So Klosterman is cited as a favorite writer by several people who I respect a lot and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs was a delightful read in kind of a trashy way. It's billed as a "low culture manifesto"-- so I guess that's okay.

The book is structured as a series of unconnected essays all about pop culture things. His voice is similar to that of David Foster Wallace, but in general, h is less intellectual, (I would argue less insightful), and a little darker. While Wallace (to me) keeps a generally positive attitude, Klosterman strikes me as someone who is pretty depressed (but pretty to to boot).

All in all, I very much enjoyed the deconstruction of pop culture to find deeper meaning. Alas, I'm a little too young to really get some of these references.

Fun quotes:

"Why do you keep saying that... apples and oranges aren't that different really. I mean, they're both fruit. Their weight is extremely similar. They both contain acidic elements. They're both roughly spherical. They serve the same social purpose....So how is this a metaphor for difference? I could understand if you said, 'That's like comparing apples and uranium,' or 'That's like comparing apples with baby wolverines,' or 'That's like the early work of Raymond Carver,' or 'That's like comparing apples with hermaphroditic ground sloths.' Those would all be valid examples of profound disparity. But not apples and oranges. In every meaningful way, they're virtually identical."

"Yet according ot the affable robots at google.com, there are 6,250 sites on the Internet that prominently include the phrase 'naked housewives.' There are also 7,110 that include hte phrase 'nude housewives,' which I suppose is technically classier. We have 586 that promote 'housewife whores,' while a solid 2,600 offer a more generic alternative ('housewife sluts')... Since one could assume that all of these sites have-- conservatively-- 50 whores apiece, that's a little over 830,000 domestic sexaholics in English-speaking countries all of which can be located in roughly 90 seconds. Considering how few women are still stay-at-home moms, that's quite an accomplishment."

"Meanwhile, John Kellogg was upset that his brother added sugar to the flake recipe to improve sales, a supplement he believed would liberate the public libido and turn every corn flake aficionado into a raging sexoholic. The Kellogg brothers eventually sued one another... Years later, a trio of Rastafarian elves would promote puffed Rice."

Klosterman was recommended to me by a friend, and while I'll admit he has some funny bits, he really is that guy at the party who is exceedingly nerdy (in a hipster sort of way) and who thinks he's clearly better than everyone else. And no one -- no one -- should devote the amount of time and attention to pop culture that he does. And this is coming from a girl who gets a regular dose of Perez Hilton every week. I'm his target audience, and yet he still turned me off. He critiques pop culture at such a level of extreme minutia that only four people on the planet know what he's talking about. Furthermore, he makes a point of saying that certain shows, bands, etc. appeal only to people who were born between certain years (he was born in 1972, and thinks most of today's pop culture only applies to those born between 1970 and 1975). For example, he writes that only people born between the aforementioned years ever watched "Saved By the Bell," which aired when he was in college. I won't get into the fact that Klosterman was watching episodes of SBTB in COLLEGE (mind you, this was a show on Saturday mornings initially, geared towards the 10-15 year-old crowd). In fact, I think SBTB was watched by many more viewers in younger generations than his, but it serves to illustrate the point that Klosterman seems to feel that everything in pop culture only applies to his narrow generational window.

He writes as if he thinks he so much better than all of these people he makes fun of, and yet he spends his career hyper-evaluating pop culture. Pot, Kettle, anyone?

Chuck Klosterman reminds me of a friend I had throughout high school and into college and still encounter during the occassional "reunion-type" gathering. We don't often talk about religion, politics, or even really what we've been doing with our lives since we last saw one another... save for the recent movies we've seen, what's being played on the radio, or the latest Geico commercial.

Like with that friend, I don't always "get" every reference that Chuck makes. In fact, I don't even know if Chuck truly believes every statement he espouses his book. I wonder if (like my friend) half of what he says is simply to get a reaction; however, he's still entertaining. In one chapter you might feel smug, patting yourself on the back that you can join in Chuck's condescending remarks. In the next, you might be shaking your head thinking, "This guy's a real a-hole!" You don't need to agree with every opinion he has, but it's hard not to find yourself nodding in agreement or laughing out loud with at least a few of the points he makes in his dozen or so essays.

I am breaking my personal rule about not rating a book I haven't finished.

This guy, whether he is playing a character or being himself, comes across as a pretentious prick who mistakes intellect for wisdom.

DNF - threw in the towel at 30% - wish I could get my time back, even if it was just to watch paint dry...it would have been more productive.

The book was mildly entertaining. I didn't hate it. If you've ever gone to a party and there was a guy who was drunkenly rambling about any random topic in a know-it-all manner and you found his arguments compelling but inexplicably annoying, this book is the prose of that fellow. I guess I'm finding white male perspectives less palatable as I age.

