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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book caught my eye back in 2006 when I was hanging out at my friend Miranda’s house. I asked her what it was about, and she replied, “I started reading it and it was just stupid. You can have it if you want it. I’m not going to finish it.”

With a glowing review like that, I must have been crazy to wait until nearly the end of 2009, having clearly exhausted all avenues of personal accomplishment with nothing left to do but sit on my ass like this guy and deconstruct the minutiae of basketball, rock ‘n roll, and reality TV.

Written in 2004, the pop culture commentary was just on the cusp of being relevant. While the author has over a dozen seasons of MTV’s “The Real World” under his belt, the freshness of reality TV has since been overshadowed by online social networking sites. Now, every idle man, woman, and child can create an online “real-world” house to display their own personal drama via public messages, passive-aggressive quips, and terrible poetry for the many onlookers they hope will care about whatever pithy problem they’re having that week.

Surprisingly, though, Klosterman begins the book with some observations about The Sims computer game. My only knowledge of The Sims is that it’s a role-playing game that involves living somewhere, buying stuff, and meeting people. I didn’t and still don’t see its appeal, as I was already doing those things in real life. The author points out that he had to keep buying stuff or his character would die of depression. Sadly, this seems to both imitate and contradict real life.

Speaking of which, how ’bout that “Real World”? The best point he makes, which I wish I was 10 or 20 years older to validate, is that after the first season, the “Real World” exposed us to seven different types of people. As kids in the MTV generation matured, they found themselves categorizing themselves (more or less) as one of those roles for which MTV periodically held casting calls. The show advocates having a one-dimensional personality so that other one-dimensional personalities can understand you.

This logic answers a lot of questions for me personally, since I grew up without cable and saw my first episode of the show after graduating from college in 2002. Suddenly some of the misguided poop-flinging I’ve dealt with made a little sense: I can’t be easily classified as the bible-thumper, the slutty girl, the punk rocker, etc, and I suppose that’s frustrating for someone who needs to figure me out quick so they can rush into their next fleeting, superficial friendship.

The author goes on to discuss music, one of my favorite topics. Since he has written many articles for Spin Magazine, he can’t help but be a douche about it sometimes. Based on my albeit limited knowledge of Billy Joel and GnR, I still gathered some good insight on modern American musical zeitgeist. Incidentally, I hope you like the word, “zeitgeist,” because he uses it in nearly every chapter.

A third of the way through, the topic of sports surfaces. My first thought was, “I really don’t like sports. Should I skip this chapter?” Nah. Turns out he’s using the book as a platform to discredit the #1 youth sport in the US (soccer) as being little more than a safe-haven for unathletic outcasts to pass their days until they are no longer pressured to play a sport. It is appreciated by non-individualist “group think” cultures because it puts everyone on a level playing field, so to speak.

Okay, I can live with that. But I think he’s reading into it too much. Soccer is so widespread because it’s one of the cheapest sports to play, making it easy for moms across America to dump the kids off at soccer practice once a week and get an hour or so to themselves.

The discussion of pro-basketball that followed was tolerable until he made a reaching connection between liking the Celtics and supporting the GOP. He also says 99% of the porn out there is not for women. It’s amazing how drastically perceptions can change in 5 years. (And even though that number is obviously made up, I can still vouch for it not being that high no matter what year we’re talking.)

He continues his diatribe of mildly interesting arrogance by talking about making the same mix CD for two uninformed women and both of them loving it, and telling us, “do or don’t, there is no try.” Maybe Yoda never tried to use his whiny prog-rock collection to simultaneously sucker two chicks, but the inspirational quote was a lot cooler when he said it.

Before he managed to lose me, he began a discussion about films. This was significantly less pompous and egotistical. He touts Vanilla Sky as a good movie for dealing with questions of reality, which puts he and I in a no doubt small minority of those who even saw the film. While almost everyone agrees The Matrix was a captivating film on many levels, he states that it doesn’t challenge the viewer to think critically enough about choosing between this and an alternate universe. I like that he was able to put into eloquent words the issues I’ve had with movies like that one. If I choose Option A, and I know I won’t remember ever having made the choice, what exactly makes it better or worse than Option B, which would be a complete opposite but equal experience?

A few quick things that pulled me back to his side of the fence as the book progressed:

-People who say they like “all kinds of music” don’t actually like “any kinds of music”. (Thank you!! I knew the random Joe Schmoes I talk to at a parties haven’t heard of Pizzicato 5, the Dead Milkmen, AND Mark Farina.)

-Eminem is relevant because we can understand what the hell he’s saying. He is good at rapping because he’s good at talking.

-News stories often take shape based on which sources call back first. Reporters have a finite amount of time to write the rough draft of history. Don’t cry shoddy journalism every time your guy isn’t available for comment.

-The EMP sucks.

Klosterman closes the book with a discussion on sex versus dying. He argues that most people think about the former exponentially more than the latter, using only the most non-existent scientific studies. I was surprised to be so close to the end of the book without much of a discussion on the complex topic of modern society’s sexual mores, but I guess Reality Shows, Sports, and Dying wasn’t as catchy of a title.

Despite the range of topics covered, the book had a surprising level of continuity. I can see why some people would be turned off by the author’s tone, but many of his observations rang true. Still, this hearse-haulin’ heifer would like to tell our musing media-saturated philosopher just one thing: “I think about death plenty, thank you.”

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