Chalamet says whaaaa?

Issue #47: Don’t Believe The Hype

Read a Lot Series part 3/4

This week I promised to write about how watching TV counts as “reading a lot,” even though Stephen King says it rots your brain, buuuut we’re gonna talk about Timothée Chalamet instead.

The internets have been abuzz lately because uh-oh, Hollywood pretty boy said bad bad thing about opera and ballet!

I realized I couldn’t talk about this without knowing what he actually said—and in what context—so I went clicking through a labyrinth of reactions, reels, think pieces, and breathless gossip until I finally located the hour-long town hall at the University of Texas Austin—WHICH I WATCHED in its entirety.

Mostly, it was boring.

I mean, I don’t mind having to look at or listen to Matthew McConaughey for an hour, but two rich white dudes telling each other how smart and cool and interesting they are? Yawn.

The quote itself? Not great:

In a way, Timothée has given us a great gift. An aggressively normal, obviously offensive (but very low-stakes) comment that everyone can agree sucks. A reason, in the midst of daily drone strikes and ICE raids and the deluge of hot garbage pouring out of the White House, to sneer at a clueless dude-bro who’s dating a Kardashian. (Do NOT ask me which Kardashian, I’m mad that I even know any of their names in the first place.)

But I think it’s Khloe. Goddammit.

Last October, Weapons was hyped to be the “horror movie of the year.” It was featured on SNL’s Weekend Update, promoted heavily on HBO, and you couldn’t spend two seconds on Instagram without seeing some influencer in Gladys makeup.

The trailer had left me lukewarm, but the hype got to me, so I watched it over Halloween weekend… and walked away miffed. I didn’t like it. Was I missing something? What the hell?

The other day, a friend told me that reception for Lindy West’s new book, Adult Braces, has been largely BAD, not because of the writing but because of the subject matter (I think).

But I’m listening to it right now, and I’m so moved. I’m laughing, I’m crying, I’m like… proud of this book, and of Lindy, who is one of my “writer relatives.” I have no idea what other people are saying about it, and I’m not sure I care.

For the last few months, I’ve been keeping away from Instagram—and also LinkedIn, and also Substack. I never got into Threads; I quit TikTok awhile ago because it stopped showing me people making art (and the shirtless Scottish guy who thatches roofs), and started showing me the same “trending” content I went there to avoid in the first place.

Because of this, I’m really not plugged into the zeitgeist right now. I’m racking up a lot more “clean” experiences—as in, unpolluted by critical reviews, internet hot takes, and Instagram memes. It's nice!

I have this thing I do whenever I read a book or watch a movie that *I* don’t like but “everyone else” seems to love—I did it with Weapons, actually:

I’ll pull up Reddit, StoryGraph, whatever forums I can find, to see if other people also didn’t like it, and why.

I’ll spend hours scrolling until I find a thoughtful comment that lays out a point of view similar to my own, then sit back with a satisfied sigh.

See? I’m right.

It doesn’t matter how many other comments express a different take—I’m looking for validation, baby, and I’m not leaving here until I get it!

I have seriously wasted hours doing this.

It’s nice—I guess? sometimes?—that we have access to analysis now. If you’re a white person who didn’t understand Sinners, for example, and you want to understand Sinners, there are a million nuanced and thoughtful analyses to help you with that, and that’s a good thing. Now there’s one more white person who understands the Black experience a little bit better!

But also, you could just watch Sinners and enjoy it.

I worry, lately, that simply enjoying a piece of art is somehow not enough anymore. It has to have meaning and symbolism and be a piece of cultural commentary—not just a pretty thing to look at.

Having unfettered access to other people’s opinions is creating a sort of laziness around the kinds of art we engage with and how we respond to them. Thinking is hard; tell me what to think.

It feels like there’s a “right” opinion to have about, say, Lindy West’s new book, or Timothée Chalamet’s throwaway comment, or whether One Battle After Another *really* deserved that Best Picture award—and if you don’t align with that opinion, you best pipe down. You’re a yucker of yums, a wet blanket, a killjoy, you just don’t get it.

This is bullshit, right?

It’s why I’m so vocal about all the popular things I don’t like—The Office, Fleetwood Mac, Jennifer Garner. It’s not because I care that much about any of those things; it’s because I’m chafing at the pressure to conform.

By the way. I don’t only turn to Reddit to seek out the one other nerd who feels the same way I do.

I go there to understand a different point of view.

I want a horror aficionado to thoughtfully break down why Weapons is a goddamn masterpiece, for example. It’s not going to make me like the movie more—but that’s okay, because understanding something doesn’t mean you have to like it.

So this week, I’m not giving you any recommended reading. Instead, I’m going to challenge you to have an original, unpolluted experience, and then come back here and tell me all about it (so we can argue, lol).

Until next week,

P.S. Have you seen my updated website? I've been working my little fingertips off this quarter and I'm just about ready to make it public!!

Try it Yourself

Read a book or watch something that you know absolutely nothing about. Like, go in totally cold. (Bonus points if you combine this with last week’s challenge to break out of your usual genres.)

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Then come reply to this email and tell me—did you like it? Did you not? What questions are you left with?

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I can’t wait to hear!