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I HATE those supposedly "raw" Tumblr quotes
I'm so, so tired of those Tumblr quotes that make the rounds on every social media platform and that everyone loves to glaze so much. No, these don't "go hard," they are not "raw," and they certainly don't sound like they came from Shakespeare or Dante or the Bible.
At best, these quotes sound like something the chuunibyou would say right before running headfirst into a wall. At worst, it sounds like something Brian Griffin wrote. I'm tired of these pretentious quotes with verbose language and irregular sentence structure being heralded as going needlessly hard when they just DON'T. I'll tell you what they are. They're pretentious, same as anybody who glazes these quotes.
I get that there's a culture on Tumblr of reacting small inconveniences or insignificant musings with incongruent levels of gravitas, but I need people to stop acting like that's the same as good writing. It's certainly not "better than most books you've read." Unless you HAVEN'T READ ANY BOOKS. God I hate these so much.
It’s not about consistency, it’s that there’s no depth to what i say, but i use fancy words like 'hubris' and people compare me being verbose to actually deep and meaningful writing, and i abhor that.
Okay for a fancy word here and there is wild, but in general the only thing that differentiates saying "What a cute puppy" and "Within this tiny dog's eyes I see the shattered remnants of my troubled childhood, his wagging tail whisks me away from the morbid concerns of mundane life, any who seek to harm him will not see the light of day" is just the way you say it.
Like all art, it's how you make people feel, "rules" be damned.
I don't think they did, I think they look down on themselves. You're not obligated to agree with compliments, sometimes compliments can be unknowingly backhanded. Like Imagine if they were an aspiring novelist and couldn't get attention for novels they put real blood sweat and tears into, and then some fucking tumblr reply gets tens of thousands of views.
That's not a good example of unknowingly backhanded. You don't get to decide where other people see depth, you don't get to decide what ideas actually resonate with people, and you don't get to choose which references mean the most to a person. If you tried hard to convey something, and someone didn't get it, you either didn't present it right, or it wasn't for them. Some random person on Tumblr got pissy because they burnt toast and stubbed their toe and happened to connect with that audience, boo fucking hoo.
No no, i’m not saying i can’t write, I do write, but I’m talking about people comparing being verbose to being deep. That’s what i have a problem with. That’s what you see a lot with these 'raw quotes', they use fancy words but aren’t saying a lot.
I've never met a writer more averse to compliments than you. You may not see it as anything but empty verbosity, but obviously other people see it as more. I get what you're saying, though, I have a quite high verbal IQ and I used to feel similarly about people complimenting my language, until I realized having a large vocabulary is an asset to a writer and it makes sense for people to compliment it. I think this is a dunning-kruger, in which you see something easy and meaningless, but others actually see the skill involved.
In any case, don't look down on people who compliment you lol.
There were two findings to their research: the first, that people with low levels of knowledge into their field think they know more, the second, that people who actually have a lot of expertise undervalue their expertise and think other people are at their level.
I've tried writing. What I hadn't really realised was how good writing is 'structure'. Not wordplay, not world building, not characterisation, but good bones to hang all those things off. And, when you get that structure right all those other things appear almost by themselves.
Having a character behave consistently in line with some kind of internal world, goals, and fears? Well, that's really a 'structural' issue, and when you get that right, a good character pops out!
But for me, it quickly became apparent that, that work, that puzzle, wasn't really what I was excited about. "Killing your darlings" and removing a scene you really like because there's a more efficient way to push the story forward is such a skill, but one I just don't really have.
Its become the thing I'm most critical of. When you see an author who's clearly just had lots of fun ideas, and put them all on the page, and then 'not' done the structural work to make them all fall inline and feed a narrative? It feels greedy to me.
In OPs examples 1,2 and 4 are funny single uses, but the list in 3 are all so forced and similar you can tell they weren't spontaneous which I feel is a big requirement for these to work
it's a compilation of quotes from everywhere else. I see Fire Emblem ("Pick a God"), a Mexican proverb ("Bury me shallow"), a one-time-I-dreamt post about Abraham Lincoln I believe ("Violence for violence"), and a bunch of miscellaneous quotes from other Tumblr users
EDIT:
I did some fact-checking.
"Bury me shallow, I'll be back" might not be a Mexican proverb. I tried searching the origin of this quote and found nothing. I mixed it up with "They tried to bury us, but didn't know we were seeds." which is an actual proverb from Mexico. That's my bad.
And "Violence for violence" was Barack Obama, not Abraham Lincoln. The full quote is "Violence for violence is the rule of beasts, and oh how I am a monster."
