across so many of these self-congratulatory, self-pitying, yearning-for-a-better-life, holier-than-thou “LOOK AT ME AND WHAT I DID” pieces and after a while all I can think about is Narcissus gazing down into his reflection—which, on its own, is kind of a romantic image until you remember it was that very self-obsession that destroyed him.
My purpose in being a Hater isn’t to ask anyone to change or to tell anyone to stop (Lord knows I couldn’t even if I wanted to), but just to point out something I’ve (“I”!!!!!) noticed.
Ironically, there are many self-obsessed people I enjoy, but the thing with them is they either have a level of self-awareness about it or else they truly just don’t give a fuck—something I’ll always respect!!!!!
What I’m criticizing is the kind of self-involvement that either doesn’t know it’s self-involved or pretends not to be. The kind that masquerades as wisdom or sermonizes.
Now, in the spirit of sermonizing, let me leave you with these two great and applicable excerpts from Tom Wolfe’s essay, “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening.”
Namaste, yearners.
Also all the notes that start with “unpopular opinion:” and then say something that everyone agrees with like “we don’t wanna work anymore.” 😆
This rings so true! I noticed this too - for me the most annoying thing is the kind of language that seems to say "look at me and what I did" almost like a child and like waiting for a pat on the back and an assurance, "yes, you did great".
It seems social media in general reinforces this behaviour. It could also be that I have been guilty of this too. It's one of those things, once you see it you can't unsee it and it appears everywhere!