Sunday, September 14, 2014
Commentor/ The Scourge of "Relatibility"
The main reason I disagree with Ms. Rebecca Mead is because of her negative attitude. I completely understand her stance on why she believes the word "relatability" is , in simplest terms, a disgrace. However, she makes it seem as if using the word, in reference to media or literature is something done by those who are downright stupid. She makes references to some modern "hip" terms such as Twitter and the selfie. In referring to them she mentions Twitter as an outlet for ones "most supid self", and to the selfie as "...a flattering confirmation of an individual’s solipsism". Her semi degrading terms somewhat reveal her didsdain for the new advances in self expression of oneself. Or at least thats what I gathered. All of her references to why "relatibility" is a useless term seem to be overexaggerated, in my opinion.She makes it seem as if wanting to see oneself in a particular work is a bad thing. I agree that it isn't an absolute necessity, but sometimes people grasp a better understanding of certain concepts in media or literature when they can relate to them on some level. I do believe if overused the word "relatability" can be made into a handicap, but I don't think it's an absolute sin to use it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I do not believe Ms. Rebecca Mead is trying call people stupid but so the way they are using the term ‘relatable’ as insulting. The way we use relatable today, she believes, shouldn’t be used to describe more sophisticated things such as art because she finds it offensive to use a twisted slang definition of the word to describe something proper such as Shakespeare. She is simply implying that it is a poor use of words when there is so much more beautiful language to describe such a classical art from. I disagree with the way you viewed that she thinks viewing yourself in the position of the experience as a bad thing but she is more trying to show that being closed minded and only leaving the possibility to like something artistic if it relates to you as ignorant and bad. I got more of the idea “Please be aware” than “You are stupid” from the article when she was giving the, as you described, ‘over exaggerated’ examples. She was demonstrating how the use of the word ‘relatable’ has increased and should be used less in a professional setting. Although I do tend to use the word to describe literature to my friends, I do see her point about using it to describe art to the public eye. We do not need to relate to literature to understand it that’s why reading Shakespeare and look at old art is so fantastically unique. The not being able to understand or relate to it sometimes gives us that little bit of insight to another’s world.
ReplyDelete