Tao Lin is a really funny guy. I’m going to go ahead and tell you about his new book now. It’s called Shoplifting from American Apparel.
Seems pretty good. I wonder if it has a twisty plot. Or a surprise ending. Something tells me neither will be the case.
An excerpt of the book was posted on hipster runoff. I’m going to have to admit that the portion he chose to share hit close to home. Here it is:
“You know those people that get up every day, and do things,” said Luis.
“I’m going to eat cereal even though I’m not hungry,” said Sam.
“And are real proactive,” said Luis. “And like are getting things done, and never quit their jobs. Those people suck.”
“We get shit done too,” said Sam. “Look at our books.”
“I know, but that brings in no money,” said Luis. “Are we, like, that word ‘bohemians.’ Or something. Our bios: ‘They lived in poverty writing their masterpieces.’”
“We are the fucked generation,” said Sam. “Someone release the press release announcing this. Look at that typo.”
The word “announcing” was almost twice as long as normal.
“I’m laughing,” said Luis. “That is a good typo.”
“How do we get out of this,” said Sam.
I want to read it. I do. But I would feel so much less awkward about giving the dude money if he wasn’t always coming up with online marketing schemes and/or selling his possessions on eBay.
But then again, I read his Hipster Runoff blog and give him ad sales at least weekly. So maybe I should just suck it up and do it.
But then I see then again maybe I shouldn’t.
And if you need any help deciding whether to love or hate Tao, here’s a sampling of one of his poetry readings. Dare I say, “hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe?”
I’ll admit it, I loved reading HIPSTER RUNOFF. Say what you will. It was ridiculously over-the-top and hilarious. Carles lives his life day to day trying to perfect his altbro brand and is constantly questioning if the things he likes are “alt” enough.
Yall, today is the Super Bowl. Not sure how I should feel about it. Sports are kinda mainstream, especially the NFL. I don’t know if I am supposed to be into sports to ‘identify with people’ and ‘carry on conversations with the mainstreamers in my life’, or if I should Rage Against The Society’s Norms. Kinda confused–I want 2 fit in, but I don’t want to be ‘just another brick in the wall.’ h8 how there’s all these commercials that are trying to ‘appeal 2 me’ and ‘make me laugh’ and ‘identify with the product/brand.’ Kinda prefer to just read blog posts about ‘the best Super Bowl commercials’ the day after.
The Village Voice described Carles as “a mysterious and quite possibly messianic figure whose bizarre mixture of puerile humor, savage satire, goofy naïveté, and profound cultural critique has left everyone enthralled, terrorized, and completely confused.”
Not that it matters anymore — on Friday the blog was “hacked.” Some are speculating that it’s actually Carles playing a trick on his own readers, and of course we can just go ahead and believe what we’re seeing here, that it was actually hacked. Either way, the first post by the “hacker” looked to me like something that’d be written by one of those troubled teens that opens fire in his high school. And maybe that’s exactly why Carles wrote it that way?
do you realize that this site is complete garbage? what do you people even value? why do you support this site? Don’t you realize he is just making advertising money off you?
I guess I didn’t realize how serious the message behind silly satirical blog could get — I just liked to read it for laughs. Wonder if it’ll ever b back, yall…h8 lyfe without it.
UPDATE: HRO is being authored by Carles once again. No explaination beyond this:
They say u don’t realize how much something means 2 u
until u lose it
or it gets hacked
or ur compy crashes and ‘ur whole life is on there’
or a member of ur immediate family dies.
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