This guy was named pretty often on Veeky Forums...

This guy was named pretty often on Veeky Forums, I just wanted to ask you guys if you think he's actually good or not and why :D

Other urls found in this thread:

rhizome.org/editorial/2012/mar/27/tao-lin/
goodreads.com/review/list/89893-tao?sort=rating&view=reviews
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Yeah, best author ever. Go read his books and follow my twitter

He is better than Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Homer and John Green put together. He is the greatest writer who ever lived in this or any universe. A million years from now robots in every galaxy will still be reading "Shoplifting From American Apparel."

So, yeah, he's actually not good -- he's GREATGREATGREATGREATGREAT!

I don't care what any of these other pretentious pricks on this board say about him, Taipei was possibly the greatest thing I've ever read.

I have read bed? Taipei and Richard Yates. They were all shit. But I read a lot so I dont mind duds every once and a while. I give him credit for owning stupid hipster dude drugs but Richard fatina does it right.

why do you consider them shit?

He's an bad imitator of James Purdy and Ann Beattie.

Why is he so woke now?
Too many drugs?

he's
just an epic meme today!

>non white
Do you really have to ask?

literally who?

Go back to bed, Tao

Remember when he used Veeky Forums to buy drugs?

I like him. His work isn't mindblowing, but he's sincere and dedicated to his own path. Richard Yates fucking sucked, Taipei was pretty good. Trip promises to be interesting,

Bed was absolutely God-tier, Eeeee, eee, eeee was great, Shoplifting was okay, Richard Yates was good, Taipei was good, and everything after has been absolutely disgusting dogshit.

>a post about tao
>yet another series of people listing his books with one-word opinions
>some character judgments here and there

i swear tao makes all of these and then responds to himself a dozen or so times before vanishing again. go to bed tao.

What sort of books does he write? Like what style, what subjects interest him? I saw him on TV once and it was about him publishing his tweets in a book which left a pretty bad impression, but maybe I’m completely wrong.

Richard Yates's obsessive impartiality and "objective" prose is interesting. The dull yet painful effect of reading it works as an authentic rendering of depression. Of course, it was still a dull and painful book to read.

In this sense, the book is maybe admirable, but it certainly doesn't justify rereading.

Taipei, on the other hand, while still disassociated and impartial, was filled with dense observation that spoke to a certain will-to-life in spite of alienation. It's a much more giving book.

At what point did you start responding to this chatter?

>I never really responded. Maybe for like 30% of the threads I'll say something. Like if they're talking about Muumuu house, I'll put a link to Mummu house and say, "Hey, it's Tao, go here."

What's different about the chatter on the Veeky Forums board than some other board? Is it all trollish or is there actually interesting commentary?

>[long pause]. I like the tone more, usually.

Is it interesting because it comes from outside a media elite world?

>[long pause] I think it's more of a joke. That's what I like reading.

Do you think of yourself as a meme on Veeky Forums?

>No.

During our interview, I fielded some questions from Veeky Forums and asked Lin to respond.

"Ask him how he has overcome his autism."

>I really like the autism meme. It's really funny.

"Is his next novel about Veeky Forums?"

>No. Though I had an idea to title it Veeky Forums as a complete non sequiter.

"Ask him why he just doesn't come out and say: 'Hey Veeky Forums! Tao here! Let's talk about books!' and instead has made no less than a thousand threads here more along the lines of: 'heehee no one knows it's me but if I keep posting it I'll be the Jeff Mangum of Veeky Forums[1] heehee, hey Megan Boyle[2] you make threads too and you too intern heeheehee I'm a fucking faggot.'

>[nervous laughter]

Source:
rhizome.org/editorial/2012/mar/27/tao-lin/

Go to bed Tao

>[nervous laughter]
topjej

Two years ago, Veeky Forums's administrator added a literature board, or, Veeky Forums, to the fifty or so extant forums. It was an immediate personal thrill to see the often puerile tone of Veeky Forums's boards used to describe Dostoyevsky, for instance. The content on the Veeky Forums board proved what I'd always suspected about Veeky Forums in general— that it's populated by genuinely smart folks who feign stupidity in order to crack each other up. Being on Veeky Forums is a sort of meta-game, a performance art in which everyone tries to be more offensive, funny, shocking, clever, or otherwise fascinating than everyone else in the room.

Still, the Veeky Forums board demonstrates Veeky Forums's overwhelming geekiness, with sci-fi and fantasy discussion taking up much more of the board's pages than you might see anywhere else. Which is why I was caught off guard when I saw Tao Lin's name referenced there, as opposed to Ray Bradbury or Ayn Rand. According to the board's users, Veeky Forums hates Tao Lin because they claim he uses the board to plug his work, which flies in the face of the site's culture of pure anonymity. They also hate him because he's an NYC hipster artfag.

Did you continue looking at it semi-regularly?

>No. Not until I got Google alerts from people talking about me. Every thread from the beginning, the second or third comment would be like, "Get out of here, Tao." and it wasn't me.

Nice try Tao but you're not fooling anyond

>tao lin is better than John Green
Low effort bait dessus, everybody knows that there is John Green and there is the rest of the world

for the past few years Veeky Forums is where 90% of the Tao Lin references are on the entire interwebs.

if this is the place where your fans are, how many books can you really sell

The earlier novels/poetry are alright.
Yates/Shoplifting/Taipei are really only enjoyable if you're >17 years old and not very good at all from a lit perspective (give or take some decent passages). Richard Yates also has a detestable self-insert that paints him as a real fuck.
I'd be curious to read the nonfiction that he's been putting together, not sure if that McKenna book is out yet.

He's better than Mira and that other fat girl who is now a whore, but that's not saying much.

Rate his list, Veeky Forums
goodreads.com/review/list/89893-tao?sort=rating&view=reviews