This is very good and thank you for posting it. I tend to agree - for any art to succeed, it needs its own scene. And scenes tend to need curators of some kind. What’s needed for artists I think is how to form your own scene - the Impressionists actually give a good lesson there.
Yes, that is my read of art history. The impressionists make their own scene. Then the Surrealists make their own scene. Then the abstract expressionists do. Etc. I do think forming such scenes is a challenge in the modern fragmented social media age though...
I agree! It's a massive challenge. But perhaps, and I'm probably taking an over-positive view here, the A.I. thing presents an opportunity.
When the marketplace (internet) is flooded, as you've stated, people will start looking to curators. It may be that (a) personal connection will become important, (b) offline will become important, (c) local will become important.
For a long time, a lot of commentators have kind-of been hoping for this type of outcome. The theory of the "long tail" in the earlier days of the internet made this kind of argument that people will find their own 'scenes' and all you needed was '1,000 true fans' (or whatever it was). But the "long tail" theory was made in the time of blogging and websites - where the internet was decentralized and you still needed to connect people to what you offered in the digital realm through how you connected in the real world.
What's happened is social media etc. and the tech guys have centralized the internet on their platforms. They are, in a sense, actually the curators - the curator, however, is the algorithm. But far from 'democratizing' things, all its done is it's created a new heirarchy, as your article is touching on.
Since we're all getting rather sick of this and A.I. is only going to make it worse, what may be important is exactly the kind of thing the Impressionists did. Start your own gallery. What might happen, or at least I hope happens, is what becomes important is how you connect with people offline to get them to come see your work. Live shows. Galleries. Communities. Physical spaces. This requires *collaboration*. And when artists collaborate, better things happen.
The problem with social media is it's far too individualized. It's all about your own personal brand. Of course, personal brand has always been important in a scene, but the collaborative nature of a scene is what often makes for better art. After all, the Beatles did better together than alone! The Impressionists in their younger days were all inspiring each other.
Does this make the barrier to entry higher or lower? It's hard to say. But I can say that I think you're spot on - the role of curators is key in this.
Literary folks definitely use gatekeeper to mean both "curator" and "person in a position of power in the publishing process," and they are not the same thing. Basically, I agree the curation is more important than ever. But my own experiences and those I've witnessed others having make me increasingly skeptical about the "position of power" gatekeeping (with some exceptions of course). It's super weird that *getting straight up ignored* is the default relationship so many writers have with journals, magazines, agents, and publishers, even when they are already established published writers with track records... Sometimes track records established with the very people/organizations who are ghosting them! Especially since it's not necessary to hand over the reins of your work to anyone else to get it out there in front of the public, I think these types of gatekeepers need to demonstrate a real value add for writers, and they frequently do the opposite.
Yeah I imagine we largely agree here. There is a reason my defense of gatekeepers here leans towards e.g. non-profit press publishers and editors doing the heroic work of getting translated literature into print than it does toward the most powerful institutions.
I do think the line between curator and person in power is often blurry though. An editor of a big literary magazine is both things, right? They are both curating content for their readers and in a position of power from the writer's POV.
But basically I think the way to fight rotting institutions is to build new ones. Not an easy task but...
Not sure about the profit versus non-profit distinction, and connecting international writers and translators is important... but I actually am often the most skeptical about what small presses can offer writers. (Probably not a coincidence that the one I published with had a very visible implosion!) If you're paying no advance at all or one in the three figures, publishing POD, and/or have limited distribution -- you really have to step up with what you offer re: editorial, publicity, networking opportunities, etc. And you definitely shouldn't "forget" to send royalty statements or pay your writers. This sounds basic but it's a serious, recurring problem, especially because writers feel so beholden to these gatekeeping folks for legitimacy. Imo it would often be better if they realized they didn’t need to.
Yeah there is a lot of danger with small institutions there for writers. Way more scams / unhelpful publishers. I suppose this entire question has to be separated between reading and writing. My comment was more as a reader there: I value those e.g. translated books that would not exist otherwise.
Courtney Sender’s argument is an old one narrowly focusing on the novel as a commodity and the difficulties of getting a mainstream literary production into the mainstream. She’s not wrong when addressing the agent/editor dilemma. I’m more interested in an open field where money/distribution is less important than the art itself. I really appreciate the translation angle. Clayton Eshleman, poet and longtime editor of Sulfur, through years of work, brought us Aimé Césaire, whose extraordinary literary efforts are still hardly recognized outside the Black Radical Tradition. For me at least, the most exciting art almost always resides and perhaps remains on the margins (I know, I know, the center is forever shifting), and I agree that, like translation, art co-arises and congeals through groups. Thanks.
