I think one of the reasons behind why a lot of popular art is sad or melancholy is because we’re predisposed to look for people who’re worse off compared to us or who’re doing just as poorly as us. We don’t really want to hear how happy someone is or how great things are for them because it doesn’t really serve any purpose for us.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But where I start to lose interest with dark or sad literature is when the sadness stops being a tool to push people into positivity and becomes instead a separate entity. Sadness for the sake of sadness.