“While others … have explored the more serious contexts of online humor, particularly when it tilts into the grim and mean, in Epic Fail [Mark] O’Connell makes a useful addition to what I’ll refer to as Lulz Studies by attempting to put this variety of Schadenfreude in cultural-historical perspective.”
“If you’re looking for a link to this GIF, you won’t find it here. That’s because, mid-laugh, I considered this [person] as an actual human being, moving through the world somewhere, possibly embarrassed that documentation of [their] genuine enjoyment had been repurposed into a nutty-looking punch line. I felt clammy.”
- When laughing at an epic fail is no laughing matter by Rob Walker
Sometimes contemporary culture, Internet culture particularly, seems like a kind of Mexican standoff of weaponized irony.
“In this expertly researched, wonderfully witty essay, O’Connell explains why we enjoy watching the spectacular artistic failures of others. The culture of the epic fail is a culture of “sublimated predation,” he writes. It’s a concept well understood by great artists, including Shakespeare, but understood little by its unfortunate victims, who often remain convinced of their creative genius even in the face of mass ridicule.” The San Francisco Chronicle on our own Mark O’Connell’s Epic Fail.
“Mr. [Mark] O’Connell is an intelligent and very funny writer,” says Barton Swaim in The Wall Street Journal. “But Epic Fail will also prompt you to consider how shallow—and ugly—humans can be.” (Bonus: a reference to getting pitted, just so pitted.)
“I do seem to be preoccupied by Internet weirdness. But who isn’t fascinated by that stuff, really? (The answer to that rhetorical question is actually, no doubt, lots of normal people.)” Our own Mark O’Connell on the lure of epic badness.
We’re thrilled by the early buzz surrounding Epic Fail, our first Millions Original eBook. You can learn more about the project courtesy of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Teleread. Of course, you could learn even more about the project by purchasing a copy of the book.
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![“If you’re looking for a link to this GIF, you won’t find it here. That’s because, mid-laugh, I considered this [person] as an actual human being, moving through the world somewhere, possibly embarrassed that documentation of [their] genuine enjoyment had been repurposed into a nutty-looking punch line. I felt clammy.”
- When laughing at an epic fail is no laughing matter by Rob Walker](http://24.media.tumblr.com/35114a7d6868815efb9c131d6baf3ff8/tumblr_mk9yxgAEXa1r6xvfko1_500.gif)
