#read clive barker. watch jordan peele movies. open your hearts and minds to the works of people who are sharing their terror with you

[laios-thorden]

To them [people who don't read horror] it is a kind of pornography, inducing horripilation instead of erection. And the reader who appears to relish such sensations-why he's an emotional masochist, the slave of an unholy drug, a decadent psychotic beast.

-David Aylward

horror is about catharsis. it is about experiencing fear or pain or shame or suffering via a piece of media, and being able to sigh in relief when it is done. it is about emotion and flesh and the human condition.

the point of the genre of horror is to inflict the emotion called "fear" or the related emotions "discomfort," "disgust" and "shame." if you do not want to experience and explore negative emotions and the stories that they can tell, you do not actually want to engage with horror. the point of horror is that it might make you feel bad or upset or, god forbid, scared. there are stories that rely on that and it doesn't make horror a lesser medium for narrative than any other genre. it just means that you personally might not enjoy horror.

it's fine to not like horror, but don't pretend like it's something it's not because it makes you uncomfortable.

a lot of takes about horror i see are like, "why doesn't horror have x, y, or z" and the answer is it does. you aren't engaging with the medium or searching out stories that have those things because you don't want to deal with the trappings of the genre (being scared/experiencing negative emotions). liking one piece of horror media doesn't mean engaging with the genre as a whole with all its tropes, trappings, and its rich and varied history.

Ursula K Le Guin writes,

A writer sets out to write science fiction but isn’t familiar with the genre, hasn’t read what’s been written. This is a fairly common situation, because science fiction is known to sell well but, as a subliterary genre, is not supposed to be worth study—what’s to learn? It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

the same is true for horror; people who do not engage with horror as a medium, as a genre, as a way to tell stories and convey meaning do not get to reinvent the wheel. doing so won't be met with gratitude by people who do like horror. it's not helpful. it's condescension.

#horror #writing #this post cowritten by my boyfriend #this is also like . just frustration at people who take the phrase elevated horror seriously #horror is about telling a story the same as any other genre #and like any other genre not every horror work is going to be good or deep. but they have meaning #and horror particularly gets written off as drivel by people who have only ever watched like. one slasher movie. #read clive barker. watch jordan peele movies. open your hearts and minds to the works of people who are sharing their terror with you #and understand it.