1-”Beard”‘s comment is anonymous.

Rock on. Attack from a point of total safety. You are clearly brave in the face of dangerous Indie Hipsters, beard.

2-”you are a smug hipster dork who listens to twee, whiny indie rock and rides a fixie.”

Now we have an irony problem. Is this a personal attack + a spammy comment directed at an article that was attacking personal attacks and (in another recent article) spammy comments and therefore ignorant and stupid? Or is it ironic and clever? Difficult to say.

Let’s be Benthamite about it: In the end, what purpose did it serve? Well it was boring. This then, is “beard”‘s legacy.

Plus Stephen doesn’t apparently even ride a fixie.

3-”i want to yank on your beard.”

Plus, last I knew, Stephen didn’t have a beard.

4-”this film, along with the snide hipster defensiveness surrounding it, are the reason why most people, even film critics, hate culturally regressive indie nerd culture.”

Umm…”Most people” (including me) haven’t even seen this movie and even less of them have read any of the defensiveness around it. So “most people” started hating indie nerd culture this month?

Actually most people started hating whiny indie nerd hipster culture at least fifteen years ago when people started wearing those thick-ass emo glasses. It was a good idea to hate it, too.

Actually most people live in Asia and can’t affords to go to movies and have no idea what you’re on about.

5-”recommended reading: Why the hipster must die – Time Out New York
Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization – Adbusters”

See, now that is something remotely resembling a point. But, still, the article you left this comment under isn’t at all about how Indie Nerd Culture is Not Actually As Annoying And Bad as we know it is, or EVEN (grasp the subtlety here…) about how this movie is actually good despite someone saying it’s bad, what it actually is is an article about how a film critic failed to achieve his purpose by writing about the wrong thing.

Criticism is useless unless, in some sense, it’s advice to someone reading on how to write (or find) the next great book/movie/whatever. Advice framed in the form of: “Don’t be this guy” isn’t nearly as effective as: “Doing X makes the book feel like Y which is good/bad.”

It’s not that someone Getting Personal never has a point, it’s that delivering a point by Getting Personal is the least effective possible way to communicate that point in a useful form to the author or the audience.

Can’t say I agree with this in the least. Not because I think Eggers is a Tolstoy but because he isn’t rated very highly.

At least in my experience, the near universal opinion of Dave Eggers is what you’ve laid. Great dude, does a lot of good, seems like a so-so writer. I know plenty of hipsters and navigated an MFA program, yet I’ve never heard anyone talk of Dave Eggers as one of the best writers in America. At most I hear a “YSKOV was pretty good.”

I’m sure he has his fans somewhere, but in the generally literary community and amongst critics I hardly think Eggers is thought of as the next Tolstoy…

As for who authored the film, in what percentage, and thus who should take the blame for a rotten work:

The screenplay was written by Vida and Eggers. They’re married. I don’t think there’s harm in thinking that it was a balanced collaboration. The film – Foundas is right – was wordy. Excessively so. Tons of dialogue. Dialogue that was written not by Mendes – but by Eggers/Vida. It was written almost like a stage play. By film standards, it’s an incredibly writer-dominated piece. In the same vein as a film like My Dinner With Andre.

Go back to The New York Times review of My Dinner With Andre:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E03E6DF153BF93BA35753C1A967948260

Personally, when I read this review by Canby, I was furious. Because – for a movie that’s essentially two people talking for 110 minutes – Canby hardly tips his hat to the goddamn writers. It’s all credited Malle, who – yes – did a fine job keeping interest up with his direction of camera work, but should not be credited as the film’s author. MDWA was a film by Gregory and Shawn.

In the same way that Away We Go is a film by Eggers and Vida. Mendes was there to shoot. He’s secondary.

As for Eggers-As-Author:

I think part of the problem in criticizing Dave Eggers is that it’s difficult (in a very post-modern way) to separate Eggers the Person from Eggers the Author. His work is very autobiographical; he recycles major themes time and again. Now, as a person, it’s difficult to dislike the guy. He opens writing clinics for underprivilaged children, he’s active in the publishing community, he’s concerned about genocide. He’s a total mensch.

That said – in part, I feel, because of his big heart – his aptitude as an author is grossly overrated. He’s less a Tolstoy than a Harriet Beacher Stowe. His heart is in the right place, and his soul is pure, but I feel like someone close to him needs take him by the shirt collar, shake the shit out of him, and tell him to stop – just like I wish someone had been there to do the same for Stowe after she published Uncle Tom’s Cabin. While eminently decent, neither he nor Stowe are good writers. He said everything he needed to say (and more) in AHBWOSG. That Foundas didn’t mention What Is The What is fortunate; while it’s admirable that Eggers has a deep interest in humanitarian issues, the book – as literature – is mediocre at best.

As for Away We Go? Frankly, I think it deserved that review. Even if Fuenes was harsh. Someone needs to tell Eggers to stop.

Finally, as for mean reviews:

This ‘let’s all be nice to one another’ business has to stop. It’s not helping literature, it’s not helping film – it’s just not truthful. The truth, as the cliche goes, hurts. If it helps people grow, pile on those blows, baby. It’s time for everyone to start bucking up.