The Death of the author and The Lynchian Rizz

From The Writer’s Desk #4

WARNING: Rant below!!!!!

For context: “Rizz” is short for “charisma”, and that means an inherent ability to charm someone.

Roland Barthes, a French philosopher, wrote about the death of the author, which argues that the meaning of a text is determined by the reader’s interpretation, not the author’s intention. And it is this idea that prevails when you share your work: That it no longer belongs to you. If you’re lucky to find amazing readers or if you’re still niche, you probably won’t have that problem, since your amazing readers will carefully listen to you and your niche will simply accept it, because, hey, they totally get it. Chill.

And, well, I had that on my mind when i posted this picture:

Remember that? It blew up.

And yes, I had middle aged men telling me i was “encouraging discontrol” and that women that show these types of emotions publically were “openly mentally ill” and needed to be “locked away”.

Holy shit, Roland Barthes.

You were right.

Since you’re totally wondering (no, you’re not), I didn’t respond to any of the negative comments or DMs sent regarding that picture ( you’ll get why later on),but the definition of “death of the author” remained in my head. Because people WILL have their silly little interpretation of anything you ever put out.

Hear me out, I love reading new takes on my stuff, good or bad. You can’t really grow without criticism and sometimes, I’ll get that one comment telling me a whole new interpretation of something I wrote and how it resonated with that person’s life story and it’s BEAUTIFUL. I always save these to read over and over. But, having middle aged men telling me I was crazy was kind of my “I made it” moment. I tickled you… bitch.

And guess what? I never respond to any of them. That’s when that “Lynchian Rizz” comes in. If you don’t know what that is, let me explain to you who exactly Lynch is:

David Lynch is an American filmmaker, that made some of the most insane movies you’ve ever seen, like “Blue Velvet” and “Eraserhead”, and some masterpieces like “Mulholland Drive” and the famous “Twin Peaks”.

His “rizz” comes from the fact that he makes his art and no, he won’t elaborate. If you like it, that’s good. If you love it, great and if you hate it… you hate it. He won’t elaborate.

David Lynch being a bad ass bitch

So, let’s no longer discuss the death of the author. The author is right here. And the author doesn’t really give a fuck.

Can you guess how many “hey, i didn’t mean it that way! What i meant was…” little texts written on my notes app? Too many. And I never post any of them, because why defend yourself from the “inciting rebellious actions”allegations? WHAT DO YOU MEAN.

Excuse me, but letting constructive criticism heal your writing is a whole different thing than letting people that run NRA updates newsletters or something tell you you need to be locked up. So, yeah. Let that Lynchian“rizz” enter your life. Be completely unbiased.

Filter things. Know what’s relevant to take with you on your writing journey, what will make you a better writer or even a better person. We build so much of ourselves with bits and pieces of people we’ve met or didn’t get to meet, people we loved and knew or loved and never knew… So much is within us, and it’s up to us on whether we’re going to take the informative, poetic, beautiful, funny sides of ourselves into the world or not. If you decided to share, even if a little bit, I’m proud of you. It saddens me that so many talented artists that used to share their art, don’t anymore, all because of one unnecessary, mean comment. It breaks my heart when someone says “I’ll never write again”.

And it’s always because of comments like “That’s wack” or, as an example, if you write about someone famous you like, there are going to be comments like “He was a sad drunk” (True story). And my question to you is: Are you going to elaborate? Because they don’t care. They’re hiding under an anonymous handle like /sigmaballz123 and have no profile picture or bio or anything. They certainly won’t elaborate, so why should you?

The whole point of Lynch’s “rizz”is because he doesn’t care about the likings of the general public or what they say about his art. He knows he’s appreciated by those who understand him, who feel a connection to his works. If you’d like to explain your thoughts and your writing to people that are willing to hear it or in a respectful, peaceful debate, that’s so valid. But explaining the meaning of all your words to someone who definitely couldn’t give less of a shit about it is a waste of time. That, to me, is the real death of the artist.

And that’s why I delete all my notes app apologies when I see a picture of a famous actress on instagram and I look at the comments, most of them reducing her talent and her beauty to a simple “She looks old”. Big, big sigh.

*If you’re a new friend I just made, here’s me talking about being emotionally “blocked” and constructing relationships to have writing inspiration (which is super wrong…)