Alt lit

Alternative Literature (often stylized as Alt Lit or Alt-Lit) is a term used to describe a particular literature community that publishes and/or draws its motifs from the internet, internet culture, and "a population of people that are connected with one another through their interest in the online publishing world". It includes various forms of prose, poetry, and new media.

The term was first used to refer to this community of writers in the summer of 2011, when Tumblr and Twitter accounts named "Alt Lit Gossip" emerged, created by Cory Stephens (@outmouth). The accounts covered writers from presses and publications such as Muumuu House, Pop Serial, and HTMLgiant in a style akin to celebrity gossip sources like TMZ. After a few months the original accounts were deleted; they were revived by Frank Hinton in the fall of 2011, and began to gain popularity.

Alt Lit is characterized by self-publication, self-promotion, and the maintenance of a presence on social media networks. Josh Soilker has said that Alt Lit is "in blog posts, videos, gchats and Facebook status updates. In PDFs and folded papers..." and that the movement's principal figures were Tao Lin, Noah Cicero and Brandon Scott Gorrell.

Alt Lit writers share Gmail chat logs, image macros, screenshots, and tweets, which are then self-published as poetry books and/or novels.

Writing for the New Yorker, Kenneth Goldsmith characterized Alt Lit writing as "marked by direct speech, expressions of aching desire, and wide-eyed sincerity". He also noted that Alt Lit is "usually written in the Internet vernacular of lowercase letters, inverted punctuation, abundant typos, and bad grammar".

The German writer Marc Degens characterized Alt Lit "as a product of globalization": "What binds it together are globalized experiences (shopping malls, fast food chains, franchised stores) and the English language."

Online and print Alt Lit magazines include Illuminati Girl Gang, New Wave Vomit, Pop Serial, Shabby Doll House, Have U Seen My Whale, The Bushwick Review, The Mall, Keep This Bag Away From Children, Everyday Genius, Metazen, Housefire, UP Literature, Parlor, Sadcore Dadwave, Red Lightbulbs, and Unsure if i will allow my beard to grow for much longer.

Alt Lit news and creative blogs include Alt Lit Gossip, I Am Alt Lit, Internet Poetry, HTMLGiant, Beach Sloth, Allthemacchs, Heartcloud, FRXTL, Cutty Spot, and Alt Lit Press.

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Wikipedia