It seems to me that something has been lost: a distinction. Nuance. Things get lumped together, sometimes fairly, sometimes otherwise. Much is lost when we generalize. Let’s talk about art and writing for a minute.
All art crosses boundaries. It transgresses. Poetry—I like to use the words “art” and “poetry” somewhat interchangeably, a main idea that I’m sure I’ve extemporized on elsewhere—finds overlaps between things. Likenesses, samenesses. That’s where we get all our tropes* from. Sometimes this normal, everyday process of poetic trespass is shocking or offensive to delicate sensibilities.
The distinction I want to make here is between what I’ll call “edgy” and “incendiary” work. Both types can be shocking or offensive. But there’s a difference in content and intent. Keep in mind that these are just my opinions and I don’t purport to speak for anyone other than myself.
The word “edgy” has a variety of connotations now in the early ‘20s. But let’s think of it as a concept and not just a word and expand on it for a minute. One way of looking at it might be “cutting edge,” i.e. “avant garde.” It’s work that’s out at the forefront. The vanguard in a battle is the row of men with spears who are the first to break through enemy lines, the first to be sacrificed and lose their lives, who fearlessly rush toward death for whatever cause they believe it is they’re fighting for. If you look at it that way, avant garde or edgy work is admirable. Courageous. That’s generally what critics meant a hundred years ago when they talked about the avant garde.
Fast forward to the early 21st and we get edgelords. Here we can make a distinction between the courage of an artist who pushes boundaries and the bravado of the keyboard warrior, safe in his room somewhere, a cutter who doesn’t care if he cuts himself or someone else.
Let’s contrast that with Lorca, who lost his life to the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Federico Garcia Lorca was a surrealist and a poet and queer. He’s regarded as one of Spain’s greatest poets. He was a bright, burning light in a dark time. His life was cut short when he was executed by Franco’s men. His life and work were incendiary.
What does that have to do with edgelords? Very little. By my definition, the edgelord is a poseur. His** utterances exist for mere attention seeking and lack real substance. His positions are taken up for their shock affect and little if anything more. He’s desperate for any attention he can get at all, even if he’s attacked, or maybe especially if he’s attacked. His arguments are shallow and weak.
So why make a distinction at all? This matters to me because the energy, the fire, the burning is something that matters, something I value. It’s necessary. If artists are afraid to offend then they resort to safer tactics and risk nothing. Of course I don’t think anyone’s going to look back at the life and work of an artist of Lorca’s stature and call him an edgelord, unless they’re trying to be edgy. But the contrast between work that has substance and courage and breaks real boundaries and takes real risks and work that’s just made to provoke and offend is clear and ought to be delineated so that the embers don’t burn out but instead are stoked and bring us the cleansing catharsis and healing and animus inherent in their heat.
Los Angeles
April 29, 2023
*tropes, meaning similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech, not the repeated, formulaic clichés that stink up “cultural” products meant for mass production.
**I refer to edgelords in the masculine because they tend to be dudes.