Those countercultures you refer to had their own gatekeepers who could be quite aggressive in turfing out people deemed a liability to the scene. Preventing posers from colonizing a scene was key to keeping it alive.
"The key, I think, is simply finding the spaces that most appeal to you—and then helping them grow however you can."
I think this is what a lot of LitStack (ROL, Metro. Review, et cetera) are starting to build. There's a lot of folks sharing book rec's on Substack and they seem to be curating in silos, but I think some cross-pollination is starting thanks to centralized hubs like ROL.
Thank you! This is the most lucid writing on the topic I've seen on Substack.
One thing that the "anti-gatekeeper" people misunderstand is that, when we have those big, paradigm shaking works come out, the ones that change the market or reveal a market that was previously unrecognized... well, the gatekeepers are responsible for making that change happen. Some agent and editor saw potential in something "against the market" and took a risk on it. If that same book had been self published, it would almost certainly die in obscurity.
Nice to see someone recognize that gatekeepers are everywhere, from your friend who turns you on to Capt. Beefheart to the journalist who keeps reporting on the same author (who they went to school with) until you finally check them out and hate them. "Gatekeeper" is a phrase designed to sound sinister and problematic, but if you have the self-confidence to try stuff by looking for it, seeking out your own gatekeepers, and being your own, you don't have to worry that the clowns have a stranglehold. You can follow Two Dollar Radio, or NYRB, if those publish works you like already, and see when they publish more. You can follow a particular critic whose taste you learn to trust based on their recommendations. The difference between being stymied by "gatekeepers" and being adventurous with a few guides, is in you, not them. All the whining about contest winners and the like is covering for your inability to make your own decisions about what is good and defend them, and even to change them.
Seeing as you mention punk, and the idea of curation aside, one of the upsides of gatekeeping that I noticed in the punk scene (or at least the British anarcho-punk scene) was that it made it harder - though not impossible - for the wealthier/more charismatic/ambitious types to just march in and take over.
I think it’s not so much the gatekeepers as it is the perception that their tastes are too niche and don’t represent different niches, but elevate niches that they think are more morally worthy than others.
It is the condescention that they know better for you what you should read, while dismissing that perhaps, for example, there are blue collar working class men who want to read novels about fellow men like themselves and the hard work and lives they’ve lived, without sneering in between the lines that there has to be some level of subversive commentary to render them a caricature or stereotype, or damn them for not being “xyz” enough. To push buttons for the sake of pushing buttons.
Yeah I think what you're pointing at is the disconnect between individuals and the collective in gatekeeping. An individual editor is just trying to put out the books they like and/or they think will sell. They aren't (or most of them aren't) looking down their nose at everyone else's tastes. But collectively it absolutely becomes a problem when they all have the same tastes or hop on the same trends.
Thank you for your response and further clarification.
It does become a bit difficult sorting through agent wish lists (and I should have clarified is whom I primarily had in mind reading your piece) and you’re thinking “Seriously? None of these elements you want have anything to do with my story”. Are their wish lists truly reflective of reader tastes? It’s the major reason I don’t want to traditionally publish.
So that’s to the point you were making. Often it just feels like contemporary writing including sci-fi and fantasy aims toward a thinly veiled attempt at converting readers to present-day ideologies. Can’t we just tell a simple story that’s not a political screed?
I’m the wrong set of acceptable politics and morals for my sex, and I’m religious. Even if that’s not reflected in my writings, I’ve read enough anecdotal stories on Substack to be wary that I’m likely to get a rejection because I don’t fit the approved checkboxes for women approving other women’s work. One never knows till one tries I suppose.
My issue with this article is that gatekeepers under capitalism—publishers, editors, movie studios—aren't curators of art. Their goal is to try and make something that sells to the largest possible number of people, so that they and the companies they work for can make more money. These are gatekeepers not of production but of distribution, and they're trying to turn a profit.
Curation is what you seem to be defending. I think that's valid. But gatekeepers these days are more like agents. That's who Courtney Sender was railing against in her initial article.
