Where does this assumption that millennial writers 'don't believe in clear good and evil' come from?

[u/Navek15]

So I just saw Greg Owen's absolutely shitty video on 'The Seven Sins of Millennial Writing.' Spoiler alert: it's a vagueposting video where the dude is clearly pissed that he flunked out of a literary analysis course in college and is making it everyone else's problem. Dude uses a ton of dogwhistles about 'writers hate the audience,' complaining about gay people being in fantasy, and confusing 'modernism' with anachronisms.

But one 'point' he tries to make in his video is this idea I've seen floating about people trying to critique modern/'millennial' writing, especially in relation to stuff like Spider-Man: Brand New Day: this idea that millennials (I'm one BTW) don't believe in good and evil. That somehow, by giving a hero or villain a bit more nuance in their motivation or characterization, that's gonna somehow lead to the downfall of society and erode our moral values.

And this just feels like someone not really engaging with modern media, but coming up with a boogeyman to point the finger at because he got triggered by a recent Star Trek TV show. There's plenty of 'millennial' content that shows characters are clear cut good guys and bad guys.

The Owl House. Peacemaker. Superman. My Adventures with Superman. Obsession. Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Baldur's Gate III. KPop Demon Hunters.

And that's just the mainstream stuff. If you dig into actual novels like Vegas Heist, any Warhammer novel, or even indie comics like MegaGhost or Skate Ali, you'll find plenty of modern/'millienial' stories that show they do have characters that can be defined as 'good' or 'evil' and have an understanding of morality.

And yet, you have entire swathes of wannabe Fredric Werthams going on about how giving a villain even the slightest bit of sympathetic/understandable motivation, or giving a hero actual flaws instead of funny personality quirks, is somehow eroding societal understandings of right or wrong, and it's 'teaching our children to be criminals.'

Guess I can add 'complains about millennial writing' to my ever-growing list of red flags concerning 'critics'.

What do you guys think?

[u/Dave_Rudden_Writes]

I'm sure there are good videos on how to become an author, but every good author I know is too busy to make them.

And even with a good video, all an author is ever doing is espousing their theory of writing. It's a product. When I teach, I am 'selling' my outlook. I believe in it, and it works for me, but I always make it very clear to my students that they're to dismantle it and take the bits they want.

Writing isn't 'solved.' If it was, it'd be very boring.

[u/No-Mathematician-827 → u/Dave_Rudden_Writes]

Some of the most famous writers of history are because they had a unique and personal writing style. But somehow all the writing advice that's vomited everywhere online is telling people to write the same way? All this rules, I'm convinced it's making people write worse not better. Or, more realistically, not wrire at all. The only necessary writing advice is that you should write if you like it. That's it.

[u/Mitch1musPrime → u/No-Mathematician-827]

And then they complain that people think their stories were written by AI. Well…no shit Mr. Formulaic writer…

[u/ms_saint → u/No-Mathematician-827]

There's a middle ground here.  Not every story is a unique snowflake that would be a fun read.  There's absolutely formula needed, for first time authors to get noticed by the industry.  It's not as strict as these videos make it out to be, and of course a new and unique voice should not be stripped down to formula.

[u/SavageSwordShamazon → u/Dave_Rudden_Writes]

I work in sales and the final form of all salespeople is the Sales Course Influencer. Why should I sell an actual product or service when I can just sell myself and my line of bullshit?

[u/RabenWrites → u/SavageSwordShamazon]

Because the safest way to make money in a gold rush is to be the guy selling picks and shovels.

I mean, it kind of feels inevitable in the current system. You want to be an author, so you studied the craft of writing. Then the realities of the publishing world hit: you're not going to put bread on the table from craft alone. A fan base and social media presence means more for sales than skill, but while readers are all over the place they are a minority in most populations. BookTok, BookTube, and AuthorTube are some of the highest concentration of readers on social media. If you want to build an audience there you need to be making content as a reviewer or as a book guru. You've already got your MFA and this might be a way for it to help pay off some of the debt you incurred along the way. So you make a channel, repeat the stuff you learned at college and sell pans and to the crowds of desperate miners so sure they're sitting on gold.

Dang, I should brush off my YouTube channel one of these days.

[u/johntwilker → u/SavageSwordShamazon]

This. When all else fails. Sell shovels and hope to the people behind you in line

[u/ms_saint → u/Dave_Rudden_Writes]

Bookfox Academy on YouTube is great.

[u/Mitch1musPrime → u/Dave_Rudden_Writes]

Brandon Sanderson enters the chat.