But once you develop empathy ... the loneliness and the emptiness become too much.
February 10, 2012 9:34 AM   Subscribe

"I think a lot of women around you have experienced pain in various ways, through your words and actions. Have you ever considered: ‘I was the source of some of that. They are hurting, not just because of them and their own issues, but also because I contributed to their pain’?”
Tucker Max Gives Up the Game and offers a surprisingly insightful interview on self-loathing, entering psychoanalysis and trying to grow up.
posted by griphus (120 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
...leaving only Newt Gingrich to fill the void.
posted by goethean at 9:40 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]


.

Sic transit gloria mundi.
posted by ocschwar at 9:42 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


See, for much of my life, I've loathed guys like this, and been generally unwilling to cut them any slack for having once been douchebags and generally terrible people.

But you know, life is hard, people are f*cked up, and when it comes down to it, there's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:44 AM on February 10, 2012 [12 favorites]


Waitaminute, Tucker Max ISN'T Tucker Carlson's pen name on Newsmax?
posted by evilmidnightbomberwhatbombsatmidnight at 9:48 AM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]


I trust he will be donating significant percentages of his misogyny-gotten gains to apropriate charities - right?
posted by lalochezia at 9:48 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


There were still a lot of unresolved issues and problems, and the woman that’s so amazing that I want to marry her, probably wouldn’t have wanted to marry me. That’s what analysis is changing. It’s helping me try to turn into the man I want to be.

Ugh, this raises my hackles nearly as much as his previous behavior. The interview makes it sound very much like he's still motivated very largely by ego-centric desires-- it's only that the desires themselves have shifted. Instead of constant sex and a position of superiority to everyone around him, he now wants a (female) someone to secure him emotional and sexual safety. I don't know, I don't want to not give him credit for being a nicer person now, because he certainly sounds like he's worked pretty hard on Not Being That Guy Quite So Much, but I still feel like his motivations are really weirdly suspect and sex-driven. I'm not hearing anything here about how he wants to be less of a dick for his own reasons, just how he wants to be less of a dick so more mature women will like him.
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:49 AM on February 10, 2012 [20 favorites]


There's something about learning that Tucker Max was/is actually a narcissistic asshole -- rather than just playing a character, as so many of his online defenders have often asserted -- that makes me like him much more.

That looks just as crazy to me as I write it as it might to you, but it's definitely how I feel.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:50 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


"There are times I’m like Muhammad Ali dancing around yelling about how awesome I am, whatever. But there are other times I feel like Hunter S Thompson, just wallowing in debasing pity and self-destructiveness."

Haaaa. Like, dude: comparing yourself to Hunter S. Thompson is not a sign you've gotten over your narcissism.
posted by naju at 9:51 AM on February 10, 2012 [46 favorites]


Can't get past the article writer's severely self-aggrandizing style. I had a minor fascination with Tucker Max when I stumbled across his site several years ago, mostly wondering why so many people couldn't see through his bullshit, or claimed that they did but were entertained by it anyway. Apparently there are quite a few people like that, if he's not exaggerating his book sales, but the movie and the blog empire didn't work out too well.

So, he's figured out that there's no long game in pretending to be Rob Lowe's character from St. Elmo's Fire? Well, uh, good for him.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:52 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


(that said, the bar for how I felt about him was just about as low as you could get, so raising it isn't exactly a mean feat)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:53 AM on February 10, 2012


I get that he namechecks Tim Ferriss and Chelsea Handler as other authors on his "tier", but Jeanette Walls? Where did that come from?
posted by redsparkler at 9:56 AM on February 10, 2012


How misogynistic and/or rape-y is this?

Nothing rape-y in it at all, as far as I could tell. Like WidgetAlley says above, the misogyny shines through, but it's mainly about him relating being a broken person and trying to get better and what he thinks "better" is.
posted by griphus at 9:56 AM on February 10, 2012


WidgetAlley, I sort of agree, but of all the addicts and assholes I've ever known who have actually turned their lives around, virtually all of them started from a point of selfishness. Prison became worse than the drugs; losing their family was worse than the narcissism; etc. They didn't even have the facilities to realize that they were assholes or addicts. Eventually, through therapy or AA or NA or church group or whatever, they got to the point where they could see "what they didn't even know they didn't know," in the words of an old friend. So I'm willing to give a random asshole the benefit of the doubt, but I certainly won't be feeding him and click traffic until I see him make substantive change.
posted by introp at 9:56 AM on February 10, 2012 [7 favorites]


Ha ha ha you spent years being a fucking asshole (and proud of it) and now you want me to give a shit about your feelings?
posted by Legomancer at 9:57 AM on February 10, 2012 [23 favorites]


Well, he's 35 now. That seems to be the age when a lot of guys hit the wall in terms of drinking and/or womanizing and/or going out of their way to be assholes.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:59 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


So what I'm getting from this article is that he has changed to a different flavor of self-aggrandizing douchebaggerie, because the previous flavor of self-aggrandizing douchebaggerie wasn't getting him what he wanted anymore.

Perhaps the article writer is misrepresenting him. But that's what I get from the article.

To see a video from this past September of a "conversation" between Max and fellow public narcissist Julia Allison, you may click here. It is somewhat not work safe, and thoroughly not faith-in-humanity safe.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:00 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


this guy is a bottomless pit of entitlement and self-pity. what a douche.
posted by facetious at 10:00 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


To get a true feeling for how Tucker Max talks in the following profile, mix-and-match the words “like,” “dude,” “man,” “you know,” “shit” and “f***”, at least two or three per sentence.

