Category

No artist is necessarily “good” by definition, they’re just in a category, and every category has an audience—some are big, some are small. Nietzsche wasn’t necessarily good, he was just in this category of pedantic intellect that has a mysterious quality to it where nobody is sure whether he’s brilliant or insane. Same with Hemingway he’s just in a category of having such simple sentences that people aren’t sure whether he’s a revolutionary writer or just never figured out how to write complex sentences. Or, all self-help, most of it’s not any good but people love to read about how to improve themselves so it’s popular. It’s all about just producing and marketing, there’s an audience for everything. Even Lewis Carroll’s nonsense has an audience, and so do notebooks with blank pages.