F*ck the General Audience
by Managing Editor Is Curtis
“I don’t get it” is probably one of the worst things you can hear in your first MFA workshop. It hits right in the corner of the brain that I believe exists in all writers; the one that spirals, convincing us that we’re a talentless hack when, in reality, we probably just need to go to bed. But this wasn’t night-induced anxiety; this was a death null issued by my own classmate.
I write about pop culture, a lot. I’m a journalist by trade and entered my MFA having never written about myself before. What was I even supposed to say? I had whittled away my teen years scrolling through social media and obsessing over low-budget network television. So, when tasked with the personal essay, I brought in what I knew: ruminations on how Rick Riordan’s middle-grade classic Heroes of Olympus helped me discover my sexuality, deep dives into queer sports anime Yuri on Ice’s significance in Trump’s America, and my middle-school opinions on the Emo Holy Trinity. If you know, you know.
And that’s when I received the dreaded: “I don’t get it,” paired with no other feedback. Not even a misplaced comma was noted. My whole piece had been written off. This was not an isolated incident. Multiple essays, multiple workshops. Even some of my professors prodded my choice of subject manner. What about the general audience? They’d ask.
The truth is that pop culture is esoteric by nature. It’s considered vapid and lowbrow until it isn’t, with many franchises never passing the threshold of mainstream acceptability to become an integral part of the cultural canon. Not everyone can be Star Wars, nor should they have to be. Why shouldn’t I write about the impact Supernatural’s Dean Winchester played in discovering my gender identity just because he’s a character housed in a shitty low-budget television show? If the parts of our lives worthy of artistic reproduction (and examination) were determined by their popularity on IMDb things would get fairly limiting, fairly quickly.
The irony is that not even Star Wars can live up to its own perceived ubiquity. Media, even those that achieve so-called canonical status, are still beholden to the personal factors that must align to pique an individual’s interest in them, and the resulting reactions upon consumption exist on a scale of their own. Most people may have a passing appreciation for a galaxy far, far away, but only a select few are writing essays canonizing Luke Skywalker as their personal gay (or asexual) icon.
So, what about the general audience? Fuck the general audience. It doesn’t even really exist. Why should writers twist ourselves around to cater to a perceived consumer base (who probably isn’t going to engage with our work anyway)? This applies not just to pop culture writing, but to any material that veers from “highbrow” western literary traditions. I’ve stopped worrying about people who don’t understand my work. It’s much more rewarding to find people that do and cultivate that niche. If you’re willing to write it, then chances are someone is going to love to read it.
Is Curtis recently received their MFA in Nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire. A long-term denizen of the internet, they are currently working on an essay collection examining the intersections of gender, sexuality, and pop culture. You can find their work in Identity Theory, and Penumbra Online. They also can be found on Twitter at @iscurtis9