Recommended for: English majors who like to play deconstruction, hipsters who used to make mix tapes,anyone who knows of Lloyd Dobbler, guys who are really into music and didn't get laid until college, the girls who love them


Forgive me for what I'm about to do. I'm really not a complete curmudgeon, and I feel nefarious for the review I'm about to give, mostly because everyone I know likes this book, but I simply can't promote all of these essays as refreshingly creative and brilliantly written pop culture analyses.

(disregard this review with respect to Tracks [the essays are tracks for the metaphorical mix CD Klosterman has created] 2, 5 , 12, and 15)

Klosterman is that witty and perspicacious guy in the Misfits Tee we all know from college who began dating around his sophomore year when women realized he was smart and amusing (and Klosterman himself attributes this to the Woody Allen/MiaFarroworDianeKeaton paradigm). But in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs he seems as if he still has to prove how hip, smart, and deserving of ladies (and attention)he really is. There's a telling point when Klosterman is discussing country and alt country music (see "Toby Over Moby") and chastises hipsters for their elitism and fickleness, but simultaneously, Klosterman name drops obscure little bands, and makes sure to let readers know what hallowed and respected hipster singers inhabit his CD shelf ( he has 17 Dylan and Phair albums, to be exact).

Actually, there's no shortage of evidence about how hip, cool, and sensitive Kklosterman is. This collection is his ode to his coolness, and it feels amateurish. These are the essays we've all virtually written after rounds of drinks at the local dive bar. These are the musings of anyone who has ever had any knack or talent for deconstruction (or charming, somewhat intellectual bullshit) after overdosing on Mountain Dew and the equally empty calories of Teen dream television (Klosterman chooses Saved By The Bell and MTV'S first Real World here).

Klosterman's writing is problematic because many of these essays feel like they were written for a junior composition class (although I have to admit, Klosterman would certainly be a favored student). I can practically feel the teacher's notes on the pages: "Chuck, need to end with a WOW! statement" --- all the ending sentences are the mass produced Eng 300 variety: concise, annoyingly clever, and they sort of pertain to something mentioned in the essay.

The good news: These essays will resonate with you, overeducated hipster reader. If you grew up in the 80s and early 90s, then you will get these, and they will likely be the encapsulation of everything you and your drunkard Chuck Taylor wearing, irony branded, PBR drinking buddies discussed on the long walk home from the party. I admit, Chuck Klosterman amused me, but mostly because he wrote down all the thoughts my friends and I used to discuss.

as i just said in an email to james:

i knocked out sex drugs and cocoa puffs by chuck klosterman in a few hours last night, and i gotta tell you, i fear for the world when i think of how many kids i know list this book or its author as an all-time favorite on facebook. this guy is a turd, and people are clearly confusing his wit with intellect.

so yeah.
frustratingly surface, misogynistic, hipster cynicism b.s. if you ask me.

The hipster Bible.

Like Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Levitt, Chuck Klosterman is the sort of insubstantial, pseudo-intellectual that 21st century America not only craves, but so richly deserves.

Confession: I have been cheating on Infinite Jest with at least two other books. This was one of them.

As a work of pop culture analysis, 'Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs' is excellent. Admittedly some of the 90210 and Real World references were lost on me as I was out most likely trying to engage in "metal dude" stuff during those shows respective heydays. Being out of the loop on these things did not decrease my enjoyment of the material, however.

Why then only three stars?

A question that i'm still struggling with in the genre of nonfiction essays is whether or not it is valid to like the factual material yet dislike the writer's voice to the extent of letting it color one's opinion of the overall work negatively? When we are being presented with something that is supposedly a nonfiction essay should we accept the writer's voice as being a window into that person's personality or is it possible that it should merely be regarded as a persona that was chosen at the time of writing?

Although this was completely unintentional, the last book that I posted a review for was another collection of nonfiction essays - DFW's 'A Supposedly Fun Thing That I Will Never Do Again.' In this book, I found Wallace's voice to be totally endearing in that "insightful genius who is somewhat bumbling but oddly self deprecating" sort of way. This made me love the material even more and wish that I could have been in Wallace's circle to submit my application for the "dim witted sidekick" position. I came away with different thoughts from Klosterman. To me he reads like that guy in the bar who is smarter than you and is going to ram that fact down your throat at every convenient moment. At times the smugness reached the overpowering point where I was not sure if I wanted to excuse myself to the scary bar bathroom and slip out the backdoor or instead lean over and headbutt him in the face.