Why did the writer bleep out fuck but not shit?
posted by grog at 10:01 AM on February 10, 2012


I've only read a bit of Tucker Max's stuff, but as a fellow University of Chicago alum, I think he only makes sense in that context. Despite the larger number of assholes at the U of C, assholes like Tucker Max are relatively rare at there. I imagine this was even more so when he was there, which must be (according the grand traditions of U of C lore) a time when everything was closer to the platonic ideal of the University, a joyless, soul crushing hellhole. In that context, a lot of people who would be nerds at another school become the fratty asshole douchebags and the tendency is to turn that identity up to 11, which Tucker Max clearly did.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:01 AM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]


Never heard of this gobshite (being European). Very glad this is the case.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:02 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


I get that he namechecks Tim Ferriss and Chelsea Handler as other authors on his "tier", but Jeanette Walls? Where did that come from?

Apparently there's a narcissism/Dunning-Kruger cocktail in his onstage beer bottles.

My guess is that he thinks that he will, like Walls, successfully make the transition from a marginal pop culture figure (before The Glass Castle was published, Walls was a gossip columnist) to a writer whose books are heralded as beautifully wrought and insightful.

My guess is that he is wholly mistaken.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:02 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


He could have been a great classics professor. What a waste.
posted by michaelh at 10:03 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


I sort of agree, but of all the addicts and assholes I've ever known who have actually turned their lives around, virtually all of them started from a point of selfishness.

Yeah, and I understand that, at least in an intellectual way. But given this dude's history of using women for his own, exceptionally misogynistic purposes, this new, more benevolent, almost weirdly paternalistic form of "I want to do ____ because WOMEN" really squicks me out. I think I would have less of a problem with it if it were something like, "Well, I had to stop drinking because the doctors said my heart would give out in the next five years if I kept going"-- which is still selfish, but does not carry the heavy overtones of both selfish and exploitative that wanting to be better for a perfect hypothetical future wife might.
posted by WidgetAlley at 10:03 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


Thanks, metafilter. Once upon a time, I was completely ig'nant of this guy.
posted by clvrmnky at 10:04 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


Yeah, I'd never heard of him either. He sounds pretty depressing. Even more depressing was the thing about how publishers are falling over themselves publishing his book just to move physical product.

Quality, people. Not quantity. Quality.
posted by DU at 10:06 AM on February 10, 2012


Maybe he could will Tucker Carlson his previous lifestyle. Might be good for both of them.
posted by jonmc at 10:07 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


Cats lie down with dogs, rain falls upwards, pigs fly, and I... find myself sympathising with Tucker Max.
posted by atrazine at 10:08 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


So he's realized the drawbacks of the direction he's been heading in, and he's turned around.

He's still got a long, long trek back to even reach neutral, much less achieve good.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:08 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


My guess is that he thinks that he will, like Walls, successfully make the transition from a marginal pop culture figure (before The Glass Castle was published, Walls was a gossip columnist) to a writer whose books are heralded as beautifully wrought and insightful.


Oh, I get it. So we should expect a tell-all childhood memoir to come out in a couple years?
posted by redsparkler at 10:09 AM on February 10, 2012


How misogynistic and/or rape-y is this?

I dunno, 3?
posted by Hoopo at 10:09 AM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]


Tucker Mas is like the touchstone of brodom. First my old colleague, who did things like see how many microwaved shots of tequila he could drink in a row before he puked (the anwser was 3, turns out hot tequila is terrible) and go to a fancy hotel bar and tell the waiter "I want 10 of the gayest drinks you have" got married and now this. I always had that Tucker Max litmus test, if they talked about how sick and awesome Tucker Max was I knew I could ignore anything they said. This is a seismic shift. We are through the looking glass people.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:10 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


If this guy is looking to get married you can bet his lawyer already has an order in for a new Bentley.
posted by klanawa at 10:11 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm not getting how any women ever found this.... creature.... attractive. He got 400 emails a day from women. I picked up one of his books in a bookstore once, read it for a minute or two, and put it down feeling like I wanted to wipe my fingers on something.

He does sound like he's improved greatly, but has quite a ways to go yet.
posted by orange swan at 10:16 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


Nobody deserves trust like someone claiming to be a former sociopath.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:17 AM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]


I made it through four pages of the article before I was completely overcome with not giving a shit about this deluded asshole. The person who wrote the article should get a Peabody for making the writing engaging enough to sucker me in for that long.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:18 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


The most depressing thing about Tucker Max to me was how he highlighted the sheer number of broken people (women, in his case) there are in the world.
posted by maxwelton at 10:21 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


Have you ever considered: ‘I was the source of some of that. They are hurting, not just because of them and their own issues, but also because I contributed to their pain’?”

Sure, when I was 15.

I challenge the veracity of these two statements:

"But, love Tucker Max or hate him—it is very likely someone you know has paid money for his writing."

"If you’ve been anywhere near an airport bookstore in the last five years, you’ve probably seen the face of Tucker Max leering out at you from one of his two uber-bestselling books."

No and no. I hit airport bookstores all the time (or the 1-2 times a year I fly). I have no idea what Tucker Max looks like. I've never even seen one of his books. Anywhere.

The very tip-top are J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, James Patterson, and Paulo Coelho.

One of these things is different than the other ....

I’m on the same tier as Tim Ferriss or Chelsea Handler or Jeanette Walls...

I'm not sure I'd brag about that.

comparing yourself to Hunter S. Thompson is not a sign you've gotten over your narcissism.

Funny you picked HST and not, you know, Muhammad Ali, the literal GOAT.

I only made it to page 1 and a half then quit ... "self-vomiting"?

The whole schtick (not that I fully grasp it) seems pretty dull.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:21 AM on February 10, 2012


Hmm. Turns out that faux empathy isn't any more attractive than braggadocio. Thanks for clearing that up.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:26 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


Ha ha ha you spent years being a fucking asshole (and proud of it) and now you want me to give a shit about your feelings?

this guy is a bottomless pit of entitlement and self-pity. what a douche.


You're absolutely right. Forgiveness and mercy has absolutely no place in society.

