So what's the point of critics?To categorize stuff?
Yes. They give their opinions, and if you identify with their opinions, you'll want to read what they find interesting/good readings.
>>25399849Everyone's a critic. Literally. But how many people have opinions you care to hear? Secondarily, people have lives, jobs. How do you get the time to review thousands of pieces of media? You're either unemployed, or you make a living as a critic. These days those bleed into each other with Youtube fags and similar trying to make booze money with their bloviating. Used to be they had more of a gatekeeping power, if you were the literary critic for the NYT you could swing your dick around a bit, because it meant sales, which means people have to suck up to you. Pretty much all that shit's by the wayside now.
>>25399849They were meant to be people who evaluated the technical level of a work.At some point they became glorified advertisers or, at worst, opinionated retards. Good critics still exist, but they are a minority and deemed problematic for valuing the substance and style of a work over political correct content.
>>25399849They follow threads, contextualize things, tie ends together, do active research, unearth archives, ask good questions, might propose a theory, and they typically leave you with a greater understanding of not only the piece of art they're tackling but of this place and time at large.Guys like Northrop Frye or Owen Barfield were real critics. It sounds pretentious but reading their works really feels like they're trying to figure out how human consciousness expresses itself and casts its net over the world through art. The fuckhead in your OP or Roger Ebert for example were reviewers, they paid to write small columns to guide a consumer into spending money on a product. It's a completely different ballgame. To compare someone like Ebert to a Siegfried Kracauer or even an Enrico Ghezzi is just pointless. But engaging with quality criticism is necessary, even if you end up completely disagreeing with the author's approach or his conclusions.
>>25399849To tell normies how to think about things so that they don't accidentally think for themselves
>>25401069>How do you get the time to review thousands of pieces of media? You're either unemployed, or you make a living as a critic.Sums it up nicely
>>25401265/thread
>>25399849*summon kant*critiqiu
>>25401265But what if thats what you want them to do?
I think criticism is worthless unless it at least attempts to increase your appreciation for something or to make you view it from a different perspective. This is probably why music critics like your pic related are so frequently mocked. All they do is offer their opinion and nothing more. It's valueless. What does Christgau have in common with a genuine literary critic? Nothing at all.
A critic attempts to explain what a literary work means and how it works. For some, this means "critique" of the society of which it is an expression, while others take it in a more scientific or humanistic sense of just showing how literature functions. Critics might be academics or they might be writers.A reviewer is someone who evaluates literary works and attempts to say whether it is successful or not at what it attempts. Often they do this for new works. They are often writers themselves and sometimes get published in newspapers and magazines.There is a fine line between the functions of the critic and reviewer, but they do stand out as very separate groups.Readers can benefit from reading critics and reviewers to understand what they read and literature as a whole better. A reviewer can also let you know whether you think you'll think a book is worth your time or not. A critic is someone you should be reading once you're already familiar with the work they're analyzing, generally speaking.
>>25403859Oh and also, Christgau is an obnoxious prick and his books (especially his memoir) suck ass.
to cut through the vile tendrils of cult behavior and modern "fandom" and evaluate with a critical eye of a professional reader sit the FUCK down tolkien and sci fi readers
>>25399849ps2 rock band guitar hero algorithm
>>25399849>>25404255Go shit up your own board
