REJECTION by Tony Tulathimutte ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I started thinking I knew what I was getting, and that I liked whatever that was. Ended up somewhere miles away from that place after a doozy of a finish. I really enjoyed some of these pieces, while others…at least I can say the author writes try-hard, incompetent characters better than any I’ve seen. This book can only work for the millenial/zoomer generations, sure to confound anyone uninitiated to being terminally online. As one of those still grumpily plugged-in, I gave it four stars.

Here’s my attempt at reviewing what nearly became the unreviewable.

The Feminist

The most traditional piece of the book. The scary thing is, this guy really exists somewhere. The Feminist is the cringiest cringe. Tulathimutte tapped into some friend group’s real dynamic and locked on to the weird one they all probably wish they’d never let in, and followed him down the rabbit hole. With the world of toxic masculinity and seriously deranged notions like this percolating, along with shows like Adolescence and other similar themes, I worry how hard it is to raise a son into a normal, stable, good person these days without outside influences (internet, tv, media, everything) turning him into this. Is the world equipped for the epidemic that is the rejected incel? I’m not sure.

What a first Rejection story. A strong one, even if it ended in a never-to-be-answered cliffhanger.

Pics

Another spiraling rejection, this time filled with some of the most realistic group chat dialogue in history. Also, a great example of why not to get a pet raven. I don’t think pets are ever the answer to a romantic lapse, but ravens will straight up beat the shit out of you. Excellent narrative choice though. I liked this one too.

Ahegao

If you’re worried you think about sex too much, have no fear — this guy has you beat. A rejection on the physical level so strong, his own body is the rejector at work here. His desires and his temperament at odds with each other, it’s the type of contradiction that can only lead to repression. And yes, I blushed reading this next to my wife. The custom-ordered sex scene reads like a screenplay for erotic hentai-turned-live-action and felt like it went on forever, which I think was the intention. You want to pity this person almost cursed with a dream they can never achieve, but then you want to scream at them to simplify their needs like the rest of us and maybe they can be happy. Is that the undercurrent hiding in all of these pieces? That each of these characters are entitled and therefore self-destructive? That’s where I’m landing for now.

Our Dope Future

It’s as I feared — even knowing all the right slang still doesn’t merit being a cool person. I’m loving how the author is fixating each story on a classic archetype of our time. The incel sad-sack faux-feminist; the hopelessly clingy and self-aware avoidant friend; the repressed porn-addicted agoraphobe; the techbro turned future cult-leader and lovebomber. And the common thread that links all these modern rejects — the internet. A place all rejected and deflected can go to believe they aren’t in the wrong, that a global conspiracy is transpiring against them and they deserve what they can’t have. What dark holes we go down with them.

Main Character

I thought this one would never end. All of it meaning everything and nothing at once. This is the power we put into the social structure we’ve created, full of names and categories and second meanings on second meanings that compound until there’s no way to know what is problematic and what isn’t. This piece made me realize we’ve really created an insane house of cards based on faux relevancy, finger-pointing, clout-chasing, and passive aggression, and it’s hard to know what to say or even what to think, or how to know someone’s true character. I can’t believe I almost miss the old days when if you were bullied, at least it happened in person.

I think I caught mention of every single minority, subgroup, kink, fetish, gender, caste, controversy, slang, avatar, call sign, what have you in this piece, and I held on as long as I could. These are the social norms and topics of our time, all packaged together like a narrative index. Was I supposed to be overwhelmed and sort of annoyed? I think so, and as with the other pieces, a kudos to the author for nailing it, even if it seemed to turn inside out. A rejection so hard, the piece rejected itself.

Sixteen Metaphors

…and then ya lost me. I burnt out on the previous piece and had no processing power left for this short one. Sounded nice though.

Re: Rejection

I was crawling out of my skin trying to finish these pages. The author basically reviews their own work here in a self-conscious way, leaving nothing left to be said.