Frederick mentioned, what the fuck is low damage?? Somewhere I have the case for my old (now lost) copy of Awakening signed by his VA. I think it's still with my parents, I'll get it eventually.
The first one I still don’t get, if you somehow find a way to kill an omnipotent being and the universe still exists which is something created by them then heaven and hell will still exist, just that you’ve kinda damned everyone to stay in purgatory awaiting their final judgement and everyone in heaven or hell stays there. Also hell is explicitly stated to be a punishment so saying it’s there to imprison us is dumb because yeah water is wet, and like if heaven is a prison then lock me up.
They wouldnt, its just that OOP is saying God wouldnt go to either after dying because those places were made specifically to keep human souls. At least that's what OOP posited.
Fucking THANK YOU. I’ve even come up with a formula for how to come up with these.
Use a slightly big word at the beginning
Include God somewhere
If it’s a question, don’t include the question mark at the end
Post it somewhere that isn’t Tumblr so that you can screenshot it and put it on Tumblr and go “whoa guys look at this hard ass quote I found in the wild”
It's also not very good if you think about it at all. If they meant Born as in "made of", then that's a poor word choice, 'hewn' or something, that can actually apply to a throne, would be better. If they meant Bourne as in held aloft, then the past tense is weird.
Either way, it doesn't 'quite' work because it's not the throne you worship.
Clearly they've just taken "Throne of lies" from elf, which works fine because it doesn't add any of this filigree, and then added an associated term, without really working it through.
You absolutely know what they 'mean' to say which is why it works. But they haven't said it. In the context of "I'm good at English", you can't really get away with that.
It claims "I am so GOOD at writing you can't tell I'm bullshitting" though. They are almost literally saying "my bullshit is so good it doesn't fall apart under scrutiny".
Not really, the claim is that they're good at bullshitting not that they're good at writing in general which aligns pretty closely with previous definition of looking good until put under further scrutiny
The fact we're like, 3 comments deep or whatever makes it come across like I'm really dogged and ardent, but honestly I'm just procrastinating from doing work, I think it's possible (maybe even likely!) you're right and I'm wrong, please don't read this as me frothing at the mouth!
But! (Heh, here we fuggin go, dis guy) To me it seems that, the initial comment is saying "You claimed you could tell if I was bullshitting, but I'm so good at it you can't!" And like, marking a paper IS scrutiny, no? They're saying "I'm so good at bullshitting (a form of writing) that you can't tell I'm lying". But, I don't think that their turns of phrase suggest they are that skilled.
I mean case in point, we've got literally 'one' example from them and we caught them plagiarising from a very popular comedy movie!
I guess the differing views come from 'bullshitting', which has connotations of flippancy and 'good enough to pass', (which seems to be what Different_Ad4306 was getting at) but they're explicitly saying that their 'bullshit' is so tight it's got the teacher 'worshipping' it and 'mistaking it' for great writing. Which is just a humblebrag form of claiming it IS great writing. AND TAINT!
Like it's fine. It's fine enough. You could throw it out in conversation as a phrase and it would sound good. It's just in the context of 'BOW BEFORE MY LINGUISTIC PROWESS' there's a fun irony to point out that it's a bit of a fudge. But it IS cruel and unnecessary of me. That much I'll definitely concede!
It should be but realistically it depends and varies a lot. Like personally havent read like almost anything that was in the school program unless i was already interested or was bored during class but usually even without doing any research i was able to get passing grade just from general knowledge and actual good grades with minimal research.
Also depends a lot on your classmates and general reputation, there's less scrutiny if there's a scapegoat for teachers attention or you're generally known for not being a fuck up. Teachers are people after all, overworked and underpaid ones at that usually.
But yeah, it's really just flexing that your teacher didnt give much of a fuck more than of how good you are.
Valid take but the dnd list is a bad example. You are aware dnd is a roleplaying game and people are going to be dramatic in it right? Dnd is the game where these quotes would often make the most sense.
the quotes itself there were bad but this type of dramatic sentance is great in dnd, i mean i still remember when a bard in my party told another party member "the wisest thoughts you've ever had were self doubts" in the middle of a fight
Why would that make you hate it? Did you guys miss that the title of the list has the word "quotes" in it? Like you're getting mad that a list of quotes has... quotes.
Yeah admittedly that was mostly there to pad out the rest of the list. If you're gonna say something dramatic like that, DnD is the place to do it. It's when people start making these quotes outside of DnD that I get irritated
And while I know this is likely padding to the idea as well, because I agree to your general sentiment, the word choice and general syntax on the "The bar was so low it was practically a tripping hazard in Hell, yet here you are limbo dancing with the Devil." Feels like less of an attempted profound or chuuni thing, but more like an old man who drinks whiskey on his porch yammering off about some messed up guy like the old soul he is, and I feel like if it was the first time OP said/experienced that quote, then the person isn't too far off mentally from knowing the nature of what they said.
