I usually refer to this as the Fight Club Effect, but is there another name for it?:
Basically, that the Message of your story isn’t what you can argue in a paper, or how you wrap up the last 5 minutes or whatever—the Message is whatever most people’s takeaway is.
Conversation
Like in fight club, you can say that there were messages about the absurdity and hypocrisy of countercultural movements, or that the end of the movie confirms that Tyler is the bad guy, not admirable, etc,
1
1
22
but the people walking away from that movie overwhelmingly had the takeaway that they need to be more countercultural, that Tyler was right, that society needs to be punished and destroyed, etc.
2
29
Replying to
tvtropes call this “do not do this cool thing” which i’ve always loved as a name for it. the torment nexus tweet captured something related really well:
Quote Tweet
Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus
also this discussion
Quote Tweet
“focus your energy on what you want to see more of” has some distressing implications for the whole genre of dystopian fiction. it suggests that dystopian fiction doesn’t successfully act as a warning, and if anything makes dystopias look cooler, more familiar, more thinkable
Show this thread
1
5
This is a big part of it, but sth closer to like… a bit of indeterminacy or unskillfulness about where your time and energy are focused. *thinking* it’s focused on one thing, but not realizing that it’s unintentionally on sth else
2
3
Show replies