Why people hate that Lex Fridman wants to read books
It was a weird response. One that deep down I was familiar with.
Lex Fridman, is a stoic straight-laced podcaster who has interviewed many scientists and talked about AI in a way I don’t understand. (Anything that’s not “WILL THE ALIEN ROBOTS KILL US?!” is above my head.)
What I love about Lex is even though he is an earnest man and a jiujitsu black belt (if you look close you can see some cauliflower ear) he is always preaching about love, about hearing out the other side, about coming together. A man after my own heart.
He has also made the mistake of interviewing people that the left doesn’t like Jordan Peterson.
That is how we end up here.
What an innocent post for the new year! “Hey guys, let’s do some reading! Let’s get in touch with our inner child! Let’s review the classics and see where they lead us! What they remind us of! What lessons we have forgotten! Hurray for literature! HURRAY!
And the internet responded: BOOOO! FUCK YOU YOU DUMB FUCK!! FUCK YOU AND FUCK BOOKS!!!!!!!^$%*@*
OH MY GOODNESS WERE PEOPLE UPSET.
You would have thought the only book Lex put on there was Mein Kamph! Mein Kamph and maybe Harry Potter (she got canceled and is like Hitler right? I can’t keep up.)
Many mocked the simplicity of the list (which of course made me feel dumb for not thinking many of these books are simple.) People made jokes about him reading books you should have read in high school, “Hey, idiot you forgot to mention James and The Giant Peach.” Etc.
Some people were screaming at him, “You can’t read a book a week!”
These were of course people who were just projecting. Wishing they had time to read a book a week. To them, I suggest making a wildly popular podcast that millions of people listen to instead of making fun of strangers reading lists on Twitter.
I couldn’t understand why people were so upset at this list. I couldn’t understand why the tweet blew up. Then to my horror, I remembered, the old version of me would have also made fun of that list.
For those who don’t know I used to be quite the little lefty shit-stirrer on Twitter. I wrote about it for QUILLETTE!
TL;DR I was depressed and thought an online tribe appealing to the mob was friendship until it all came crumbling down. Oops!
Because most of the people mocking Lex were on the left many of the tweets start with, “Right-wing apologist Lex Friedman dumb ass reading list…” or something like that. They are letting their audience know, “We aren’t making fun of reading but anything someone I disagree with likes we don’t like.”
So I guess The Little Prince is now a book for incels!
This was me.
Essentially my days would go like this.
See what is trending on Twitter.
See the name of someone I’m not supposed to like.
See what the people I’m supposed to agree with are saying
Find a funnier way to say it even if I don’t care or agree
Bask in retweets while my personal life falls apart
If someone on the right posts something YOU MUST FIND A WAY TO LINK IT TO OPPRESIVE BEHAVIOR OR MOCK IT WILDY.
By the way, it’s not just the left who does this. If Elizabeth Warren posted that list the right would have been like, “Where’s the Cat in The Hat?! Were you not allowed to read that on the reservation?!”
Our tribalism has become so bad we can’t even like books someone who votes differently likes. Books should be one of the things that bring us together! Books, comedy, music. This is ART. Art reminds us that we are all human.
Guess what? If I saw Donald Trump cry at Lilo and Stitch as I do, I may give that dude the benefit of the doubt. Let art be art. Let people enjoy the art they want to enjoy. FOR FUCKS SAKE IT WAS A READING LIST A MAN WAS EXCITED ABOUT!
If someone who you disagree with is encouraging his audience to read, or workout, or meditate, things we should ALL be doing to make this world a kinder more understanding place, and your first thought is, “Fuck that guy!” maybe you need to delete Twitter and go read a book a week.
If you enjoyed this check out my mental health comedy podcast Advice Not Taken w/Jamie Kilstein
Loved reading your perspective on this and your frankness was hilarious. Humour is exactly what the doctor ordered for this suffocatingly sanctimonious and graceless online world we find ourselves in.