Pitchfork Reviews Reviews

David is a freshly minted NYU grad who’s working a not-quite-entry-level job, falling in love, and telling his parents he’s studying for the LSAT. He starts a Tumblr blog, typing out posts on his BlackBerry under his desk—a blog that becomes wildly popular and brings him to the attention of major media (The New York Times) as well as the White House. But his outward fame doesn’t quell his confusion about the world and his direction in it.

This semiautobiographical debut is a coming-of-age story perfect for our time. In Sense of Wonder author Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s words, “If Tao Lin had been born to Gary Shteyngart’s parents and spent his early twenties slaving for pageviews at NewYorker.com, he would have written something like this, the Bright Lights, Big City of the click-here-now generation.”

that reads like The Graduate meets Girls, with a freshness of language and outlook that brings to mind The Catcher in the Rye that reads like The Graduate meets Girls, with a freshness of language and outlook that brings to mind The Catcher in the Ryethat reads like The Graduate meets Girls, with a freshness of language and outlook that brings to mind The Catcher in the Rye that reads like The Graduate meets Girls, with a freshness of language and outlook that brings to mind The Catcher in the Ryethat reads like The Graduate meets Girls, with a freshness of language and outlook that brings to mind The Catcher in the Rye

why did I have this thread bookmarked

ITEM QTY TOTAL
You're Not Much Use to Anyone 200 $4,000.00
SUBTOTAL $4,000.00
VIEW CART Check out now

Non-Union Weed Buyers | Male or Female | Any Ethnicity | Age: 18 - 75
Seeking for all types for some featured roles of weed buying customers. Elderly woman, high schooler (must be over 18 years old who can play high school), apartment building residents, party girls, friends/roommates of principal actors.

What was that blog that was like Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, except it reviewed all sorts of webzine reviews (Stylus, Cokemachineglow, PopMatters, etc.) and its whole raison d'etre was to just be really snide and snarky in this hacky way, where you suspected the guy was just really bitter and resentful that his P4k application was rejected?

I Love Music?

ripfork iirc

Yes, that's it -- thanks! (Wow, he kept that up until early 2012.)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/11/supreme-skateboarding-clothing-underground-fashion-store-chinatown.html

I spend a lot of time thinking about what Supreme-related stories I can pitch. Sometimes, when I’m walking from Manhattan to Brooklyn, I walk out of my way past Supreme just to look through the windows and see what’s sold out. I try not to go into the store more than once a week because I know the people who work there will think, “This weird kid is coming in twice a week now and not buying anything…” I know the original retail prices of every item they’ve made since 2008 (and some from before that), probably like 400 or 500 items.

enrages me to no end that this guy's cashing new yorker cheqes for blogging this crap

The New Yorker employs a lot of hacks. It's no big deal.

alright, cool

i thought the supreme nyer post was pretty good tbh

and i mean between shapiro getting paid a couple hundred bucks for 800 words on supreme counterfeiters and denby getting a salary for his diarrhea

lol i was debating between posting a pic of denby or gopnik after bamcquern's post.

i think this is what wigs me out about this whole thing: Unlike other "music related viral ha-has" (like @Discographies or Hipster Runoff) whose profile got them paid freelance work at "legit" venues (Grantland, RS, NYer, etc) — I don't think I've heard a peep about this kid on any place but this markers thread.

So either a) he's being discussed on some social networking platform that I don't use (Facebook? LinkedIn?) or b) He sent a New Yorker editor a link to his Tumblr and he/she went "YES, I want THAT."

what legit venue does hipster runoff write for now?

doesn't he write for grantland, that's internet legit i guess

never gave a shit about this dude one way or another but it's kind of funny how different (and more readable) his voice is in that NYer post compared to that tumblr post. the NYer post was pretty good and interesting tbh i wish it had been way longer

Grantland:

http://www.grantland.com/contributor/_/name/carles

he wrote for thought catalog

So either a) he's being discussed on some social networking platform that I don't use (Facebook? LinkedIn?) or b) He sent a New Yorker editor a link to his Tumblr and he/she went "YES, I want THAT."