Oh, wait, nevermind, I forgot: “I’m a human.“ - Tucker Max

If we're unforgiving towards every man that veers away from misogyny, where do we leave ourselves? How do we expect our partriarcial society to become less cruel if we mock anyone who tries to step away from their anger?

"Tucker is on a serious and committed path of self-inquiry, self-responsibility, and growth at the moment. However, despite this serious commitment, at the current time he seemed mostly closed to this particular idea: that his writings, taken outside of the context of consensual teasing by which his many female fans enjoy them, are experienced as extremely offensive, and even hurtful and traumatizing, to some very large number of other women who come across them unwittingly. This was the specific point on which I found him to be least self-aware, over several interviews."

Look, the man was in it deep. He's not going to be able to bounce into a totally self-aware person immediately. I would prefer to be a person who takes him at his word: he's trying to be a better human being, and has a long way to go. Like most of us.
posted by justalisteningman at 10:26 AM on February 10, 2012 [17 favorites]


It's telling that he compares his change of heart to an NBA player retiring. Treating women like shit is a young man's game, apparently.
posted by verb at 10:32 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


How do so many of you know so much about this guy? Have you actually read his books, or are you simply parroting someone else's blog entries?
posted by Ardiril at 10:38 AM on February 10, 2012


How do so many of you know so much about this guy? Have you actually read his books, or are you simply parroting someone else's blog entries?

The idea that someone else might hate Tucker Max enough to write about him didn't occur to me for years. Where are these blog entries you speak of?
posted by verb at 10:43 AM on February 10, 2012


TLDR: Famous sociopath learns how to mimic a reformed famous sociopath.
posted by jnnla at 10:44 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


How do so many of you know so much about this guy? Have you actually read his books, or are you simply parroting someone else's blog entries?

I somehow found his blog when I was in early high school, and read a lot of it. At that age, I would basically read anything at all to do with sex. (Oh, livejournal's SexTips community, what fond memories I have of you!) I don't really remember what I made of him- I guess I thought he was mean, but I don't think I really grasped the depths of his assholery until much later.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:45 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


He's aging and he knows he can't keep the plates spinning forever.
posted by weinbot at 10:47 AM on February 10, 2012


I always thought Tucker Max was making everything up, and doing it winkingly, knowing at once that he was pulling some shallow postmodern trick about unreliable narrators and conceptions of self and masculinity and whatnot, and also that his core audience didn't get it. This allowed him simultaneously to (1) feel superior to his fans and to his critics and (2) make a lot of money. I think he thinks it's all a big joke—the gross-out misogynistic sex stuff, but also how obviously grotesque his persona is, and also the fact that people will nonetheless be stupid enough to view him as a role model.

I think this makes him still a pretty bad guy—almost unfathomably cynical, and certainly contributing negatively to the cultural zeitgeist—but not quite as bad a guy as he would portray himself to be.
posted by dixiecupdrinking at 10:49 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


Where are these blog entries you speak of?

Damned if I know. I am trying to figure out how people who despise him so much have come to know of him so well. Either they consumed his product, or they read of him somewhere else and are not speaking with first-hand knowledge.
posted by Ardiril at 10:49 AM on February 10, 2012


How do so many of you know so much about this guy

I read his site. I assumed then, and still do, that 1/2-3/4 is not exactly true. I think of stuff like this as tall tales. Carefully massaged personal anecdotes that may have some basis in fact but are largely yarn spinning.

Then when his first book came out a bar buddy of mine brought it to the bar every night for about 3 months a a prop to attract women, it actually kinda worked.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:49 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


How do so many of you know so much about this guy? Have you actually read his books, or are you simply parroting someone else's blog entries?

I read his blog a lot when I was 15.
posted by atrazine at 10:49 AM on February 10, 2012



No and no. I hit airport bookstores all the time (or the 1-2 times a year I fly). I have no idea what Tucker Max looks like. I've never even seen one of his books. Anywhere.


You have no idea what he looks like but can definitively claim you've never seen his books? In the last year I flew about six times including internationally from the U.S. involving stop overs in a fair number of European cities. I know what he looks like...his face is on the cover of his book...they made a movie out of his book and yeah I can tell you that I've seen his book in every single airport I've been in.

So much for anecdotes.
posted by spicynuts at 10:54 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


I have never read Mr. Max's works and know him only by reputation. The only person who has asked for his stuff at my bookstore was a young Latin woman, who squealed with delight when handed his books and said "this guy is so funny!"

FWIW
posted by jonmc at 10:54 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


You don't have to have read a lot of him to know he's worth despising. I've read one of his anecdotes, just one, but it was enough. He talked about how when he was in college he had sex with a fat girl and they were lying in bed when his buddies came home. He didn't want them to see her so he forced her to go out the window naked. Ha ha ha.

That's it. That's all I know about his life. This is a story he tells for laughs. From that I can know he is a person who hates and harms others in his hatred. Now if he has changed and is now due "forgiveness" then has he made an effort to go back to the people he actually harmed? Who is supposed to be forgiving him? Did he find that girl or the many like her? When I think about Tucker Max, that's who I think about, that girl alone and naked and ashamed.
posted by Danila at 10:56 AM on February 10, 2012 [19 favorites]


Damned if I know. I am trying to figure out how people who despise him so much have come to know of him so well. Either they consumed his product, or they read of him somewhere else and are not speaking with first-hand knowledge.

Yeah, he was a pretty prolific blogger and was involved in launching and promoting side projects like Tard Blog that got a lot of traffic in the day. Before the infinite explosion of content farms, someone like Tucker Max could become something of a net.celebrity that way.

By the time I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell came out, he had a pretty solid legion of fans and anti-fans. I'll always think of him as a blogger first and an author second, mostly because that's where I first encountered him.
posted by verb at 10:58 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


How do so many of you know so much about this guy? Have you actually read his books, or are you simply parroting someone else's blog entries?