I wrote this article before Sender's was published just ftr! I wouldn't say you're wrong at all but if we define gatekeepers *only* as the worst and biggest institutions then it's easy to say to hell with them. Though we're still stuck with the problem that stuff is popular, as you say. So what you're asking for I think, and I take Sender's underlying argument to be, is better gatekeepers. (At least baring a revolution.) And actually maybe even more active gatekeepering in way, if we want them to ignore what's popular and profitable for what's meritous
Oh gotcha. I think I came out swinging a little too hard then—my bad.
Yes, I would like better gatekeepers, although I'm not sure if I'd call them gatekeepers: I don't want them to have the power to gate art they think is bad, but I do want them to be able to promote art they think is good. I understand that these things look very similar in practice, but I think they are pretty different in intent: I promise this isn't just pedantry.
You redefined a gatekeeper as a curator and didn't distinctively define a "popularist" nor the curator. You spent more time listing how they're the same but just in degree separate. Aren't we all curators? You make it sound like we're all popularists to some degree too.
"Nearly all the work I love—from DIY punk band and underground hip-hop to translated literature and Surrealist art—has come from countercultures outside the mainstream."
Been a while since I read a sentence that made me want to beat up the writer and take his lunch money.
I love it when I discover a new curator that I can trust. Though I might disagree with their taste at times, it's better than going with the algorithmic picks.
Yet I confess to trusting the algorithms, at times thoughtlessly. I've certainly looked at a post before with zero likes and thought to myself 'must not be very good'. Of course, the posts I make with no likes are the exception.
I…have an issue with how the comments praising the essay are…predominately from men.
To me that’s rather telling. Oh well, guess I’ll sneak off to my older woman cootie hideout and grumble about how, yet again, the boundaries keep getting defined as excluding the older women who aren’t kissing up to the men, getting tattoos, and not being the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
This is very good and thank you for posting it. I tend to agree - for any art to succeed, it needs its own scene. And scenes tend to need curators of some kind. What’s needed for artists I think is how to form your own scene - the Impressionists actually give a good lesson there.
Yes, that is my read of art history. The impressionists make their own scene. Then the Surrealists make their own scene. Then the abstract expressionists do. Etc. I do think forming such scenes is a challenge in the modern fragmented social media age though...
I agree! It's a massive challenge. But perhaps, and I'm probably taking an over-positive view here, the A.I. thing presents an opportunity.
When the marketplace (internet) is flooded, as you've stated, people will start looking to curators. It may be that (a) personal connection will become important, (b) offline will become important, (c) local will become important.
For a long time, a lot of commentators have kind-of been hoping for this type of outcome. The theory of the "long tail" in the earlier days of the internet made this kind of argument that people will find their own 'scenes' and all you needed was '1,000 true fans' (or whatever it was). But the "long tail" theory was made in the time of blogging and websites - where the internet was decentralized and you still needed to connect people to what you offered in the digital realm through how you connected in the real world.
What's happened is social media etc. and the tech guys have centralized the internet on their platforms. They are, in a sense, actually the curators - the curator, however, is the algorithm. But far from 'democratizing' things, all its done is it's created a new heirarchy, as your article is touching on.
Since we're all getting rather sick of this and A.I. is only going to make it worse, what may be important is exactly the kind of thing the Impressionists did. Start your own gallery. What might happen, or at least I hope happens, is what becomes important is how you connect with people offline to get them to come see your work. Live shows. Galleries. Communities. Physical spaces. This requires *collaboration*. And when artists collaborate, better things happen.
The problem with social media is it's far too individualized. It's all about your own personal brand. Of course, personal brand has always been important in a scene, but the collaborative nature of a scene is what often makes for better art. After all, the Beatles did better together than alone! The Impressionists in their younger days were all inspiring each other.
Does this make the barrier to entry higher or lower? It's hard to say. But I can say that I think you're spot on - the role of curators is key in this.
Literary folks definitely use gatekeeper to mean both "curator" and "person in a position of power in the publishing process," and they are not the same thing. Basically, I agree the curation is more important than ever. But my own experiences and those I've witnessed others having make me increasingly skeptical about the "position of power" gatekeeping (with some exceptions of course). It's super weird that *getting straight up ignored* is the default relationship so many writers have with journals, magazines, agents, and publishers, even when they are already established published writers with track records... Sometimes track records established with the very people/organizations who are ghosting them! Especially since it's not necessary to hand over the reins of your work to anyone else to get it out there in front of the public, I think these types of gatekeepers need to demonstrate a real value add for writers, and they frequently do the opposite.