Usually, i'm a very nonjudgemental person who has little use for self righteousness, but the article where Chuck begins by outlining (somewhat proudly) that he once tried getting together with two different girls in two different parts of the country by sending them the exact same mix CD's, love letters, etc. really aggravated me. It is safe to say that especially in our early to mid twenties most of us have treated former lovers in ways that might stir feelings of shame or regret in hindsight, but to lay those youthful indiscretions out there in a nonfiction book with nationwide distribution seems a little much. Were either of these women aware of this prior to encountering your overly gleeful recollection of it upon the publication of this book, Chuck? There may be such a thing as being too truthful.

Basically I think Klosterman is a tremendous writer with some excellent insights into pop culture and I will most likely pick up another one of his books at some point. However, if I ever hear about one of his exes bursting through the crowd at a book signing and kicking him in the ding ding, I cannot guarantee that I won't laugh.

I had a very strong reaction to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. I enjoyed a handful of the chapters, especially the dissections of Lloyd Dobler, Saved By The Bell, the GnR Cover Band, and the Experimental Music Project. But when a chapter didn't coincide with my interests (e.g. sports, Dixie Chicks, Pamela Anderson), I found Klosterman's arguments transparent, a caveat that he fully acknowledges in an essay with a "formula for being relentlessly dynamic."

Subject matter aside, Klosterman heavily relies on digressions and pop culture name dropping:

"What in the name of Andrew W.K. is going on?"

These references angered me because they serve no purpose to the topic at hand and they unnecessarily date the material. He basically throws pop culture spaghetti against the wall and sees what sticks.

Also frustrating was Klosterman's excessive ability to turn his opinion into what he considers a universal fact:

"It's become cool to like Star Wars, which actually means it's totally become uncool to like Star Wars."

A ten year old could have written that poorly thought-out sentence, but aside from that, Klosterman sees no gray areas. He thinks that there are two kinds of people in the world for whatever topic is at hand. It makes for a close-minded and often annoying read, even when we see eye to eye.

I thoroughly reject the idea that this book is "for hipsters" or is some type of "wink and nudge" to be shared among a fairly specific, and exclusive set of people. Looking at a few of the popular reviews on Goodreads, this seems to be an idea brought up in more than one review.

While I would have trouble defending an argument that this is a book for "everyone" I don't think it's exclusionary to the bespectacled hipsters that everyone seems to loathe. Klosterman talks at length about a number of topics through a number of fairly interesting essays that range from early reality television, sports, music and serial killers. At no point is it necessary for you to familiarize yourself with the discography of Pavement to "get" what the essays are trying to get across.

I say this as someone who has been called a hipster, so I might be biased out of my bespectacled rear-end. So I will admit that the essay that compares the professional basketball rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics from the 1980s to every aspect of life, left me slightly confused. I will also understand if you pick up Klosterman's self admitted "Low Culture Manifesto" and have no understanding of pop music, breakfast cereal, John Wayne Gacy or Saved By The Bell, you might think that the author is coyly making fun of your "unhipness".

If anything, I think that Klosterman is doing the opposite. Rather than look at pop music, television or any other piece of media with a high falutin lens that waxes intellectual, Klosterman asks some interesting questions and introduces some interesting arguments that show that he doesn't seem to think anyone is cool, or uncool based on what kind of media they enjoy. At one point he even points out why an artist like Trisha Yearwood is more important than Nirvana, and what Saved By The Bell gets right in it's representation of the life of High Schoolers.

All this being said, this is my second read of this book. I clearly liked it enough to buy a used copy of the book (I originally borrowed it from an old girlfriend), but I wanted to give it's essays another look now that I'm a bit older. I read once that "Books don't change, but the reader does"

Some of the content is going on 15 years old, and it shows. Occasionally it's age proves that what Klosterman is writing about is somewhat timeless, sometimes it's dated and could use a refresh (the essay about Pamela Anderson might be completely alien to anyone young enough to have missed Anderson's era of cultural importance). So I guess books really don't change, it's the same book I read as a university student and budding hipster, but the reader, and the culture around the reader have changed.

Any book that begins with an amusing foray into the ways in which Lloyd Dobler has effectively destroyed the author's chance for real love (and perhaps the fake kind too) is a book that I immediately want to like. However, Klosterman essentially reels you in with his lighthearted, self-effacing opener only to assault you with a series of overgeneralized, matter-of-fact (yet largely unsupported) assertions about human behavior in the essays that follow.

While several of his essays offer moments of insight and wit, what makes the majority of his analyses of pop-culture and social behavior difficult to digest is the obnoxious (and at times, pseudo-intellectual) tone with which they are delivered. You sort of get the feeling that his ability to skillfully deconstruct pop-culture has led him to believe that he is an expert in all things American. What's worse is that he seems to want you to believe it too. That said, if you can look beyond the grating tone of these essays and accept Klosterman's musings as nothing more than one man's opinions--and relatively inconsequential ones at that, then you might be able to enjoy some of the entertaining and bizarrely funny anecdotes that are offered throughout his self-described "manifesto."