Uh, the article explains how popular his books are...I'm pretty sure Mefites do a lot of reading...my question to you would be how do you NOT know much about him?


His style of writing is humorous and the stories he tells invite you to live vicariously through him. This is extremely offensive to some people, simply because living vicariously through him makes one feel like a narcissistic sociopath with limited empathy or concern for anyone else besides himself. For those of us who can handle it...quite entertaining.
posted by Chuffy at 11:00 AM on February 10, 2012


How do so many of you know so much about this guy

Well, he's been a subject of MetaFilter FPPs at least twice, and probably more.

You have no idea what he looks like but can definitively claim you've never seen his books?

I can. I have seen them online. And now I know what he looks like. (I looked him up on Google Images.) But no, I don't think I've ever seen his "leering mug" before today.

I've been referred to his site or articles about him from MetaFilter before (1, 2), so I have a very superficial familiarity with his writing and schtick. I have a read a few of his "stories."

My baseless and utterly unfair guesses:

1) he's starting to lose his hair

2) if he were more attractive, he wouldn't change a thing

they made a movie out of his book

In the Company of Men?
posted by mrgrimm at 11:01 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


How do so many of you know so much about this guy?

I learned about him here.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:02 AM on February 10, 2012


Fly all the time and have never heard of this guy. Read the first two paragraphs of the article and thought 'is the guy that got busted by Oprah? the Million Little pieces thing?'.
Anyway, sounds like 8th grade boys would dig it.
posted by repoman at 11:04 AM on February 10, 2012


In the Company of Men?

Nah, that isn't him. But holy crap, Neil LaBute is, in my mind, maybe the most hateful person ever.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:04 AM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


Nah, that isn't him.

That was a joke, but I take the fact that anyone might not immediate recognize it as a joke as an indication ...

I ♥ Neil LaBute and am curious why you think he is "hateful".

posted by mrgrimm at 11:12 AM on February 10, 2012


He clearly lacks the balls to join AA, except Jesus, and then run for congress as a family values politician.
posted by R. Mutt at 11:13 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


I found Tucker Max years ago, when the only media in his empire was a collection of short stories and a forum filled with his ego-stroking friends. I was fascinated with him - not because I wanted to be like him or anything, but despite all his flaws, he was a pretty good story teller. I mean, you feel bad for the girls (and often friends) in his stories, but in the movies, the villains are usually the most interesting characters, right?

Speaking of which, I finally got around to watching his movie a while back. It wasn't horrible per se, but it certainly was not the blockbuster his ego probably expected, and I seem to recall him having some sort of weak justification for that. One thing it did right, I think, was conveying who Tucker Max is - his character was interesting to watch, but pretty loathsome at the same time.

And the ending of the movie felt a little like this article: he wants us to believe that he is finally going to take the blame for shitting all over the place and is finally going to clean up his act. For those who have not seen the movie and have no plans to, let me tell you this: he secretly paid the maid to do the clean up and learned absolutely nothing in the end, even if he made everything else think he did.
posted by mysterpigg at 11:13 AM on February 10, 2012


Re: Him being "rapey"? I read one of his blog posts about coercing some girl into anal sex. Is that as far as he goes, or is he actually an alleged rapist like the Girls Gone Wild guy?
posted by ignignokt at 11:18 AM on February 10, 2012


“When I talk to you, I notice a very admirable and profound willingness to look into your own pain and how you were hurting yourself. Yet, I sense more resistance to the idea of ‘I really caused some women pain.’ I think a lot of women around you have experienced pain in various ways, through your words and actions."

“My first instinct is to argue with you. My immediate instinct after that is—I know that if my immediate instinct is attack a position, I need to think about why I am feeling that. Maybe there is a reason why. I can just think you are wrong about something—non-defensively—which just means I think you are wrong. Which is different from having a defensive reaction to something."

posted by grobstein at 11:18 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


justalisteningman: "Look, the man was in it deep. He's not going to be able to bounce into a totally self-aware person immediately. I would prefer to be a person who takes him at his word: he's trying to be a better human being, and has a long way to go. Like most of us."

I have the celebrity version of the attitude that I have for real life people who have screwed me over directly and then claimed to have turned their lives around. It runs along these lines: "I hope your claims are true and you really do get over your toxic crap, because said crap is probably doing you as much or more damage as it did me. Nobody needs that. On the other hand, as your toxic crap and you are pretty inextricably linked for me now, I hope you do your healing and redemption somewhere I never have to hear about you again, either way."
posted by Karmakaze at 11:18 AM on February 10, 2012 [11 favorites]


Obviously, both are horrible. But one involves actually being called out by the law.
posted by ignignokt at 11:18 AM on February 10, 2012


What's most suspect about his 180 is how fast he claims it to have happened. People don't fundamentally change that much that fast, and the fact that he thinks he has suggests he's either lying or he's still lacking in self awareness.
posted by timsneezed at 11:19 AM on February 10, 2012


the fact that he thinks he has suggests he's either lying or he's still lacking in self awareness.

I've seen this kind of massive ego before and usually what they think is that, oh well, they've got a couple of personality quirks, sure, but they can just do a little therapy and just knock that shit out, they don't have to go through all that big hassle that other people have to, because they're just so special . . . .

Therapy tends to be a bit of a shock to them; hopefully, it will be to this guy, as well.
posted by WorkingMyWayHome at 11:29 AM on February 10, 2012


I still feel like his motivations are really weirdly suspect and sex-driven

Welcome to the male psyche! You can check your coat at the entrance. Your other clothes too.
posted by Skeptic at 11:32 AM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]


That was a joke, but I take the fact that anyone might not immediate recognize it as a joke as an indication ...

Yeah I think I realized it too late, how could you link to IMBD and not know Max didn't write it.

I think Max actually has a similar disdain for humanity. In Max's case is particularly targeted towards some women. He seems to think of some women as subhuman.