Yeah I imagine we largely agree here. There is a reason my defense of gatekeepers here leans towards e.g. non-profit press publishers and editors doing the heroic work of getting translated literature into print than it does toward the most powerful institutions.
I do think the line between curator and person in power is often blurry though. An editor of a big literary magazine is both things, right? They are both curating content for their readers and in a position of power from the writer's POV.
But basically I think the way to fight rotting institutions is to build new ones. Not an easy task but...
Not sure about the profit versus non-profit distinction, and connecting international writers and translators is important... but I actually am often the most skeptical about what small presses can offer writers. (Probably not a coincidence that the one I published with had a very visible implosion!) If you're paying no advance at all or one in the three figures, publishing POD, and/or have limited distribution -- you really have to step up with what you offer re: editorial, publicity, networking opportunities, etc. And you definitely shouldn't "forget" to send royalty statements or pay your writers. This sounds basic but it's a serious, recurring problem, especially because writers feel so beholden to these gatekeeping folks for legitimacy. Imo it would often be better if they realized they didn’t need to.
Yeah there is a lot of danger with small institutions there for writers. Way more scams / unhelpful publishers. I suppose this entire question has to be separated between reading and writing. My comment was more as a reader there: I value those e.g. translated books that would not exist otherwise.
"The key, I think, is simply finding the spaces that most appeal to you—and then helping them grow however you can."
A well argued defense.
Courtney Sender’s argument is an old one narrowly focusing on the novel as a commodity and the difficulties of getting a mainstream literary production into the mainstream. She’s not wrong when addressing the agent/editor dilemma. I’m more interested in an open field where money/distribution is less important than the art itself. I really appreciate the translation angle. Clayton Eshleman, poet and longtime editor of Sulfur, through years of work, brought us Aimé Césaire, whose extraordinary literary efforts are still hardly recognized outside the Black Radical Tradition. For me at least, the most exciting art almost always resides and perhaps remains on the margins (I know, I know, the center is forever shifting), and I agree that, like translation, art co-arises and congeals through groups. Thanks.
Those countercultures you refer to had their own gatekeepers who could be quite aggressive in turfing out people deemed a liability to the scene. Preventing posers from colonizing a scene was key to keeping it alive.
"The key, I think, is simply finding the spaces that most appeal to you—and then helping them grow however you can."
I think this is what a lot of LitStack (ROL, Metro. Review, et cetera) are starting to build. There's a lot of folks sharing book rec's on Substack and they seem to be curating in silos, but I think some cross-pollination is starting thanks to centralized hubs like ROL.
Thank you! This is the most lucid writing on the topic I've seen on Substack.
One thing that the "anti-gatekeeper" people misunderstand is that, when we have those big, paradigm shaking works come out, the ones that change the market or reveal a market that was previously unrecognized... well, the gatekeepers are responsible for making that change happen. Some agent and editor saw potential in something "against the market" and took a risk on it. If that same book had been self published, it would almost certainly die in obscurity.
Nice to see someone recognize that gatekeepers are everywhere, from your friend who turns you on to Capt. Beefheart to the journalist who keeps reporting on the same author (who they went to school with) until you finally check them out and hate them. "Gatekeeper" is a phrase designed to sound sinister and problematic, but if you have the self-confidence to try stuff by looking for it, seeking out your own gatekeepers, and being your own, you don't have to worry that the clowns have a stranglehold. You can follow Two Dollar Radio, or NYRB, if those publish works you like already, and see when they publish more. You can follow a particular critic whose taste you learn to trust based on their recommendations. The difference between being stymied by "gatekeepers" and being adventurous with a few guides, is in you, not them. All the whining about contest winners and the like is covering for your inability to make your own decisions about what is good and defend them, and even to change them.
Seeing as you mention punk, and the idea of curation aside, one of the upsides of gatekeeping that I noticed in the punk scene (or at least the British anarcho-punk scene) was that it made it harder - though not impossible - for the wealthier/more charismatic/ambitious types to just march in and take over.
I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what the writer says.
There is way too much stuff out there and, yes, most of it is bad.
It's not outrageously bad, which is a kind of distinction. It's bad in the sense of seeming to have been emitted by faceless committees of commissars.