If he went through the sending-stuff route surely he would have compiled clips from the more legit pubs he's worked for? Interview, the Awl, Fuse, etc.

do you guys read the new yorker website? they publish posts like this one by writers way less known than shapiro almost every day. its not like eustace tilley and wallace shawn hanging out in there.

also the dude has a lot of good friends "in media" so to speak so maybe the "social networking platform" whiney is missing is IRL

also afaik he is in grad or law school, i don't think he's trying to be a writer

also that supreme story was a good read

Yeah, the guy made that zine that had contributions from tons of hipster-famous people:

http://pitchforkreviewsreviews.com/post/11870400613/im-putting-out-a-zine-its-called-the-worlds

He also sold a book and wrote a screenplay is being produced into a movie. However he accomplished it, this guy has a lot of connections IRL that go beyond what you'd expect from some random with a tumblr.

"a screenplay that is being produced into a movie" I mean.

"also afaik he is in grad or law school, i don't think he's trying to be a writer"

I think what he said was that when he started law school some sort of non-compete precluded him from writing non-law school stuff, then that disappeared somehow.

he was working at fuse.

still like his writing, the style, tone & sensibility as much as whatever subject he happens to choose

Spy Magazine ran a feature entitled "Logrolling in Our Time" that cited suspicious or humorous examples of mutually admiring book jacket blurbs by pairs of authors. Private Eye magazine regularly draws attention to alleged logrolling by authors in "books of the year" features published by British newspapers and magazines.

White Middle-Class Male Has Extremely "Relatable" Sensibility

If he's in law school and friends with the young literary elite, good chance he's not middle class imho

xp, well yeah [shrug]

There's a David Shapiro at my law school, but I from the blurry pictures of PRR David Shapiro I don't think they're the same guy. I should ask him.

it's a pseudonym

Then it probably won't do much to ask.

hi

http://i.imgur.com/A2IZewR.jpg

http://imagestore.brillianceaudio.com/CoverArt/978-1-4805-8521-8.jpg

well upper middle class but still

David is a freshly minted NYU grad who’s working a not-quite-entry-level job, falling in love, and telling his parents he’s studying for the LSAT. He starts a Tumblr blog, typing out posts on his BlackBerry under his desk—a blog that becomes wildly popular and brings him to the attention of major media (The New York Times) as well as the White House. But his outward fame doesn’t quell his confusion about the world and his direction in it.

This semiautobiographical debut is a coming-of-age story perfect for our time. In A Sense of Direction author Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s words, “If Tao Lin had been born to Gary Shteyngart’s parents and spent his early twenties slaving for pageviews at NewYorker.com, he would have written something like this, the Bright Lights, Big City of the click-here-now generation.”

Editorial Reviews
Review
“Underneath Shapiro’s seemingly affectless tone is a great deal of real—and urbane—wit as well as an incisive eye for the details that drive relationships. You're Not Much Use to Anyone deliciously captures the plight of the early twentysomething liberal arts major set adrift in a world not especially congenial to his or her particular skill set. It's a very fun and surprisingly poignant read.” —Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.

“I read David Shapiro's very funny and deeply moving first novel beginning to end without stopping, delighted and stimulated by its interesting range of endearing characters and the unpretentious, compassionate voice of the narrator, who I found irresistibly and singularly real: at once playful and vulnerable and charming and harsh, yearning and impulsive, mysterious and relatable. I highly recommend You’re Not Much Use to Anyone.” —Tao Lin, author of Taipei

“David Shapiro is the best critic of the made-up status-obsessed horror-show world his generation inherited. His dryly hilarious book would have been nonsensical twenty years ago. He's the obsessive voice of a generation that can see every little crazy thing—except themselves—more clearly than ever.” —Choire Sicha, author of Very Recent History

“David Shapiro's You're Not Much Use to Anyone seems to me the first example we've seen of the successful transformation of blog into novel: where other such projects have lazily slapped the hash of old online content between hard covers, Shapiro has invented a way to use a set of formal tensions – between the raw and the cooked, the fast and the slow, the urgent and the considered – to say something provocative, new, and very funny about performance, ambition, jealousy, and fear. If Tao Lin had been born to Gary Shteyngart's parents and spent his early twenties slaving for pageviews at NewYorker.com, he would have written something like this, the Bright Lights, Big City of the click-here-now generation.” —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction

About the Author
David Shapiro is the creator of the hit blog Pitchfork Reviews Reviews and The World’s First Perfect Zine. He has written for The New York Observer, The Wall Street Journal, Interview, and other places. He is currently a law student.

why do you care

he kinda looks like hoos

at least in the picture on the front of the book

he doesn't really look like hoos

the Bright Lights, Big City of the click-here-now generation.