I ♥ Neil LaBute and am curious why you think he is "hateful".

Ok, maybe hateful is strong. Misanthropic? Certianly. I'm mot sure he thinks only women are terrible manipulative monsters or all people are terrible manipulative monsters.

I might be missing some details but:

The Shape of Things A woman completely transforms a schlub,causing him to fall in love with her. She reveals every intimate moment and reveals that the entire thing had been a sham, while delivering a scathing attack on him. Made me actually feel bad for Paul Rudd. Of course, by being so willing to be shaped and moulded, he had revealed himself as unfit for love.

In The Company of Men involves a competition between two men to sleep with a woman they both view as damaged and unlovable. Should be easy prey. They intend to toy with this woman purely as a dick measuring contest. The sappy nice guy not only loses but falls in love with her in the process, the woman he had viewed as beneath him now spurns him in a particularly brutal way. She falls for the callous ass. Callous ass, in a fit of pique exposes the entire thing as a sham, they had only been using her as a toy because they were bored. Furthermore, how could he ever be interested in someone as damaged as her. He then goes on to revel in his own callousness.

Your Friends & Neighbors Made me sad to be a person. I think I hated everyone in the film. Ben Stiller for being so sniveling and spineless. Catherine Keener for being so cold and heartless towards Stiller.

The Wicker ManWomen lure men to an island community of women to burn them alive. Cage runs around punching them at random.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:46 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


What's most suspect about his 180 is how fast he claims it to have happened. People don't fundamentally change that much that fast, and the fact that he thinks he has suggests he's either lying or he's still lacking in self awareness.

Actually, I don't see anything at all suspect about this. Tucker Max is a sociopath, and in classic sociopathic style he sees the world as one giant optimization game. The fact is that playing the drunken fratty asshole may work* when you're in your 20s (*for certain values of the word "work"), but if you want to keep having lots of casual sex and continue to be a malignant narcissist into your 30s with women who are more mature, you have to play a different game.

And that's all that's going on here: nothing about this guy has changed. He's just adapting with the times. All of this bullshit about being open and having newfound candor and blah blah blah . . . that's the standard glib and charming line that any functioning human being with borderline personality disorder uses, cf the contrite videos of Jeffery Dahmer post-imprisonment or any of the number of post-incarceration conversions to Christianity you see from serial killers and serial rapists. But under all of that "oh I've changed" and "oh you were right about me" bullshit you'll find the same dead dark shark eyes.
posted by Frobenius Twist at 11:47 AM on February 10, 2012 [13 favorites]


Re: Him being "rapey"? I read one of his blog posts about coercing some girl into anal sex. Is that as far as he goes, or is he actually an alleged rapist like the Girls Gone Wild guy?

No, he's not an alleged rapist, it's more that he normalises a culture of coercion and deception while making lots of rape jokes.
posted by atrazine at 11:49 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


Oh, livejournal's SexTips community, what fond memories I have of you!

Completely off-topic but oh holy shit I spent a good while in that community as well.
posted by griphus at 11:56 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


I'd never heard of Tucker Max before (and I've been known to read a book or two) but his name sounds like one I'd heard. That probably help him commercially. A conscious asshole is better than just an asshole. An admitted asshole is better still. A reforming asshole? Even better. Maybe he hasn't actually reformed that much yet but he's at least facing the right direction.

What intrigues me, though, is Forbes. Is he a relevant topic because he's a bro? Because he's rich? Because Forbes readers can identify? Because they can admire his better late than never (at least verbal) conversion to the values that Forbes readers like to think of themselves as holding? All of the above?
posted by Obscure Reference at 11:58 AM on February 10, 2012


Heh, yeah, I figured it was all the women punching. I love Friends & Neighbours, probably for the very reasons you hate it.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:01 PM on February 10, 2012


WidgetAlley, I sort of agree, but of all the addicts and assholes I've ever known who have actually turned their lives around, virtually all of them started from a point of selfishness.

I don't know. I think it's more plausible for someone to beat a substance abuse addiction than to completely overhaul their personality with Scrooge-like swiftness.

I agree with others that he's simply realized that he has more clout as a "reformed" dick than a regular old dick.

I expect to see him profiting off this transformation in the same narcissistic fashion.
posted by timsneezed at 12:04 PM on February 10, 2012


Man, the absolute worst part of that article was discovering that Tucker Max now lives in Austin. Ew.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:04 PM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


I love Friends & Neighbours, probably for the very reasons you hate it.

I don't hate it. When I say I hated all the characters it doesn't mean I hated the movie as a whole, I hate all the characters in Bret Easton Ellis as well. I don't Neil LaBute Tucker Max or Bret Easton Ellis, but they all revel in brutality of varying sorts.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:06 PM on February 10, 2012


This is really irresponsible of Tucker. If every broken young woman with daddy issues got therapy our porn and stripping industries would collapse. America's economy can't handle another shock like that now.
posted by Blue Meanie at 12:08 PM on February 10, 2012


Requiescat in pace.
posted by pyrex at 12:11 PM on February 10, 2012


I've always held 2 basic thoughts about Tucker Max:

1. I think he owes much of his success to coming along during the deluded ugliness of Bush era America.

2. The living posterboy for white male privilege. If he was a person of color his occupation would be inmate, and not author.
posted by billyfleetwood at 12:13 PM on February 10, 2012 [14 favorites]


What intrigues me, though, is Forbes. Is he a relevant topic because he's a bro? Because he's rich? Because Forbes readers can identify? Because they can admire his better late than never (at least verbal) conversion to the values that Forbes readers like to think of themselves as holding? All of the above?


Forbes publishes a ton of web writing, with what seems to be fairly loose editorial control. They're a little like the Huffington Post.
posted by grobstein at 12:16 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


Am I lucky for not knowing who the hell this person is?
posted by The ____ of Justice at 12:17 PM on February 10, 2012


Heh, yeah, I figured it was all the women punching .

