“Kaur’s poetry has always packaged the South Asian diasporic experience for the white gaze,” says Areeb Ahmad, a book reviewer based in Patna, India. After her Instagram post with period blood-stained pyjamas went viral, she republished the book with Andrews McMeel Publishing. Kaur did not break into the literary world with a publishing giant or a famous literary agent, she self-published milk and honey while she was in college. Kaur’s non-traditional route to fame could be the reason behind it. Several Rupi Kaur haters also believe that she doesn’t deserve the praise and recognition she gets. Push criticism of her actual writing aside and Kaur is a victim of a toxic mix of snobbery and misogyny.” “ makes her ripe for ridicule: like many pop musicians before her, she commits the sin of engaging with a demographic whose taste is often seen as a byword for bad quality. It's a vicious cycle.” So every time Kaur, who is prolific in her work, puts out something new, it acts as a trigger for those who not just not appreciate her works but have strong opinions about it.īut again, out of all bad poets and authors to exist-and several of them do of course, like with any creative pursuit-why does Kaur receive so much hate, to the point her work is synonymous with memes and jokes?Ī Guardian piece believes that this could have to be with the demographic that Rupi’s fans largely belong to: young women. They want to win, and each time they see the celebrity going about their business and not shutting up, they get more incensed. “They can't move on because they’re determined to see it through. Social psychologist Gena Cox calls it the “skin in the hate” game. You're unlikely to worry so much about Vanilla Ice's feelings.” In addition, you might become acutely aware of how much pain your mockery is causing Larry, and that can make you feel bad. “Larry-hating is unlikely to develop into a subculture in which you'll get to meet and communicate with lots of like-minded people. “But unlike Rupi Kaur, or Andrew Cuomo, there's just not all that many people who know Larry,” says Newman. So the very medium that has spawned Kaur’s fame has also spawned her community of haters-a community akin to a subculture in itself. But instead of hating on annoying Larry from your gym who only a few of your gym buddies would know of, the internet has opened up the possibility of sharing your hate for a bigger entity with way more people. It’s what helps us stick in groups, which is what has helped humans to survive and ultimately dominate. This hate, in a way, is wired into our system itself. Also, because they're constantly under the spotlight, we tend to be aware of their flaws.” “We might see them as being overrated we might suspect that much of their success is just due to luck. Newman, an associate professor of psychology at Syracuse University. “For all the acclaim that celebrities get, we often have ambivalent feelings toward them,” says Leonard S. This might simply have to do with her having made a cult-like following. “It was almost incel-like, you could see their misogyny clearly,” she says.” I don’t like her poetry myself, but I don’t use that to be misogynistic against her.”īut here’s the thing: This might not even be about Kaur being a good poet or a bad poet. Twitter user who goes by “no name” online noticed men leaving creepy remarks on her viral tweet on Kaur. But it’s not uncommon to see memes and parodies on Rupi Kaur with misogynistic undertones-with some saying she would not have faced this if she were a white man. Kaur’s style has been made fun of, or at the very least, parodied, for so long that it’s hard to see any actual critique come through. Since then, the page is also being used as a platform to advocate for mental health, social and racial justice, and feminist issues. I was messing around with Instagram poetry one night and thought it would be fun to share with the world.” In a week, her page had 20,000 fans. “I started the page on a whim one stoned night,” the anonymous woman running the page tells VICE from Montreal, Canada.
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