The deeper reason for our failure seems tied to the fact that we are far less literate than we once we're.
Students can't understand the books they're assigned to read. News reports are less serious and substantive than they were even a few years ago.
We seem to have reached a cultural dead end. Art of all kinds reflects that.
I think it’s not so much the gatekeepers as it is the perception that their tastes are too niche and don’t represent different niches, but elevate niches that they think are more morally worthy than others.
It is the condescention that they know better for you what you should read, while dismissing that perhaps, for example, there are blue collar working class men who want to read novels about fellow men like themselves and the hard work and lives they’ve lived, without sneering in between the lines that there has to be some level of subversive commentary to render them a caricature or stereotype, or damn them for not being “xyz” enough. To push buttons for the sake of pushing buttons.
Yeah I think what you're pointing at is the disconnect between individuals and the collective in gatekeeping. An individual editor is just trying to put out the books they like and/or they think will sell. They aren't (or most of them aren't) looking down their nose at everyone else's tastes. But collectively it absolutely becomes a problem when they all have the same tastes or hop on the same trends.
Thank you for your response and further clarification.
It does become a bit difficult sorting through agent wish lists (and I should have clarified is whom I primarily had in mind reading your piece) and you’re thinking “Seriously? None of these elements you want have anything to do with my story”. Are their wish lists truly reflective of reader tastes? It’s the major reason I don’t want to traditionally publish.
So that’s to the point you were making. Often it just feels like contemporary writing including sci-fi and fantasy aims toward a thinly veiled attempt at converting readers to present-day ideologies. Can’t we just tell a simple story that’s not a political screed?
I’m the wrong set of acceptable politics and morals for my sex, and I’m religious. Even if that’s not reflected in my writings, I’ve read enough anecdotal stories on Substack to be wary that I’m likely to get a rejection because I don’t fit the approved checkboxes for women approving other women’s work. One never knows till one tries I suppose.
This. Exactly this.
(and we won’t talk about the older women who, apparently, have cooties both as readers and writers)
Drat! You’ve exposed the old lady plot we’ve been secretly working toward for decades! Cooties! No… *gurgles into
nonexistence*
My issue with this article is that gatekeepers under capitalism—publishers, editors, movie studios—aren't curators of art. Their goal is to try and make something that sells to the largest possible number of people, so that they and the companies they work for can make more money. These are gatekeepers not of production but of distribution, and they're trying to turn a profit.
Curation is what you seem to be defending. I think that's valid. But gatekeepers these days are more like agents. That's who Courtney Sender was railing against in her initial article.
I wrote this article before Sender's was published just ftr! I wouldn't say you're wrong at all but if we define gatekeepers *only* as the worst and biggest institutions then it's easy to say to hell with them. Though we're still stuck with the problem that stuff is popular, as you say. So what you're asking for I think, and I take Sender's underlying argument to be, is better gatekeepers. (At least baring a revolution.) And actually maybe even more active gatekeepering in way, if we want them to ignore what's popular and profitable for what's meritous
Oh gotcha. I think I came out swinging a little too hard then—my bad.
Yes, I would like better gatekeepers, although I'm not sure if I'd call them gatekeepers: I don't want them to have the power to gate art they think is bad, but I do want them to be able to promote art they think is good. I understand that these things look very similar in practice, but I think they are pretty different in intent: I promise this isn't just pedantry.
You redefined a gatekeeper as a curator and didn't distinctively define a "popularist" nor the curator. You spent more time listing how they're the same but just in degree separate. Aren't we all curators? You make it sound like we're all popularists to some degree too.
"Nearly all the work I love—from DIY punk band and underground hip-hop to translated literature and Surrealist art—has come from countercultures outside the mainstream."
Been a while since I read a sentence that made me want to beat up the writer and take his lunch money.
I love it when I discover a new curator that I can trust. Though I might disagree with their taste at times, it's better than going with the algorithmic picks.
Yet I confess to trusting the algorithms, at times thoughtlessly. I've certainly looked at a post before with zero likes and thought to myself 'must not be very good'. Of course, the posts I make with no likes are the exception.
I…have an issue with how the comments praising the essay are…predominately from men.
To me that’s rather telling. Oh well, guess I’ll sneak off to my older woman cootie hideout and grumble about how, yet again, the boundaries keep getting defined as excluding the older women who aren’t kissing up to the men, getting tattoos, and not being the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.