Comments on: Chuck Klosterman: A Manboy Who Must Be Stopped

By: Johnny

Johnny — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:57:25 +0000

You’re so whiny. You take everything Klosterman says and turns into something demonic. You would rather a world where every rape case is an instant guilty sentence? You’re trying to get everyone to stand behind you against Klosterman and thus bring up his most controversial topics and then take it completely out of context. The fact that you call Klosterman “anti-intellectual” is hilarious. Klosterman has more insight into all aspects of life than any other essayist that I’ve read. Maybe you’re just jealous.

By: SEP

SEP — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:58:18 +0000

Hrmmm… My husband is a fan of Klosterman’s. Having never read more than a paragraph or two of his, I just got the feeling that he was some huge asshole. I have started Fargo Rock City and am 50 pages in, (don’t know if I will finish or not), but I must say, his musings are at least funny and interesting. I haven’t changed my opinion that he is a huge asshole, but I WAS struck by this thought:
just about everyone I know & hang out with has, at some point in their lives, sat around obsessing over the minutiae that is pop culture, whether it was TV, movies, or music. Sometimes we did this while drinking, sometimes completely sober. EVERYONE likes to sit around and shoot the shit from time to time, and EVERYONE has their own opinion about what the best song is off whatever album. But not all of us have made an honest-to-god, bill-paying, bank-rolling career out of it. Klosterman has. Good for him, even though he’s an asshole.

By: Klosterfuck at antinomian.com

Klosterfuck at antinomian.com — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:15:30 +0000

[...] “Chuck Klosterman: A Manboy Who Must Be Stopped” – Somebody else hates on Chuck. [...]

By: Chaz

Chaz — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:09:52 +0000

Ed says, “Yes, you read those sentences right. In the Klosterman universe, it’s the bitch’s fault of course. A rape charge is some byproduct of hysteria and a court of law relies upon hearsay and speculation rather than facts to try a case. ”

I guess it’s safe to assume that you DON’T play lacrosse for Duke University.

By: mustbethegenerationgap

mustbethegenerationgap — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 06:56:28 +0000

maybe it’s the culture. personally, i think chuck klosterman is like a modern kerouac. he’s writing what he thinks, it’s one person’s experiances and what they’ve concluded from it. if you don’t agree, don’t agree. but that doesn’t make him ignorant or stupid. it just makes him human….and just makes you human. we don’t all learn the same things the same ways….he just illustrates what life taught him and how,…. with a brilliant cynnicism that makes it really fun to read aloud and do monologues of….and that’s what makes his books amazing.

By: OMGZLOL

OMGZLOL — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:17:08 +0000

You really are stuck up y’know? If people can’t understand another’s reality, leave it to someone else like you to go tear it up. It’s like hurting a poor child, you aren’t going to ruin a child’s dreams are you? I find the book ridiculous, but that makes it even better because I think about the things he says, I take it all and laugh at it because I genuinely respect how this man thinks. So, yeah he’s fucked up. The world’s fucked up live with it or commit suicide.
oh and by the way, for your information, the thing about 9/11 was hilarious.
before anyone asks.
heartless bastard comments appreciated.

By: ajd

ajd — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:42:25 +0000

I have read a few of CK’s books and found them to be generally entertaining (like watching some TV show that doesn’t have any merit, but is easy to relax with). So, I’m not a CK apologist. I just want to point out how much of your and Mark Ames criticism is based on his looks. I mean, it seems like if he had a different face, a hole would appear in your criticism of him. I really bet that most of you have written your own books and feel much smarter than Klosterman and are jealous of his success. So you feel smart by finding other like-minded failures (who may or may not be smarter) and ripping him up. I also think that you give him more power by taking him so seriously.

By: Liz

Liz — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:28:02 +0000

I remember reading Fargo Rock City in high school and being unimpressed.There are a lot of things I should like statistically that I don’t.

It’s interesting to note that people tend to criticize other people for the very behaviors they exhibit.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 20:08:36 +0000

Ed, in the book Chuck specifically says that he could give two shits about “punk rock,” and that he only has the Chelsea on his itinerary at the insistence of SPIN. And Sid has to be the most undeserving icon of all time, since he was a racist moron who never played on any of the Pistols records. My feelings on punk are different from his, but I agree that way too much ink has been wasted on Sid & Nancy. And you’re approaching his work all wrong. He’s not some deep thinker, more of a barstool rambler (and an interesting one). I find him refreshing, quite frankly.

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:50:46 +0000

Maud: And in case I failed to mention it, I adore you too.

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 19:50:03 +0000

jonmc: Read my post. It’s not about CK writing about pop culture. As I specified above, I’m happy to read riffs on the culture around us. It’s CK’s stupidity and ignorance that I object to. Sorry, but my party line involves actually having a head attached to your shoulders.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:51:17 +0000

Jesus, you people are a bunch of fucking snobs. I own all of Klosterman’s books, and while I often disagree with him, he’s usually interesting. And I’ve met him at signings and he was more genuinely freindly than almost any other writer I’ve met.

Plus, Fargo Rock City is a book that had to be written. If only because rock criticism can’t take another “I was a lonely misfit, and them punkrock/techno/Morrisey saved my life…” if only for my own fucking sanity.

