Gary Shteyngart

You're constantly being ranked everywhere.

You're being ranked even as you walk down the street.

There's giant credit polls that showcase your credit for, you know, you can tell Gary has 600 out of 800 points in credit.

He needs to save more.

So even on that level, the society is so intrusive that it tells you you need to save more.

Some people need to spend more.

It just constantly wants to keep people in equilibrium.

Women are very sexualized, even more so than in our world.

America is run by a kind of, well, fascist leader who has started a war in Venezuela, etc.

So a lot of familiar stuff is happening.

There's two main characters.

Lenny is kind of like me, a sort of neo-Nebish who's a Gen X, which is this interesting generation that's kind of a bridge between the analog and the digital worlds.

And Eunice is 10, 15 years younger than him, but she's already a full digital native, so probably younger.

You know, if you think millennial or something like that.

And so this is a very unlikely love affair between two people.

And I think the biggest thing that holds them back is the fact that they live in two different worlds.

So the thing that made me start thinking a lot about Super Sad True Love Story has been the omnipresence of Brian Johnson, the longevity influencer, Clavicular, the look smaxer.

And the way that streaming culture and looks and ratings and everything, hyper-visual culture, all seem to be now holding our attention in a way I don't remember happening before.

So as a guy who wrote a book about all this, as the future at one point, how has this looked to you?

You know, the book was written about mid-aughts, I would say.