sure. wait. what?

I NEED something quick and easy to write about tonight, so why not share some of the webpages that are currently saved in my browser’s bookmark bar?

Have you read Tom Crewe’s scathing takedown of Ocean Vuong in LRB? Scathing is an understatement, actually.

This language is not poetic, but ridiculous, sententious, blinded by self-love and pirouetting over a chasm. Vuong trivialises his subjects by refusing to look at them directly, to describe them patiently; he seems not to trust the strength of his own material, or the perceptions of the reader.

I mean…woah. I myself have never read any of Ocean Vuong’s works but, still. Woah.

From literary takedown to literary weirdness: try this short-short story called “Our Tap Water Usually Tastes like Hedgehog” by John Jodzio on Split Lip. I read it a loooong time ago and thought it was worth keeping.

And then there’s this one NYT piece about a man who thought he’d unlocked a major discovery in physics after a series of conversations with ChatGPT. The man ended up messaging folks on LinkedIn because he genuinely believed he was onto something — spoiler alert: he wasn’t. It was purely a case of ChatGPT-induced delulu-ness.

Sycophancy, in which chatbots agree with and excessively praise users, is a trait they’ve manifested partly because their training involves human beings rating their responses. “Users tend to like the models telling them that they’re great, and so it’s quite easy to go too far in that direction,” Ms. Toner said.

This is why I don’t treat ChatGPT as a confidant, no matter how tempting it is. If only therapy wasn’t that expensive, eh?

Lastly (because I am dozing off here; it’s almost midnight), Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic asks, “Is This the Worst Ever Era of American Pop Culture?”

I thought about writing a post on this recent allegation of “social stultification” but, meh. I didn’t have much to add except that I feel old, creaky bones and all, having witnessed the same accusation resurface in different forms over the years.

For instance, when I was a teenager, a Filipino newspaper columnist declared the death of OPM, sparking outrage among indie kids who insisted that the scene was alive and thriving as they name-dropped the obscure bands known only to them and their three other friends. Bra-vo.

There’s more American pop culture examples in the Kornhaber essay, which also provides better context on how and why this pessimism comes about. Maybe I’ll write something meatier about this one day, but definitely not tonight. I’m typing this with my eyes barely open and my spirit half-asleep, so…okay? Alright.