Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/12/guyinyourmfa-is-pitch-perfect.html
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Somewhere out there, Anthony Doerr is taking frantic notes.
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I guess it’s funny, but it seems to me the lesson lurking behind it is that your every attempt at creative expression will be a pathetic failure worthy only of mockery and that it is best not to even try.
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Sorry for being so dense/unhip, but would someone care to explain what “MFA” means in this context?
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I’m assuming…
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I’d go with @daneel, but here are some other options:
Master of Fine Arts
Multi-Fiber Arrangement
Midwest Finance Association
Medic First Aid
America First Mortgage Investments, Inc.
Museum of Fine Arts
Midwest Footbag Association
Modify Field Attribute
Multi-Function Actuator
Medicated Feed Application number
Maneuver Functional Area
Materiel Fielding Agreement
MultiFunction Attachment
Manned Flight Awareness
Management Functional Area
Mean Flourescence Activity
Mother Fucking Asshole
Missouri Farmers Association
Material Flow Analysis
Majin Federation Army
Mcdonald Family And Associates
Missouri Farm Assoc
Merchant Fleet Archiver
Merchant Fleet Auxiliary
Master Of Fine Art
The Movie Fan Academy
Mafia Island, Tanzania
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I think the lesson is for aspirants not to act like hot shit. It’s good advice.
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It’s a post-graduate program where you delay your career by studying in close proximity with people you despise to get a degree that’s necessary to land a job doing work you don’t really need an MFA for.
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This. Write because you like to write, not because you think you’re some intellectual giant who’s somehow above the fray.
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Interesting. This motherfucking asshole isn’t just a Master of Fine Arts student, he also likes to play hackysack (footbag) on his farm in Missouri.
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it seems to me the lesson lurking behind it is that your every attempt at creative expression will be a pathetic failure worthy only of mockery and that it is best not to even try.
Wow, please try again, because that is so NOT the lesson.
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It may not be the intended lesson, but for some of us it’s the truth. 
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If one were to write a parody of one of these pretentious hipster books that isn’t even good, just ultra-white people being super duper ultra white, and it were received earnestly and with great critical acclaim, would that be a success or a failure?
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Yes.
(BB filler.)
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I can’t see “MFA” without immediately thinking “multifactor authentication”… sigh.
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I think someone fed a deep learning script every conversation I ever had with my university roommate’s boyfriend.
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Too long for a philosoraptor meme… try again!
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I think I’ve read that book. Someone I know wrote it, which is almost certainly the only reason I’ve read it.
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The lesson is to create to make yourself happy and not take “cool guy” photos in a leather jacket to put on the dustjacket and maybe the womanizing alcoholic past his prime voice is overrepresented in “write what you know!” programs.
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“Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A Novel”?
Or are you thinking more Less Than Zero?
