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[aeslinnreads]

"(...) what do we do about the monstrous people we love?"

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"We are left with feelings. We are left with love. Our love for the art, a love that illuminates and magnifies our world. We love whether we want to or not — just as the stain happens, whether we want it to or not."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"Condemnation of the cancelled celebrity affirms the idea that there is some positive celebrity who does not have the stain of the cancelled celebrity. The bad celebrity, once again, reinforces the idea of the good celebrity, a thing that doesn't exist, because celebrities are not agents of morality, they're reproducible images."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"We attempt to enact morality through using our judgment when we buy stuff, but our judgment doesn't make us better consumers — it actually makes us more trapped in the spectacle, because we believe we have control over it."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"Liberalism wants you to turn your gaze away from the system and focus instead on the importance of your choices. In late-stage capitalism, this individual choice becomes irreparably soldered to consumer choice. What you consume is what you are. You are, after all, your fandom."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"We (...) have all been that boy, who thinks he's free as he's hurting himself terribly, as he goes on to hurt the people around him."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"We want the story to be one of redemption. But it's always going to be more complicated than that. It's going to be about fucking up and having been fucked up."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"What if you said how you really felt? Would that be a revolutionary action? I suppose it depends in part on who does the saying."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"The ambition and the finishing: these are what make the artist. The artist must be monster enough not just to start the work, but to complete it. And to commit all the little savageries that lie in between."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"What do we do with the art of monsters from the past? Look for ourselves there — in the monstrousness. Look for mirrors of what we are, rather than evidence for how wonderful we've become."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"Were we better than we used to be? Or were we worse?"

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"Is it necessary to feel like shit in order to be creative? To what degree does an artist need to slip the confines not just of societal conformity, but of mental or emotional conformity as well?"

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"What makes great art depends on who we are and what we live through. It depends on our feelings."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"Shame is noun and verb; it's something I can feel inside myself, but it's also something I can do to you."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"(...) all of us who participate in parasocial relationships are workers creating money for somebody else."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"We now exist in a structure where we are defined, in the context of capital, by our status as consumers."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)

[aeslinnreads]

"A thinking woman is stuck — distanced from the body, from beauty, from life itself."

Monster: A Fan's Dilemma (Claire Dederer)