Personally I think Sturgeon's Law gets trotted out as much as YMMV to shut up and stop looking critically at things. Why bother to weigh the merits of something when you can just file it off as that 90% of stuff you don't like? And funny thing about Sturgeon's Law - that 10% that is good tends to vary from person to person, almost always as the stuff they happen to like.
It is a very silly idea, in my opinion.
Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]It's right, but inaccurately worded.
I'd go with "90% of everything is stuff you personally wouldn't be interested in."
I have no interest in buying moe anime, books on iguana care, apple corers, maps of Sweden, polka albums, diet pills, diamond jewelry, or souvenir keychains. Does that mean all of those things are objectively crap? of course not. Just not my cups of tea.
I'd say that just like no more than 10% of something could be described as good, no more than 10% it could be decribed as "crap." Probably only about 3-5% is So Bad Its Horrible.
The other 80% is in the middle somewhere.
But that's not very concise.
edited 29th May '11 3:31:02 AM by Wheezy
Novel progress: The Adroan, 110k; Yume no Hime, 98k; The Pigeon Witch, on pause at 40k.Wait, if 90% of everything is crap, does it follow that 90% of the 10% that is not bound to be crap by Sturgeon's Law is also crap, and hence that
90% + 0.9 * 10% = 99% of everything is crap?
And iterating the procedure, 90% of the remaining 1% is crap, and hence 99.9% of everything is crap?
And so on, and so on, and so on, and in conclusion 99.99999....% = 100% of everything is crap?
edited 29th May '11 3:25:42 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Another dormant post
I say, some I find hateable, most is So Okay, It's Average to boring, pointless and uninteresting, and very few in this world is enjoyable
edited 5th Jan '13 3:18:02 AM by SentaiToku
Now that's one hell of a necro.
Anyway, I'd say that Sturgeon's Law is merely a description of people's opinions: 'Any given person will probably like at most 10% of works in any given genre/medium.'
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...I personally feel like everything has some sort of value as a work. Even if it isn't a good work, it'd then have value as a way of seeing what not to do. Even aside from that, everything has its fans. The Room has fans. The universally reviled Jack and Jill has fans. Even Manos The Hands Of Fate has fans who watch it unironically.
Still, I do feel that the majority of works out there probably are neither excellent nor "teh suckzorz", as we say in my country, but everything still has somebody that likes it.
edited 5th Jan '13 1:30:09 PM by 0dd1
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.
I don't see how that random Inception works here at all.
God, I though people got sick of saying "XCEPTION!!!LOL!!".
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.Most people think most thinks are okay, i.e., a bell curve. Only a few think most things are bad or most things are good. Therefore, people fit into a bell curve on how they think of things, while most people think of a bell curve when they think of the quality of things.
Also, horrible memes will never die as long as I live, therefore, you must challenge me to an epic planet-busting duel and kill me in Mortal Kombat if you wish end to such asinine cockery.
edited 5th Jan '13 2:55:53 PM by Ekuran
Yeah, it tires me to see people spamming "Inception" all over the place instead of just saying 'recursion' or 'meta-'.
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...

Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is crap. I believe it applies to just about everything.