No, no, that makes perfect sense to me. I was reading an interesting comment the other day that really hit me: do people like mediocre and even bad things because they don't know or haven't learned how to differentiate between the two? Especially when what is understood to be "good" is generally considered such because of whatever criteria are applied to that subject. Like, with sciences and maths, it's much easier--does this formula work? No, okay it's not good, let's re-work it so it works. This experiment failed, why did it fail, how can we make it better?, etc.
With literature and fiction, usually "bad" things fall into pretty broad categories like "poor mechanics, unreadable" or something like "poor world building/too many plot holes." Things like that. With something like Twilight, where on pretty much every available metric for good writing the thing itself fails, it succeeds because people like it. This is something about reader response theory that I have never really understood fully, and it bothers me because I do not understand it (especially as a person with, what I consider, a generally high taste level that also enjoys bad things sometimes). I'm not a writer, but I can't imagine how difficult it is to parse comments from those people who like a lot of bad things and stumble onto something good and also like it.
(Also, apparently I don't remember how to reply to things.)
I think generally speaking most people are EXTREMELY easy to please? Most people don't create anything and find it magical that someone else does create something -- I'm like that with artwork, for example. I can't draw to save my life so even though I draw the line at obviously BAD art, sometimes artists I follow will make fun of/disparage some art style and I'll go look at it and be lke "but this is incredibly beautiful?" I think when you don't know how to do something it's much easier to have lower standards in it. ^^;
And it also has to do with availability of "good" (vs mediocre/bad) material, generally speaking. Like, some of the smaller fandoms I'm in, many popular fics are atrocious by HP fandom standards but because there just isn't very much fic to choose from at all, and most of it is written by complete beginners, the general quality standards are much lower. At the very least they're lower than what I'm used to in HP so very often I have to grit my teeth and drastically lower my expectations if I just want to see my OTP doing cute things (or just write it myself, which is obviously not ideal).
And with something like Twilight, which is essentially an example of a fan fiction-without-a-canon featuring the pairing Hot Guy/Heterosexual Female Reader (because let's face it, Bella's complete lack of character is what makes her the ideal stand-in for ANY young woman her age). And Hot Canon Dude/Reader fanfic is ridiculously popular because it's just pure fantasy wish-fulfilment.
With literature and fiction, usually "bad" things fall into pretty broad categories like "poor mechanics, unreadable" or something like "poor world building/too many plot holes." Things like that. With something like Twilight, where on pretty much every available metric for good writing the thing itself fails, it succeeds because people like it. This is something about reader response theory that I have never really understood fully, and it bothers me because I do not understand it (especially as a person with, what I consider, a generally high taste level that also enjoys bad things sometimes). I'm not a writer, but I can't imagine how difficult it is to parse comments from those people who like a lot of bad things and stumble onto something good and also like it.
(Also, apparently I don't remember how to reply to things.)
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And it also has to do with availability of "good" (vs mediocre/bad) material, generally speaking. Like, some of the smaller fandoms I'm in, many popular fics are atrocious by HP fandom standards but because there just isn't very much fic to choose from at all, and most of it is written by complete beginners, the general quality standards are much lower. At the very least they're lower than what I'm used to in HP so very often I have to grit my teeth and drastically lower my expectations if I just want to see my OTP doing cute things (or just write it myself, which is obviously not ideal).
And with something like Twilight, which is essentially an example of a fan fiction-without-a-canon featuring the pairing Hot Guy/Heterosexual Female Reader (because let's face it, Bella's complete lack of character is what makes her the ideal stand-in for ANY young woman her age). And Hot Canon Dude/Reader fanfic is ridiculously popular because it's just pure fantasy wish-fulfilment.
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