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The characters in Tony Tulathimutte’s new novel-in-stories, Rejection, are, without exception, terminally online. In “The Feminist,” which first appeared in n+1, a man whose strenuously woke behavior masks deep-seated contempt for the women who won’t sleep with him eventually finds solace in an online forum called NS/OM, for “narrow shoulders/open minds.” There, he becomes a moderator, seeking out a community that reaffirms his belief that “narrow-shouldered feminist men are in fact the most oppressed subaltern group.” Another character is a gay online-porn addict with tastes so specific (and, to him, shameful) he can’t be intimate with anyone in the real world.
Though Tulathimutte hits the same emotional notes over and over again — isolation, desperation, self-hatred — the characters he created all feel very different, and very real. But I wondered how the book would be received among the very people it attempted to describe, people so engrossed in the worlds of their screens that they have found themselves posting on 4chan and sub-Reddits like r/incelexit.
Since Tulathimutte, a master of the X post, has gone from seeming like an ordinary fellow internet denizen to the literary toast of the town, there were more than a few hints of sour grapes to be found on the message boards. A 4chan channel dissected a recent glowing New York Times Magazine profile of Tulathimutte with glee. “His book is toothless … It really tells you something about the state of literature when something that so obviously affirms ideological norms as they exist now is applauded as subversive,” one anonymous poster wrote. Another said, “He ain’t no Houellebecq, and Houellebecq hasn’t been edgy or insightful for about fifteen years.” Turns out literary 4chan bros are really into Houellebecq!
But the message boards were most interested in the book’s first story, about that narrow-shouldered chronic poster who can’t get laid and can’t understand why. “I sympathized with the character and nothing he wrote shows that the character warrants the sort of ridicule that he envisions,” an anonymous poster wrote. He was then chastised by another: “It’s the tale of a clueless simp. if u think it’s dunkin on u, then u sir are reddit i am sorry to say.” The story also struck a chord with members of r/intelexit, a community dedicated to “people who got drawn into the Incel community but want support and help with a way out.” Some of the people in this sub-Reddit seem to be seated closer to the exit than others, but all of them had strong reactions to the story. Witness this exchange between redditors yocrappacrappa and [deleted]: “This is one of cases where I can see what the author is trying to get at, but sympathise too much with main character that I can’t quite grasp the deeper meaning. I mean – him not quite getting why he is incel besides doing all the ‘correct’ things – strikes too deep for me. In reality though, what does make him unattractive? It’s not just his simping behaviour, is it? Is it that some men just have a aura of unlikability or unfuckability around them? How does one get rid of that?” You won’t learn the answer to this question by reading Rejection, nor will you learn it in this Reddit thread. In response, [deleted] writes: “It kinda is his simping behavior, or rather that there’s nothing but the simping behavior to him. I think game is an important thing for guys to learn, as well as creative outlets. Of course there’s always physical attraction and self care, but women are usually passive so even if you do attract their attention how would you know without game?”
The thread got a bit more disturbing from there. There’s an extended metaphor from Throwawayaft1 that compares women to unattended sandwiches. “People seem to often believe that being kind and respectful and whatever consists of asking every person in sight whether it’s their sandwich before taking it. But it doesn’t. It consists of taking the sandwich and if someone yells ‘hey that’s mine,’ apologizing and putting it back down.”
And yet, miraculously, one user named Melthengylf seemed to actually understand the point of “The Feminist,” and even feminism. “Part of the reason why his performative feminism fails is because the set of values that he’s trying to follow is at the core, wrong. Not the fact that he should treat women as people, that is right. What is wrong is that feminism is about a set of morals or actions. Feminism is not a rulebook but seeing women as people. But if you believe feminism IS a rulebook, then performative wokeness is really too easy.”
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