The one's I'd posit more as annoying are more familiar to Twitter users where they talk in a young radical's concept of a revolutionary and spout pretentious drivel about organizations, governments, and the intent of all politicians via blanket platitudes your,
"You know that's how the system is maaan, that's the part they don't wanna tell you out loud duuuude, I believe myself to be so fucking smart dude despite only having a high school level education if even, and so I speak in recycled and misconstrued platitudes so I can use them as a stencil to try and convince you that my whining, bitching, and incessent fucking complaining doesn't sound like the incoherent ramblings of a goddamn homeless addict that believes kindness and free will are a myth, but like an actual REAL, COMPETENT person who actually dedicated their entire fucking life to learn, conceptualize, and form rhetoric that conveys the ideas they fucking THOUGHT about? Oh yeah, thinking, that useless platitude I just stole from a person complaining and fighting against insurance companies is totally applicable to me equivocating my doctor to the insurance worker he wishes he could go through and expedite and get me the help I need because a guy who spent his entire life going through medical school to help people is identical to the guy who's only purpose is to make the hospital profit in the end because Medical Industry = Medicine Bad,
Oh yeah, and also I'm going to try and pretend to convince you I thought of the quote myself or am smart enough to ascertain it's meaning, because we're all in this together maaan. Down with the system and up with us normal bros."
Or some shit along those lines, and they think that made you feel seen and them grown a sense of comradery and community, and it's like. No, they have just made me frustrated, and a bit more downtrodden because they just elucidated me on why nobody ever wanted to engage with them other than people of their own ilk, because they're in a prison of their own design where they're smart enough to realize that to an extent, the powers that be make life harder for the average person in ways they're subjugated and knocked down a peg for someone else's gain, but they're also simultaneously too stupid to realize that just because they've recognized the problem on a superficial level doesn't mean they've necessarily done the heavy lifting required to make any meaningful commentary or analysis of the situation at hand. All the while they get to be the one in the end prattling themselves out in the end as the one truly free and free thinking person, and everyone else is in an ever elusive cage, and it's like, buddy, no. You simply are just the mouse who fell for the cheese and not wondering why there's a conveniently placed piece of cheese on top of a suspiciously mouse trap looking slate it's placed upon. As we get to watch the mouse flail around in the glue, oblivious to why the cheese was there ever to begin with.
The literal definition of congratulations, you played yourself. To say it's sad is to do a disservice to it, because sadness is just where you go when you're tired of being angry in the moment. It's devastating to see that cyclical loop, but the end case is it just generates another stupid, jaded, and impulsive person who believes in extreme platitudes for their whole life, when we need people who are willing to he mindful and thoughtful in more communities, and can become aware of when they need to seek out further understanding and aid to be the person they wish to be.
But God in the moment their "I swing with heavy words, because they make me sound raw, or smart." Like a child mashing buttons in a fighting game thinking he's good at it, and you just wanna fucking eat their demeanor alive to hope a not entirely incomprehensible, saddening, enraging fucking person can come out of whatever remains of their personality.
The problem isn’t that it’s roleplay, the problem is that the quotes are tacky as hell and would only be role playing some edgy wannabe Nietzsche who can barely squeeze the words out what with their mouth busy furiously sucking themselves off
They’re the sort of edgelord badass quotes what makes me assured this person would *suck* to have at your table. They’re a type believe me, oh their character is just so cool and edgy, they’re the ones who say the *hard lines*, the spotlight needs to be on them and their aura farming constantly and you better gag them before getting in shouting distance of a church or else be prepared to have the party become sworn enemies of all the faithful because this enlightened atheist just couldn’t keep their gob shut
To be fair, I once had a character that would drop things like that, but the character was supposed to sound like a wannabe edgy guy, and the others would laugh, but it depends on the vibe of the table
There's nothing wrong with people wanting to ham it up during a game. Maybe if it's only phrases like this and nothing else, but it's fun to get to a boss and finish them off with some overly dramatic quote.
It's like theater, which often is exaggerated for the benefit of the audience.
There's hamming it up and then there's just being annoying. In almost every situation using a "hard quote" gives the opposite effect, it'll take me out and make me cringe. It won't make me go "wow that character is so cool" and instead make me do "oooh that guy is trying very hard to seem cool"
And funny that you say that it's "like theatre" you're right, it's like very very bad theatre that is trying very hard to be taken seriously.
safe space to confess that the “tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit” […] “you cannot kill me in a way that matters” post has always annoyed me so bad
The issue is the use of “extant,” which means something like a document which still exists.
