Yesterday, WIRED published a curious story by Features Editor Jason Kehe with this title and subtitle: “Brandon Sanderson Is Your God: He’s the biggest fantasy writer in the world. He’s also very Mormon. These things are profoundly related.”
In over 4,000 words, he tells us Sanderson is a bad writer, his fans and family are overly devoted nerds, and his guest bathroom is awesome. He says he spent two days at a Dragonsteel conference talking to fans, many hours with the author in his home and over meals, and that he, the reporter, hates Hugh Jackman. There are many words on the opinions and efforts of the reporter himself. But what is the relationship suggested by the subtitle? That Sanderson is a millionaire fantasy writer and a Mormon. Can you feel the profundity dripping from that statement?
I can’t decide what this article actually is, because it isn’t a feature of a popular fantasy author. It could be an attempt at a substantive observation that Kehe couldn’t produce. It could be a salvaged second draft, because Kehe wanted to write about Mormonism using Sanderson as an anchor but WIRED didn’t want to publish it. Or it could be rage baiting, a piece written with the simple goal of saying, “Hey, kid, you know that thing you like? It stinks.”
Maybe it is an attempt at substance and the reporter (or the magazine) doesn’t have the depth to swing it. It also checks all the boxes for rage baiting. YouTube already has several reaction videos, and Twitter is not reserving its disgust.
Kehe seems to know all the mechanics of good writing, so I hope he finds better subjects for expressing them or a healthier publisher.
A Little More: Here’s a great contrast of this article with one from another magazine about another artist, written by Shane Morris of the Colson Center.