Ima shut up after this I promise. Even though the women punching is a bit over the top it isn't really about that. Women need men for a fertility ritual. The fertility ritual will, in this case, literally destroy the men so they trick them. Women mislead men, leading them to their own doom, in order to reproduce. Not a very cheerful message.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:19 PM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


Fuck Tucker Max, fuck him and his misogynistic decrees. I hope he finds redemption, I hope he realizes the wrongness of his ways, but he can seriously go fuck himself regarding the shit he got published.
posted by pyrex at 12:20 PM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


This is extremely offensive to some people, simply because living vicariously through him makes one feel like a narcissistic sociopath with limited empathy or concern for anyone else besides himself.

I have trouble living vicariously through people who think I'm garbage but want to use my body to masturbate with. I accidentally had sex with one of these people once during my heavy drinking days. It was a very unpleasant mindfuck. Not a good trip.

For those of us who can handle it...quite entertaining.

Congratulations on being able to totally put aside feeling bad about imagining treating me like shit? I guess?
posted by Adventurer at 12:25 PM on February 10, 2012 [17 favorites]


And right, it's not me personally, but it's somebody, you know?
posted by Adventurer at 12:29 PM on February 10, 2012


like others here, i read tucker max online back when i was 19 or 20, reading lots of sex/raunchy stuff online (oh, lowbrow, how i miss you).
posted by nadawi at 12:33 PM on February 10, 2012


I was definitely struck by the fact that there seems to be not one particle of actual remorse in this conversion of his. He's realizing that this lifestyle was bad for him, and it came from a bad place, and he's able to extrapolate that to other people involved in that lifestyle (that they were doing bad things for them that came from bad places in their childhoods/psyches/whatever) but he explicitly does not - and I appreciate the interviewer for really hammering this home - does not recognize that what he did was bad for anyone else, ever. Not publicizing his misogyny in a laudatory way, not actually having abusive/coercive/contemptuous sex with women (even though he now understands those women were vulnerable,) nothing.

And so yeah, he is still a dude I really, really never want to run into in person. Ever. And I hope he doesn't have kids for a long, long time. And that he never has a daughter.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:36 PM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]


Fuck Tucker Max, fuck him and his misogynistic decrees. I hope he finds redemption, I hope he realizes the wrongness of his ways, but he can seriously go fuck himself regarding the shit he got published.


I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think that's the part that really stands out to me. He seems to be undergoing some degree of transformation, which I'm going to call an unquestionably good thing. If he's decided to stop making a glorious spectacle of treating women like shit in front of a cheering audience, then that is a good thing.

What strikes me as a bit off, though, is that he doesn't seem to get that any kind of harm is possible beyond the specific personal things he did to individuals while he was treading that path. The idea that he encouraged and applauded other assholes who will do the same hurtful things to other people doesn't seem to generate any particular regret or remorse, at least not that I could see.

I'm not saying that he's some sort of inhuman asshole, or that he's insincere in recognizing and acknowledging that he directly treated other people very badly. Just that he doesn't seem to view his personal changes as rethinking as much as upgrading.
posted by verb at 12:38 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


Well, he's 35 now. That seems to be the age when a lot of guys hit the wall in terms of drinking and/or womanizing and/or going out of their way to be assholes.

Well, yeah. That's roughly when the "1/2n+7" rule prevents you from picking up 23 year olds without looking completely creepy.
posted by maryr at 12:38 PM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


I couldn't even finish the article while skimming the print view- not because I have any opinion about Tucker Max, but because it was written in such an annoying hooah, I am interviewing Tucker Max, beeyotch, and I had to do so much work editing out all the dudes and fucks, and yeah, did I say I was interviewing Tucker Max? THE Tucker Max?... style. Ugh.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:40 PM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


Yeah, I sorta figured it's a business decision. He's aging. It's rapidly getting to the point where even the 15-year-olds are just going to find his middle-aged bro-dude persona pathetic. If it's purely cynical he'll probably start putting out self-help psychobabble books or something. But at any rate, this whole "new-leaf"/"this-will-be-my-last-book" thing can't hurt sales for the book that just came out, right? THE LAST ONE. NO MOAR.
posted by taz at 12:44 PM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


...but he explicitly does not - and I appreciate the interviewer for really hammering this home - does not recognize that what he did was bad for anyone else, ever.

That's the reason I posted this thing, honestly. The interviewer does a really good job of keeping it from being the hagiography Max clearly intends for it to be so the interview becomes a completely different animal than the standard Oprah-grade redemption/rehabilitation story.
posted by griphus at 12:54 PM on February 10, 2012 [3 favorites]


The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
posted by djeo at 1:14 PM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


The interviewer is a douchenozzle, Tucker is a douchenozzle and they can both die in a fire for my part. I don't find it admirable to be an asshole all your life and then suddenly start to say how you've seen the light and changed your life but all that's changed is that's now all your interviews are about your chance of heart.

It all reminds me of all those eighties tevangelists caught pleasuring rent boys paid for by skimming off the collection plate: "I've sinned against you my wife; I've sinned against you my lord, but most importantly, where are my cue cards?"
posted by MartinWisse at 1:59 PM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


Half of the garbage he writes about is all shitthatneverhappened.txt anyway. No, sorry, you did not tell off a "fat chick" to her face and then smirk as you got a "disapproving glare".
posted by windbox at 2:06 PM on February 10, 2012


> Well, yeah. That's roughly when the "1/2n+7" rule prevents you from picking up 23 year olds without looking completely creepy.

It's also when the hangovers start getting a lot worse.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:11 PM on February 10, 2012


This Tucker Max?

