I Am HUNGRY for a CHUNKY Classic
on searching for something solid in a world that’s thin
My TBR is insane. And embarrassing. And never ending. It’s full of new releases, recommendations from friends, and literally 27 Book of The Month books that I thought I would read but haven’t (yes, I’ve ended my subscription). It’s full of books that went viral on TikTok, literary fiction that’s supposed to change my life, and a couple classics I’ve been telling myself I’d get to know for years but haven’t yet.
But, for the past year, I’ve found that every single time I finish a book, I end up rereading something I’ve already read five times instead of picking anything from the list.
I’m not a literary snob, nor am I stuck in the past (despite what this might make you believe). I lean into immersing myself in the same literature over and over again because everything in the world right now feels like eating air. My entire algorithm is either predatory marketing, stressful world events or minimalist beige emotional beats from people who never let their content “go there”. Everything is polished. Everything is digestible. Everything is designed to go down easy and leave no residue.
I’m starving for something with actual weight to it.
I want a classic book that takes three weeks to read because it’s dense and complicated without apologizing for being either thing. I want art that makes me work for it instead of pre-chewing every emotion and spoon-feeding it to me. I want something CHUNKY. Something SOLID. Something that actually fills the hollowness that’s around me every single day instead of just sliding through it.
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But The Hollowness Isn’t Just In My Reading List, It’s Everywhere.
I started really noticing it everywhere once I paid attention to it in the broader book community and looked back at recent events with hindsight.
It shows up in the way every response to a political crisis has been flattened into infographics with pastel backgrounds. The way we processed a global pandemic through wellness content and sourdough starters instead of actually reckoning with mass death. The way the overturning of Roe v. Wade got 48 hours of social media outrage and then everyone went back to posting their morning routines.
We, as a collective, have (whether it was out of a need for survival or not is beside the point) turned everything into content that’s designed to be consumed and forgotten.
Even our collective grief and rage have been optimized for the algorithm.
I watched the election results come in last November while chatting in one of Airplane Mode with Liz Plank’s subscriber chat threads. We were outraged, confused, and grieving the results together. By the next morning, a few hours later my entire feed was full of posts about “protecting your peace”, “taking a social media break” and “focusing on what you can control.” Which, fine. Self-preservation is real. But we’ve also gotten so good at turning away from anything heavy that we can’t sit with collective weight anymore.
Everything has to be processed immediately and then moved past. Everything has to have a neat takeaway or a list of action items or a way to make it feel manageable. We can’t just sit in the mess of it and feel it together.
And I think that’s why I keep reaching for these dense, complicated books from 200 years ago. Because at least they let things be heavy and didn’t try to resolve everything in 300 pages or give you five actionable steps to feel better about systemic injustice when in reality you should dive into the feeling and sit in it with people.
They trusted, in a way that it seems the masses today have forgotten, that some things are supposed to sit with you, and be difficult, and not be digested or forgotten in 5 minutes flat.
What Happens When Everything Becomes Thin?
Thinness in content leads to overconsumption of content and that’s exactly what capitalism wants. Everything is monetized. Everything is quick. Everything is easily consumable. They want you to scroll, interact, buy, forget, repeat. Over, and over, and over again.
Our work, our content, our creative output isn’t abstract anymore. I can feel it deteriorating in real time. My instinct is to reach for my phone the second I feel even slightly bored. I catch myself writing for the scrollability factor instead of with the purpose of uncovering the truth. And I hate. I hate that all of us have started optimizing our own creativity for digestibility instead of depth.
I hate that these are the things that will continue to happen if we don’t actively create chunky, weighty, hefty, feeling-filled content.
Here are a few of the things that I mean, and am deeply scared of happening, when I say this:
1. You’ll Start Producing Thin Things Too
The first thing that happens when the collective submits to creating thin, beige, digestible content is that you (the person reading this who is so deeply dedicated to not making digestible content) start creating the same kind of content you’ve been consuming. When everything you read is optimized for quick consumption, when every piece of art you encounter has been sanded down to its most palatable form, you start doing that to your own work.
