When I first heard Tucker Max was coming to speak at Hopkins, my first response was: "Who?" I vaguely remembered the name from his then-upcoming movie I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, but wasn't interested enough to investigate until all of the outraged statuses started popping up on Facebook.
Then I received the invite to go the alternate event, "I Know They Serve Beer In One World Café," and the scathing protest of the HOP event that accompanied it, and I became a little more interested.
And finally, The News-Letter asked me to write this column, which meant I had to stop my all-day Mad Men marathon on Saturday to finally go check out his stories.Please. This guy is not worth the ridiculous amount of buzz everyone is making. He has built a career out of recounting his outrageous and, frankly, asinine adventures - all of them centering on drunken debauchery and sexual depravity.
He acknowledges that he is "an assh--e" who "just generally act[s] like a raging dickhead." (Via his personal site, www.tuckermax.com, where the majority of his stories are posted.) Okay, great.His writing is deplorable. His stories, while amusing for a while because of their "taboo" content and overwhelming tendency to sound fabricated, lose their shock value the more you read.
And yet, somehow, he has managed to make people, especially in our generation, either fall in love with him or want him to end up behind bars.
After discussing the event with friends and various Hopkins students, I have discerned three distinct reactions to Tucker speaking on campus.
The first, coming mostly (but not completely) from my testosterone-driven comrades is "OMFG TUCKER MAX IS SPEAKING HOLY CRAP I JUST JIZZED MY PANTS."
The second, the majority (but again, not all) stemming from my fellow women, is absolute disgust toward the HOP's decision to invite a man who has clearly and routinely addressed women in the most derogatory ways.
And I have to admit, I personally don't appreciate reading that my gender is "hardwired for whoredom."
The third reaction stems practically equally from men and women, and is either mild interest in what he might have to say at the event, or complete apathy toward his entire persona.
Honestly, I don't like this guy. As stated above, he's not even a good writer. His relentless attacks on women in all of his stories was pretty damn offensive at times, even though I tried to read them as tongue-in-cheek.
But I have to give him credit as a thoroughly smart guy for exploiting our sex-obsessed, media-consuming demographic and writing a book that is guaranteed to sell millions of copies. As shown in the growing success of movies in vein of The Hangover and Superbad, it was only a matter of time before the quintessential "fratire" book was written.
I also don't think Tucker Max does anything to improve our generation's stereotypical view of women. I thoroughly agree with many women's desire to protest the promotion of calling the female gender such lovely epithets as "cum dumpsters." But the fact that this type of literature, if it can even be called that, is what sells these days, may reflect more on our generation rather than condemn this one man.Yes, he degrades women. So do many, many comedians and crude movies. He may be more excessive in his disparaging antics, but this is absolutely nothing new. It's sad, and it's pathetic, and it shows that we still have a lot of work to do before women's rights are not merely accepted by law, but become part of normal behavior. However, this is America and everyone has a right to a free forum to speak. Everybody also has the right to protest. But I just don't know if these women realize that by handing out flyers berating him, they are unintentionally giving him more publicity, more readers, and - consequently and unfortunately - more followers.
I wouldn't have even bothered looking him up if there hadn't been such an angry response - personally I don't find superfluous, detailed descriptions of anal sex and vomiting to be mentally stimulating.
But Tucker Max must want to get a rise out of us in that way. There would be no reason for him to post his stories if he didn't.
Moreover, our age group is one that loves to do things we're not supposed to do - hence if we have flyers shoved in our faces telling us not to attend this event, we'll probably just want to go more, just to piss those people off.
I don't agree with the HOP's decision to use my tuition money to sponsor his event. But I plan to make the most of the situation by going on Wednesday (since hell, I've apparently already paid), and seeing if he contests, or defends, the accusations that have been made against him.
This is a learning experience. There are so many hidden Tucker Maxs in our current society - at least by listening to him speak, I might be able to avoid running into them in my own life.