Don't get me wrong. He's hilarious. But seriously.
posted by effugas at 2:14 PM on February 10, 2012


So I assume he'll be giving away his millions to NOW or something, right?
posted by weinbot at 2:14 PM on February 10, 2012


You can repent all you want, Tucker, but put your money where your mouth is.
posted by weinbot at 2:15 PM on February 10, 2012


leotrotsky: "See, for much of my life, I've loathed guys like this, and been generally unwilling to cut them any slack for having once been douchebags and generally terrible people.

But you know, life is hard, people are f*cked up, and when it comes down to it, there's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.
"

Yeah, well, you've got to be cruel to be kind. In the right measure, mind you.
posted by Samizdata at 2:17 PM on February 10, 2012 [6 favorites]


Tucker Max would be a good name for a super-sized Australian ready meal.
posted by Grangousier at 2:28 PM on February 10, 2012 [5 favorites]


it was written in such an annoying hooah, I am interviewing Tucker Max, beeyotch, and I had to do so much work editing out all the dudes and fucks, and yeah, did I say I was interviewing Tucker Max? THE Tucker Max?... style.

Did I read the same article? I only noticed he brought the "swears & dudes" thing up once, on the first or second page, and it seemed to me to be meant to cast Max as kind of an idiot. Which he does again and again actually, especially by confronting him about the effect his asshole behavior has had on women. When Max doesn't own the detrimental effects of his actions outright, the interviewer is pretty clear that he sees this as a major problem with Max's supposed transformation.
posted by Hoopo at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2012


And yeah, this isn't a redemption. It's a guy getting older and realizing some of the asshole things he did were asshole moves, but not realizing a lot of other asshole things he did were too. He's still an asshole, but I suppose it's progress that he no longer feels the need to be an asshole quite as aggressively and publicly as before.
posted by Hoopo at 2:38 PM on February 10, 2012


Just when I thought Tucker Max's public persona couldn't get any more loathsome, he turns into one of those people who can't shut the fuck up about what he's going through in therapy.
posted by whir at 2:39 PM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


Jerk acts like jerk. Profit! Jerk acts like repentant jerk. Profit!

Fuck this guy.
posted by Decani at 2:56 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


I can remember to the day (kind of, I don't exactly remember the exact day) when I read a Tucker Max piece for the first and only time. It was right before the metafilter 10th anniversary global meetup parties and Matt was sending money for bar tabs hither and yon. I suggested that open bars lead to intoxication and he might want to set aside a little funding for breath alcohol analyzers so nobody got crashed or ticketed driving home. One of our fellow metafilter users posted a link to a Tucker Max blog post where he had taken a breath alcohol analyzer out to a bar with him to see how high he could get it to go. If I recall correct he got it to .24 (Amy Winehouse's autopsy was only .15).

Seeing how high you can get that reading is a really stupid thing to do. Now I am kind of wondering how old he was when he did that. I can almost imagine doing that when I was 17 or 18. A 27 year old or a 28 year old doing that is like more than 4 standard deviations away from the mean on having some common sense.
posted by bukvich at 4:00 PM on February 10, 2012


I'd seen this guy's book in an airport someplace, so I guess I'd heard of him. I didn't read the book, but I did pick it up to read the back of it, and it sounded like a real waste of time. Seeing this FPP piqued my interest somewhat, so I went to his website to read some of his 'short stories'. I didn't make it very far before feeling that I had pretty well confirmed my initial assumption about his 'work'.

I'm not easily offended, and I like to read, so I thought I might even get a chuckle out of something this guy did; but his material is glaringly fictitious, and pretty unimaginative to boot. What's more, I get the sense that he thinks it's much more racy that it actually is, which makes it even less funny.

Douchbag, fratboy, entitled white guy, misogynist, all that; what I found most surprising about his stuff was how flat and uninteresting it was, for all the outrage it seems to incite. I'm actually going to go back and try to read more, just to see if there are some nuggets of fun hidden deep in there. But I haven't enjoyed what I've seen so far, so I'm not expecting much.

So, who cares if he's on a reformation kick? He'll be the same boring guy bragging about things he never did to people who wish like hell they had the 'nuts' to be as 'sick' as he is. He made himself rich off of those people, too; who wouldn't try to double-dip in a money pool like that?
posted by Pecinpah at 4:41 PM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]


Maybe, just maybe, the repenetance like the persona was a shtick and everyone was it's sucker both those who idolized it and those who were offended by it.
posted by jonmc at 5:00 PM on February 10, 2012


You can repent all you want, Tucker, but put your money where your mouth is.

Dear Tucker, please do not do this. I don't want to be anywhere near anything that you've touched with your mouth and money circulates.
posted by maryr at 7:15 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


I contemplated responding to this post, because, yeah, I've been a person similar to his persona.

I'm not the person I was a few years ago; I partied hard and used a lot of people. What did I care? They were all young guys, and all they want is sex, and I want power; it's okay, right?

I could be described as sociopathic (I disagree) and/or narcissistic (I agree to an extent). A friend of mine that I was having an emotional and physical interaction with stepped in and said "hey, what you're doing is wrong." And explained why. And I realized the reasons why I acted in such a manner were to negate the negative feelings and self-loathing and insecurity I had. Because when I used those people, I had the power. And when I'm powerful, why should I care what anyone else thinks? "Look at me; I can bend people to my will and control them!"

There was a significant time where I put everything aside, and explored myself. Wow, hey, I'm fucked up. Okay. What can I do to make things better?

And I started working through it. And I met someone; someone important. And he has many of the same issues and history that I do. And we started working together to make ourselves better people. We're far from perfect, but we're appreciating the journey and the fact that we have someone who isn't judgmental to share it with.

Basically, I'm saying that it's possible. I used to admire Tucker Max because he made me feel like I wasn't the only person doing unsavory things to people I didn't care about; he normalized my behavior. Hell, if I can turn things around, someone with his resources can as well. It's just time and introspection.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 8:30 PM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


Obviously, I've not been paying attention, but basically this guy would like us all to believe his is like Ferris Bueller from the Mirror Mirror Universe, right?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:17 PM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]


Well, I'm glad he's reforming or whatever (is Arthur Kade next? I look forward to that one), but I hope this guy never finds true love.