I catch myself doing it constantly. I’ll write something with actual weight to it and then immediately start editing it down. Making it cleaner. Turning it into a Substack Note rather than massaging it into a fully flushed out post. I take out the parts that might require someone to pause and think because I myself have come to believe that people don’t want to think anymore.
But, why would I do that when I genuinely want people to want to think?
2. You’ll Forget How to Hold Weight
Consuming only thin content atrophies your ability to engage with anything complex. By consuming TikTok and Substack Note-sized content on the regular, without any diversity, you lose the muscle of sustained attention and forget how to sit with difficulty without immediately trying to simplify it or move past it.
This is why I keep going back to the same dense books. They’re training for how to hold complexity without needing it resolved immediately. They teach you how to let contradictions exist without forcing them into neat conclusions.
Chunky classics aren’t just entertainment—they’re practice for existing in a world that’s constantly trying to make you skim the surface of everything.
3. You’ll Start Performing Depth Instead of Actually Going There
We’ve gotten so hungry for substance that we started performing it instead of actually engaging with it. Dark academia became an aesthetic that made people post photos of themselves with classic books they’re not actually reading. Everyone’s suddenly into “slow living” and “intentional consumption”, but only if it’s in the form of a 30 second TikTok with 87 jump cuts to keep their attention.
The performance of depth, although deceivingly similar to the real thing if you don’t stop and critically think about it, is still just performance. It’s still thin. It just wears a cute Burberry coat now.
And I’m not exempt from this, by the way. I’m a marketer. I create content for businesses and influencers for a living. I have made the TikToks, and posted the notes, and edited the very jump cuts I’m talking about, because the fact of the matter is that it works. There’s a world where, when you’re trying to break through an algorithm and have your content be seen, that you need to make digestible content for visibility purposes.
But, when you do decide to do it, you need to be doing so very carefully and very intentionally.
4. You’ll Stop Feeling Hungry (And Hunger Is the Most Rebellious Thing You Have)
Let’s go just a tad bit deeper. Stick with me.
The very system I described above (marketing digestible content for visibility’s sake) depends on you, the consumer, not noticing that you’re empty. It depends on you consuming content quickly and moving on to the next thing without ever stopping long enough to realize that nothing is actually filling you up.
So, my best advice here is to stay hungry. Acknowledge that you’re starving for substance instead of pretending the thin gruel you’re being fed is satisfying. That is the most radical thing you can do as a consumer.
Make your hunger your fuel. Demand better. Train your mind to sit through long videos and read long books. Memorize things for fun. Do crosswords without googling hints. Play board games. Lower the stimulation around you every day.
All of this makes you unwilling to settle for performance when you could have substance.
Here’s How I’m Combatting Performance in Favor of Substance.
I’m going back to my favorite chunky classics (see above instagram reel as evidence). I’m rereading the same dense books for the fifth time instead of reaching for whatever’s trending or up next in my TBR. I’m choosing weight over ease and I’m staying hungry instead of pretending to be satisfied.
I’m making different choices about what I create, too. I’m actively choosing to write essays that take 15 minutes to read (shout out you if you made it to the end of this one) instead of notes that take 3 seconds to like and repost. I’m sitting with grief instead of downloading that 5 step guide to making things okay again, and I’m listening to the woes of my community members and being with them instead of trying to find a solution or excuse as to why things will get better soon.
You can do this too. Start small. Reread a book you loved instead of adding another one to your TBR. Watch a movie without checking your phone. Write something that takes actual effort to read. Let yourself be bored for five minutes without reaching for distraction.
Train your brain to hold weight again and intentionally build back the muscle of sustained attention. Choose substance over performance, even when it’s harder, even when it doesn’t get as many likes, and even when nobody’s watching.
Because the hunger you your audience may feel is not a problem to solve with quick, snarky, beige content. It’s direct evidence that you’re starving for something of substance.
I feel you when you say you want people to want to feel depth... I've tried to tell this to my friends but it's difficult to convince someone to "feel". I honestly think the best way to convince someone of this is not by literally explaining to them why they should want to feel depth, but by giving them depth worthy experiences. This can be a conversation about something you're passionate about (passion is contagious), a movie that makes you think more than it makes you fall asleep, and of course, a book that you resonate with.
Thank you for this wonderful piece!