Or perhaps it’s this, now that all you misfits have grown up, you’re perfectly comfortable bullying and shitting all over people who deviate from your party line. Funny how that always comes around.

By: Maud

Maud — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:35:32 +0000

A fine question, Mr. Champion.

By: ed

ed — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 16:46:55 +0000

Maud: Wasn’t trying to generalize. Besides, I figured the XX crowd here wasn’t interested in Mr. Manboy. But for those who were, I was just asking FERTHELOVEOFCHRIST, why?

By: Maud

Maud — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:18:43 +0000

Ed, I adore you, but you’ve got to stop with the gender generalizing.

By: birnbaum

birnbaum — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:07:46 +0000

You know you could add a preview feature— excuse the above typos in #12.

By: birnbaum

birnbaum — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:06:23 +0000

This Klosterman guy seems not to have penetrated these precincts. I’m with Maude—don’t know his stuff,don’t want to.

Glad guys like this exis though—it’s cool to see Eddie boy work out.

By: Rake

Rake — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 03:33:39 +0000

The best thing about that review–aside from the fact that it probably sets some sort of record for backhanded compliments per word– is the apropos of nothing title: “Enjoy Klosterman with something frothy.”

I assume that it’s an oblique reference to beer goggles, as if CK is only enjoyable (in person or print) after one has fought through a twelve-pack. Which, combined with the description therein, more or less makes him the poor man’s/drunk woman’s John Cusack. In the guise of Feldman circa SBM.

Boo!

By: CAAF

CAAF — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 02:10:16 +0000

As a qualifier to that demographic( barely), I can assure you that it is COMPLETELY possible to not madly adore him. In fact, he creeps me the F**K out — more than ever, now that the whole Corey Feldman/ Cousin Oliver bone structure thing has been identified.

By: DrMabuse

DrMabuse — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 02:01:41 +0000

Regarding CK somehow getting a pass, this review says it all: "And yet despite, or perhaps because of, all this, if you're a heterosexual woman between 25 and 35, it is almost impossible not to madly adore him." To the ladies who might be follownig ths thing, how? And WHY? I can see perhaps CK appealing to a lady in her early twenties, but by the age of 30, generally a woman has learned a thing or too and has learned to run astray of adolescent manboys.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 21:37:03 +0000

I like the Corey Feldman, but he also looks a bit like a grown-up Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch.

By: Megan

Megan — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 21:15:16 +0000

Have you seen Corey Feldman lately? Man, time has not been good to that kid.
I’m with Maud. I’ve been ignoring Klosterman for a while now (a girl I loathe really likes him, which made it easier for me to ignore him since she has awful taste) and I am going to continue to do so.

By: Maud

Maud — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 20:44:25 +0000

Rake: the Corey Feldman observation is brilliant.

By: Maud

Maud — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 20:43:32 +0000

I haven’t read a word of Klosterman’s writing, but between you and Dana, Ed, I’m convinced I needn’t torture myself.

By the way, don’t miss #1 Hit Song’s new “game we can all play”: Serial Killer or Rock Critic? http://www.numberonehitsong.com/archives/001509.php

By: The Elegant Variation

The Elegant Variation — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:17:42 +0000

L.A. EVENTS – ELLIS, KLOSTERMAN

Well, it’s a week for Authors We Revile in the City of Angels but we are a public service blog, and so we share the details of two readings at which we would not be caught dead: Bret Easton Ellis

By: Rake

Rake — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:05:49 +0000

Jeff’s right on.

I read most of Fargo and I think the problem is that CK comes out with a lucid, insightful point every once in a while, leaving one completely unprepared for the next 87 outrageously stupid things he’s going to say. He seems unique among cultural critics in that some of his opinions seem to be objectively false.

But he’s not going away because he drops a lot of pop culture references and his self-involvement has a train-wreck quality and he regularly–inexplicably–gets the Nick Hornby Pass (aka the George W. Pass: “…he seems like a regular guy…I’d like to have a beer with him…etc”.)

Also, as I hinted at Old Hag, I think he’s purposefully cultivating a look that is eerily like Corey Feldman’s character in Stand by Me. Which is fucked up.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:16:54 +0000

I’m with you all the way on this one, Ed. I’ve never thought much of Klosterman one way or the other, finding some of his stuff for Spin tolerable, other stuff downright unreadable. This book was pretty much that in book form. At times, the thing that frightened me the most was that Klosterman almost made sense, then I would move on to the next paragraph and find myself back in Klosterfuckville. So you smoke a lot of weed and listen to kitschy music? So you’ve had your trouble with the women and you have a song that represents every important moment in your life? What’s new and original about that?

That said, I’d rather read nothing but Klosterman than watch one Tom Cruise movie.

By: Richard Nash

Richard Nash — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 14:04:39 +0000

I publish Mark and he and I were e-mailing about this then-forthcoming review. The NY Press is going through one of its annual purges and one of the editors leaving, Alexander Zeitchick, wanted to give Mark one last story. I’d been hoping that they’d run an excerpt from the forthcoming book, but they really wanted to let Ames have a go at Klosterman again, because the previous review was one of the most discussed pieces in this history of the newspaper. Sounds like that was a good call!