James Bookend

The cohort of lost, shitty men you’ll meet reading THE CASTLE is an argument against retirement.

Ronson explores what’s happening to the 7 million men who have fallen out of the conventional workforce and decided not to reenter it. Instead they’re attempting to chart their own paths as online influencers, including the “Lawncare GOAT” who starts paying rent through hugely popular videos of his tween daughters and himself dressing up and babbling like babies, and a trust-funder who lures young women to his castle in Connecticut with promises of (fake) jewelry, (illusive) money, and an opportunity star in his (seeking distribution) reality TV show, “101 Princesses.” Letting this population loose on the internet to see what the algorithm encourages them to do is very much not a good idea. I’m sure AI will make everything right again…. Meanwhile, tell the men in your life to find purpose doing something, anything, other than influencering.

(Editor’s note: While I write little book reviews that I hope to influence global reading tastes, I identify as a plastic bookend, not a lost and purposeless white man. Maybe I’ll be OK?)

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