The Problem with Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis is (at age 62) a famous and successful American author. His specialties are "Satire, black comedy, and transgressive fiction," per his Wikipedia article. Someone who read my book recommended that I pick up Less than Zero, his debut novel, written while he was still smoking cigarettes in the woods of Maine at USM with the famous "recluse" Donna Tartt, and I read it. I'd always been surface-level aware of the guy, but never dug deep until recently. I am not smart or well-read enough to criticize him as a writer. However, I am happy to score easy wins against him, because he was, at least once, a smart guy, and he should know better. So, let's get started.

Ellis is a great writer, and LTZ is a good read, if not everyone's taste. The book is this very noir, drifting thing, light on plot, as the protagonist attends parties in the wealthy underbelly of LA, does drugs, gets laid, and becomes disillusioned, all at once. He has done very well for himself and earned a lot of praise. His early works are characterized by violent and misogynist characters, including the famous Patrick Bateman of American Psycho. This was a big deal at the time. It is no longer a big deal. Many people have come the other way around on the issue, but many have not. All I'll say is - the movie is different than the book.

In his infinite wisdom, Ellis released White in 2019, his first and only work of nonfiction. A "collection of personal essays" (OK John Green, lol), the book being Trump 1-era means that it was when we were nearing Peak Woke. And make no mistake - this is what Ellis has decided to complain about. The book markets itself as a take on "the relentless anti-Trump fixation, coastal elites, corporate censorship, Hollywood, identity politics, Generation Wuss, "woke" cultural watchdogs", among other things. The Amazon listing is complete with a pull quote from the hardwood flooring heiress Bari Weiss. That's pretty cool, man! He even published articles in the lead-up talking about his genius new term - Generation Wuss - skewering the weak, self-righteous youth of today. I also wonder which ethnic group he thinks "coastal elites" refers to.

The best part of this manifesto is that Bret, despite the title, despite the Amazon listing, claims not to want to pick a side. They are all loons, he says, and he alone is the only sane one left. He has found the true center. He espouses basically no true political view other than that of aesthetics - his general annoyance at the manner in which libs act and the fact that he has to interact with people who exhibit those behaviors. I was also, at the time, annoyed with (some of) these behaviors, and at no point did I think to write a hardcover book, publish it, and call it "White". Give me a break, man. There is only one ideology that puts aesthetics above all else, but I won't print its name here.

2019 was a very specific era where, whether you were woke or not, it was basically considered violence to have to read a Tweet or a Post you did not like. Bret had to read a lot of posts from people he thought were either wrong and annoying, or right and annoying (which is worse), and it hurt him deeply. At the time, Twitter's algorithm would only serve you posts that you did not like, or failing that, posts from people you do like, criticizing posts you did not like.

This was very entertaining, made Jack Dorsey quite rich and weird, and lasted until the site changed hands. Spending too much time on Twitter is bad for you, and I think it's in many ways worse for you than Tiktok or whatever, because it has a way of tricking people into thinking that the time they spent on the App mattered. Reading posts you liked was activism, posting was activism, even just retweeting was activism. Bret read way, way too many posts, and it cooked his brain.

We have no shortage of guys with podcasts who are worried about woke, so where does Bret think he fits in? Joe Rogan is better at playing at being apolitical. Ben Shapiro is better at being political. Bari Weiss is better at tattling. Quentin Tarantino is better at being an asshole (with the plus side that he has a very whimsical Peter Griffin-like personality - his kinks are things like feet and not women get their shit blown smooth off). Michael Richards is better at being a conservative comedian.

It is all so boring and melodramatic to me. It is so boring that I actually find it very annoying. It's annoying in the same way Ellis finds Tumblr-speak leaking onto his Twitter feed annoying. It is aesthetically bad and out of touch. I can say this because I am 25. I am at the very height of relevance, and my opinions can only get more irrelevant from here. What Bret is too egotistical to realize is that he, at age 62, has lined himself up in a very long line of men his age who have basically a big button in the middle of their forehead that says "Angry" and then asked their phone to press it over and over every day. His actions are not countercultural, transgressive, or even unexpected. Any backlash is interpreted as a sign that he has made the 'right people' upset, and not over the fact that his aesthetics are outdated and that he's responding to a cultural moment that younger and more beautiful men have captured far better and for worse ends. You blew it, man!

My biggest problem with aging is wondering when or if I am going to turn into someone that 25-year-old me would not recognize. I sometimes feel like there's a 30% chance that, upon turning 50, a switch flips in your brain that inverts all your responses to stimuli, and you just start having insane opinions about basically everything, stop being able to process criticism, start watching AI-generated fruit videos, and just in general become extremely wrong and stubborn. The other world is the one that Bret was this out of touch the whole time, and that he once had luck and youth on his side to smooth over all of it.

People find success for either a multitude of reasons or no reason at all. Less than Zero hit a cultural milieu that was still in the midst of the Satanic Panic, and was pulled through controversy into mainstream success, followed up by American Psycho, which hit some of the same notes. The female-directed movie adaption of American Psycho rehabilitated that work into something of a cultural touchpoint, even if nobody is really sure who it is meant to parody anymore. I want to know if Bret was really this angry the whole time. When Patrick Bateman engages in complex, sadistic, and sexual murders, I want to know why that went in the book. After all, according to the author himself: "Bateman was crazy the same way I was".

Whatever happened to being an elder statesman? Writers were supposed to age and write weirder and worse stuff until they died among a collection of broken-down classic cars and a much younger spouse - they were not supposed to have smartphones. If Ellis imagines himself a literary great, he should take a sign from literally anyone he imagines is his peer and get cancelled after his death, not before it.

I just want to believe that someone who is capable of being a great writer could also think about their words and consider that they might be wrong. I feel like this is a huge gap in the way some people perceive the world that I don’t comprehend properly. When I publicly share opinions, I basically have no internal assurance that I am correct. In public, when someone tells me a strongly-held opinion, I am more likely to defer to them rather than argue, because I might be wrong, and also, who cares? I have learned that some if not most people do not operate this way.

I am not some paragon of morality. I am not a great writer. I am not completely aware of my words and actions and how they affect other people. I have been loud and wrong in my life. But I would like to think that, in my own sick way, I at least can see farther than the end of my own nose. I'm not so sure Bret can.