Online lit is stupid

you done goofed

Online lit is stupid (and that’s okay, actually).

I am blogging here today to discuss two poems that I believe are in conversation with each other in their critique of online lit mags and the people who read them (and submit to them). These two pieces are “you’re lit mag sucks” by Theo Thimo and “The Bar Gets Raised” by Taylor Napolsky.

Let’s start with “you’re lit mag sucks” by Theo Thimo, since it came first, published by Bizarre Publishing House in January 2026. This piece reads like a giant middle finger to online literary spaces, decrying the current state of online literature and the people who write it. When I first read the piece, I took it as a playfully sardonic challenge to the magazine who published it, like I dare you to publish this poem where I make fun of your literary magazine, and I still believe this to be the case.

what happened to the oldheads?

wheres alt lit 1.0 at? these new kids

can’t even read a simple short story in spanish

they twerk on call to their friends

they go to school to fight girls

bro they are submitting to expat and bizzare publishing house

the scene may never recover

the consequences will never be the same

from “you’re lit mag sucks” by Theo Thimo

Craftily employing internet speak and 2010s-era memes, the piece harkens back to a simpler time of old school alt lit’s heyday. The piece does not take itself seriously, it was clearly done for fun. Ending with a silly jab directly lifted from one of Jessi Slaughter’s viral videos (god, that poor kid), in which her stepfather yells at the camera and Jessi’s cyberbullies

to the world, i’m sending out a major love

and this is my message you:

you done goofed! bc i backtraced it!

you’ve just been reported to the cyberpolice

we see that any sort of real threat is completely undercut. Thimo is joshing us, joshing the magazine. We are not meant to walk away from reading this piece with any sort of hard feelings, and clearly the magazine understood the poem’s mission.

“The Bar Gets Raised” by Taylor Napolsky, published by Plague Circus Press in June 2026, is less wistful about the online lit days of yore. It is forthright in putting the reader in their place and challenging their motivations behind reading and supporting online lit.

If you don’t have status
you’re stupid
And low key / high key
a worthless person 🔑

from “The Bar Gets Raised” by Taylor Napolsky

Using a similar tone as “you’re lit mag sucks,” the piece brings humor along with insults. The language is relaxed, and reads like a Twitter missive railing against those who pretend to be cultured in order to receive some unspoken cultural currency and coolness, i.e., clout.

It should be noted that Napolsky was the editor who published Thimo’s piece at Bizarre Publishing House, which was taken down for a short time due to controversy before being restored after a number of people complained. Napolsky takes the premise of the shittiness of online lit mags and turns the onus onto the readers and supporters.

The pieces are indeed in conversation, creating a dialectic of online literature and its participants, asking why any of us are doing this at all. Why are we writing poetry for an audience of 100s, who most likely are also writing their own poetry they hope to publish online to the dozens of venues we all inhabit? Why do we take it seriously?

When viewed in this way, online lit is stupid. And the people who performatively talk about and care about online lit are stupid, especially when they log onto a public form to post about how much they liked a poem and you can tell they’re only doing it because the person who wrote the poem is either hot or has clout or has both hotness and clout.

They don’t understand
art—like it’s more about
 How pretty is
this girl
who wrote it? or
How much
clout does this
dude have?

I take issue with the notion that the girl poet must be pretty while the dude poet must have clout in order to be discussed (some women have clout and some men are hot), but it is also easy to see this play out online on a surface level. I also agree that it is easier to become a consumed poet if you are considered fuckable and have a strong following, regardless of gender. Or else, you know, just be really good at what you do. But we’re talking about alt lit/online lit, which has always been a bit of a high-school popularity game, though the truly popular would be loathe to admit as much. As an aging but still hot and only mildly popular poet, I’m happy to call that out.

Furthermore, what even is the use of clout if there are only a few hundred of us reading and participating? Are we all vying to be homecoming king and queen in our podunk hometown? One of my favorite things to remind myself when envy sets in because someone wrote a poem that got more hits than mine (or whatever) is that poetry, especially online poetry, is super low stakes. It’s better to just have fun and not put too much value in popularity.

So are we all just pretending to like poetry that isn’t very good? No, I don’t think the majority of us are doing that, though to an outsider I think it can seem that way? And “The Bar Gets Raised” does seem to take on the voice of a jealous outsider, someone like The Grinch, someone who deems themselves and their work superior to the participants of the in-group who happily praise each other and celebrate each other’s poetry. They must be doing it for clout, the outsider thinks, or they’re just using their sexuality to get readers. If only this outsider knew that they too could participate and share in the celebrations and share their own work, that they could be accepted if they put their jealousies aside.

These poems are silly. In my opinion, they are holding a mirror to those who take participating in the writing scene too seriously. None of this is serious. People mostly participate in alt lit/online lit because they want to have fun. They enjoy reading and writing and want to commune with people who also enjoy reading and writing. It’s a way to connect. The writing is mostly good, too.

Silliness and community are interconnecting. It is possible to care for others while also engaging in a lighthearted manner. BeachSloth is a good example of this.

Did you read these pieces? What did you think?