I would bet serious money that I'll be forever single and this bastard will find true love with a wonderful, hot, intelligent woman within a year, though.

I hate people.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:28 PM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]


In the last year I flew about six times including internationally from the U.S. involving stop overs in a fair number of European cities.

I live in London and have been to a couple of European cities in the past year - never seen any work by this guy on sale. The more I read the more I'm actually quite shocked he gets enough traction to appear in airport bookstores. But then, we have Jeremy Clarkson, who is Tucker Max with a mondeo.
posted by mippy at 6:22 AM on February 11, 2012


I believe that people can change and become better. More importantly, I believe that faith in the possibility of people changing is necessary for most of the best things we have held on to in our society. This thread is bumming me out. I realize it's one specific guy, but in general, if you want to believe "once an asshole, always an asshole," then I think you're on a dark path.
posted by prefpara at 3:01 PM on February 11, 2012 [2 favorites]




jenfullmoon: "Well, I'm glad he's reforming or whatever (is Arthur Kade next? I look forward to that one), but I hope this guy never finds true love.

I would bet serious money that I'll be forever single and this bastard will find true love with a wonderful, hot, intelligent woman within a year, though.

I hate people.
"

I feel your pain. I do. If I get unsingle, I guarantee it will be with a severely broken person, who will offer truly stupendous sex, but make every other minute of my life a hell of some sort.

And that's IF...

(Dear Deity of Your Choice Here, I wish that would not be true...)
posted by Samizdata at 9:50 PM on February 11, 2012


For quite a few years, I considered Tucker Max a role model. When he was touring his shitty, shitty movie, my now-roommate and I lied our way into press passes so we could see the movie in advance; afterwards, we had a beer with Tucker on his tour bus and had a fairly interesting conversation, after which he fucked a UPenn journalist. A photo of her ass with a red hand-print on it was uploaded to his blog the next morning.

What made Tucker such a compelling writer was his honesty. He's not a very deep thinker, but he's aware of what he wants and he doesn't pretend not to want it. He's consummately comfortable in his own skin – he's not always aware of what that skin looks like to the rest of us, and this article touches on that, but what he knows of what's going on inside he'll express to the world without seemingly a moment of doubt. And I think he's got a fascination with the false fronts people put on; my favorite parts of his writing concern his taunting people who say one thing to him but clearly mean another. And an especially brutal part of his misogyny shows itself when he's sleeping with a girl who puts on these fronts, and he relentlessly bashes her for the front, knowing she'll sleep with him anyway.

As a boy in high school who was superbly uncomfortable with who he was, reading Tucker Max helped me figure a few things out. He was one of the writers, along with Ayn Rand – lovely bunkmates, those two – who got me over a lot of insecurities, and also pointed me to the realization that other people were insecure too, other people lied about things the same way I lied. That was one of those big eureka moments as a kid, and writing this now, I think it makes sense in a weird sad way that the only people who care enough about lies and false fronts are frequently shallow and jerkish. And I know some great people who still haven't figured that shit out, so it's not so self-evident a realization that you can assume everybody grows out of it naturally. Some of those crappy role models had a real and positive effect on how I see myself and live my life, and Tucker was one of the better ones in that camp.

He was an incomparable asshole, he treated women like shit, he made people's lives miserable by existing nearby, but he knew who he was, and that was (and is) pretty impressive. He figured himself out at a young age and he helped other people, including myself, do the same. He also encouraged a lot of fratty shit-sorts, and thus far his career has quite possibly been net detrimental, but that's not saying he's never done anybody any good.

It's not sociopathic to have an acute sense of what people want and how they lie, although true sociopaths, lacking empathy, are much more aware of this than other people. And having that awareness doesn't preclude developing empathy later on. Having met Tucker and talked to him, I have no problem believing that he's capable of developing as a person, and I've got hopes that any transformation he undergoes will catch on with his impressionable followers, encourage them toward self-reflection and possible change. I doubt he'll stop being self-obsessed, and he's neither aware enough or skilled enough as a writer to get at anything suitably deep for this crowd, but I'm glad that he seems to be finding happiness – we all deserve that – and I owe him in small part for the person I've become.

This article does a good job of showing where he's at now without forgiving him for his unforgivable decisions. I admired the author's choice to explore his own feelings about Tucker; it led to a more interesting conclusion which takes into account the things Tucker still has yet to figure out, and I liked that. As for the responses here... it's worth pointing out that there are many, many ways to be an asshole, and MetaFilter's home to a lot of sorts which the frat-house Tucker Max crowd rarely manifests. I've got a bunch of bro friends and I love them to bits, even though parts of them suck, and I think there's a lot of good when a social icon decides publicly to become less shitty.
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:12 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


It's not a callout. I like MetaFilter a whole lot. I like my fratty ungeeky friends. They have different plusses and minuses.

Your comments, especially about the triggering posters, highlighted Max at his nastiest. There's a big portion of his community and style that makes me actively uncomfortable. I hope he grows up enough to feel regret for what he did; I don't know if I think that he will. But I dislike the attitude that people can't change, or be complex mixes of good and bad, and I don't see the value in denouncing anybody, not least of which when they're trying to change.
posted by Rory Marinich at 3:50 PM on February 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


But I dislike the attitude that people can't change

That's not the attitude here.

The attitude here is "don't tell us, show us." Or "how does your new book and promotional campaign affect your comments?"

Or more broadly: "never trust an author when she's promoting her book."
posted by mrgrimm at 9:59 AM on February 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


but he knew who he was, and that was (and is) pretty impressive

That's what impresses you? You and me bro, we've got really different standards.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:31 PM on February 14, 2012


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