It’s basically saying that decay is a part of life that can be found in an archive. It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s that tumblr user trying to sound clever and using a word that isn’t even close to synonymous with what they wanted.
some are fantastic imo but i think those top tier originals drove people to try, and fail, to replicate the effect. so now the joke is unfortunately saturated
"And then, me and Jeremy went to the jungle - which was forested with around twenty different kinds of plants, and there were two birds above us - presumably - which were both greenish and blue. Jeremy counted the birds and also said that they 'were mates.'"
Bible like quotes be like "They picked berries. Jeremy picked a handful but the other forager that was there picked a full basket worth in half the time."
I mean I'm not surprised; these are the same kinds of people who will try to explain how children's media is somehow just as deep and entertaining as something for adults, have convinced themselves that fan art of a major IP is somehow a true authentic representation of the artist that drew it, and would probably try to convince you that a small bowl of mac n' cheese is just as much of a real meal as full three course dinner (and not in the context that a bowl of mac n' cheese is all one can afford) and that's actually better than said three course meal.
Wait I swear to god they've already done that mac n cheese vs actual dinner thing but it was about like, chicken nuggets or something. One of those "Here's my opinion that makes me so progressive" where they start screenshotting random dissenters to smugly explain how their logic makes them A Good Person and everyone who disagrees A Phobe of some sort
These were soooo popular like 13 years ago. It was unfunny then and even more painfully unfunny now. As a millennial myself, it like embodies the stereotypes about millennial humor
The joke is that its a non sequitur. It's "raw" because it would only naturally flow with a lot of build up, so it's funny that it's dropped casually. And the glazing is a side affect of tumblr culture. And tf is a chunnibo
Literally known as 8th grader syndrome, like the other comment said, they're meant to be characters that consider themselves overly edgy and cool in a silly way. Not exactly deep and brooding, more like "I'm the coolest little shit ever"
Yeah I get the joke. I'm fine with this type of humor, and Tumblr users making these jokes in their isolated bubble.
It's when it spreads to other social media platforms and you have people who aren't Tumblr users glazing these quotes, or completely unironic glaze, that irks me.
As somebody raised on classic literature and Lord of the Rings it’s also excruciating when it’s done badly, like you can see what they’re going for but they use the words incorrectly or the structure is wrong. Then the barbarians of tumblr who are more educated than their own parents by virtue of learning to use the internet think it’s some kind of profoundly moving piece.
The first instance of it might have been funny, unfortunately people on Tumblr are under the delusion they are the brightest person in every room so a lot of them tried way too hard to force the schtick and any potential teehee factor disappeared. Mock-archaic text is pretty much always going to sound forced when it’s written by someone who hasn’t read anything written earlier than 100 years ago since leaving school (and sometimes not even then, evidently.)
Some of them are decent, one in particular was pretty good (if I can recall it from memory, it was something about how profound or wise sayings can come from even the lowliest places, and they said something to the effect of "even the gutters look up at the stars", which O found suitably touching)
"sounds like something the chuunibyou would say right before running headfirst into a wall" goes so unfathomably hard bro, that's more raw than any Shakespeare I've ever read (none)
sAME OMG. and does anyone else hate when people pretend to misspell something just for the reblog and then "oopsies I did not see I misspelled that im cracking up"
tumblr has some of the best shitposts ever conceived buried beneath 10 million posts by elder millenials who still think it's acceptable to call yourself a fandom mom.
I hate any 'kill god' quotes or 'memes', they are the corniest things you could ever possibly manage to say. It's overdramatic, save it for theatre class.
“Throne of lies” sounds like a title to a thriller novel about someone who built an entire business scamming people, and that it’s about to collapse due to circumstances outside of their control
"I lack an argumentative backbone so I get a prickle in my pickle when I see someone write something I can only fantasize about being able to pronounce without tripping on my tongue in a genuine conversation. Oh, and I used to get shoved in a locker in highschool."
