Edginess

Edginess as a concept is a fatal package-dealing of two separate concepts. In their complete and meaningful expression, these two concepts are interwoven to highlight something valuable: the performance of suffering, mental illness, or darkness that is neither deserved nor authentic. However, those two concepts have begun to be torn apart by cultural shearing forces (specifically due to a sort of artistic self-consciousness and cynicism); as a result, what many people mean when they say edginess, if you look at what they actually apply it to, is really just the first part – the performance of darkness and suffering – but all of the connotations, the evaluative judgement, implied by including the second concept are brought along for the ride when the word is applied.

It is crucial to understand that the concept of "edginess," when used as a evaluative measure, does not appropriately apply to anything simply because it is dark or rife with suffering. People hate edginess for two reasons: one, because it's a form of stolen valor – attempting to imitate things that haven't been truly experienced in a way that cheapens and mocks them – and two, because it violates "show, don't tell," because the necessary suffering and darkness needed to justify what's currently being shown can't be demonstrated in a great enough depth and nuance by the author, can only be told to the person trying to enjoy the art. That isn't inherently the case even for art that is extremely dark, violent, contains a lot of suffering, and mental illness.

This package dealing is very damaging because it leads people to dismiss certain kinds of art, especially if it's outsider art, out of hand, because the showing instead of telling, the earning of the suffering and darkness, doesn't necessarily have to come before the "payoff" in darkness. Sometimes, you start a story with a character in a very dark place, and only find out after why they're like that, for instance. But because people just think "edgy" means "is very dark and has lots of suffering," because they don't know that there are more conditions than that which allow things to be retroactively redeemed and made complex, nuanced, and good depictions, they'll dismiss it out of hand without continuing forward, curious to find out if the narrative redeems it, like they would for any other in medas res worldbuilding, character, or story element that is only justified over the course of the whole narrative.

This lack of nuanced understanding of what constitutes actually-bad edginess also means that people go based on nothing more than "vibes" instead of a meaningful analysis of whatever text they're looking at. Instead of trying to determine whether the suffering and darkness portrayed is properly earned and authentic on its own terms, they'll just consult their feelings as to whether it "feels right" to them. The problem with this is that everyone's experience with suffering and darkness, and how people react to it, and how they cope with it, is different. Something can be deeply authentic and accurate, and still "feel wrong," and with a simplistic understanding of "edginess," the work will just get lumbed in with Shadow the Hedgehog and various works of fanfiction and badmouthed.

I think the solution here is to abolish the concept of edginess entirely. It's a brainworm. Instead, just talk about whether a work is authentic or inauthentic, earned or unearned, whether it violates the show don't tell principle or not. That way, we avoid the package deal entirely.