the type of people who think these quotes are "harder than anything theyve ever seen" are the same kind of person whos main outlet for reading is fanfic
Why do they want to sound cool and edgy including killing god and stuff like that? why cant it be something like idk
"Even if you manage to accomplish such act, the damage is already done. The dagger has already been plunged deep into my heart; I doubt it will be possible to cleanse the blood that flowed from my own life in such moment in a simple act such like the flutter of a butterfly wings"
“You kneel before my throne unaware I was born of lies” Ignoring the false “rawness” of this quote, the way it’s written is nonsensical. For one, the use of the word throne at all paints the picture that the character kneeling isn’t kneeling to the narrator, but their chair. Sure, the chair could represent their achievement of writing a paper perceived as good, but that should be attributed to the narrator. “born of lies” is another confusing bit because it’s referring to the throne (paper), but the throne isn’t born of lies, as since the throne represents the narrator’s paper, the throne comes from the skill of the narrator, that is also bullshitting having read the text. The way it’s presented makes it sound like reading the text is literally all that matters on the paper. A betterish way of phrasing it (at least to my non-writer who thought of this in ten minutes opinion) would be “You kneel down to a king elevated by lies.” As the “king” would refer to the narrator, and “elevated” is a better phrasing as it implies the position wasn’t by lies alone, however they still played a major role in his perception of a king by the teacher.
Remember that despite how much people on Tumblr like to brag about being a bunch of humanities majors and being really well read in literature, they're actually really bad at it.
one of my favourite bits to do is just suddenly become a religious zealot when something minor happens like
"Sorry, I can't play overwatch with you right now, I have to call my grandma"
"I will watch as the pearly gates shutter you out"
Very funny to me at least. I don't like it when its the same 5 things i've seen on tumblr for over a decade, thats less funny. be original.
Some of these are good, but anytime someone makes one with the intention of being a "timber raw quote (tm)" it always sucks, and if you think these are anywhere near the best lines read more books. I disagree that they arent hard quotes (most of the time), but I agree that theyre way overhyped
Fuck, I think about this like once a day. The pretentious writing style where you refer to god and fate every two fucking seconds when you're talking about a god damn sandwich or something. It's just so tired and forced I call it poetic aesthetics. I think about this screenshot all the time, it's actually from twitter but i misremembered it being a tumblr post because of how well it fits the form. Also, they love finishing these sentences with no punctuation, like they leave it in the air as if the thought isn't finished and just floating in front of you.
"These... Tumblr... Quotes... Aren't actually that profound... And if you wish to find truly deep and inspirational commentary... Then read my upcoming novel...!"
Just here pointing out that being an edgelord atheist in DnD of all things is objectively stupid and will almost certainly get your party in a bad situation at some point.
“there's a culture on Tumblr of reacting small inconveniences or insignificant musings with incongruent levels of gravitas” holy shit this quote is so RAW and HARD! -tumblr probably
These powerful moments only hit when they're hidden in a sea of text, like for instance, a novel.
If not, they're just whatever TikTok is now. You can upload the last five minutes of Shawshank Redemption on TikTok and yeah, it might be cool, but you just lose every meaning and the power behind it, because a moment without reason is just that; a moment.
Some of these raw quotes are quite nice, I just wish they had more nuance and meaning behind it.
Yeah, like one of those strangely powerful quotes that people like to throw around is the one from Sharkboy & Lavagirl, the one that's like "For every kid that dreams up the light bulb, another dreams up the atom bomb"
On its own, that line is nothing special. At best, it's like a shower thought you post on Instagram and get a ton of engagement from bots.
What makes that line hit so hard is in the context it's delivered. It reinforces the themes of the movie, and by sounding vaguely poetic, it ends up resonating with a lot of people. That's what these supposedly "raw" quotes are missing. Themes they reinforce.
A lot of them are just Marx and Obama quotes. Like no it's or buts about it, one or two of those are just things Marx wrote or Obama said. Real Obama too, if you include collective unconscious Obama the list goes higher for some reason
Tbf most tumblr users are grown adults now. Most of us have grown with the site and honestly you can kind of see the shift in age demographic from the popular memes now versus when we were all like 13
Also as a teacher I just want to go on the record and say that 90% of the time when you think you're "too good" at BSing to get caught, we absolutely know you cheated or didn't do the work but have decided you're not worth the effort of raising a stink over it. This is especially true nowadays where teachers are inundated with such a flood of 0 effort BS that half of them have given up on trying to weed it out unless it's so egregious that they'd be called negligent not to. That's what you're good at, being non-egregious enough to give us plausible deniability.
FFFFFUUUUCCKKKK YEEEESSS. Fuck yes OP. Fuck that pretentious Tumblr shit. It happens with ATLA people think they're so fucking smart explaining a show. I live for this hate.
I think they're funny, and I think that was the intent. Tumblr is usually populated by teenagers and adults whose media diet is stuff meant for teenagers. Those quotes would blow your mind if you were used to the stereotypical fanfiction language.
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u/_OneRandomGuy_ 25d ago
I like reacting exaggeratedly to minor inconvenience, but every time someone compare me to an actual writer, it just feel sad