I read I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell several years ago after a friend loaned it to me, telling me it was hilarious. I didn't like the book -- it sounded like I was reading an undersexed freshman alcoholic's wish journal -- and I was amazed my friend thought that I would. I was even more amazed to hear that it was on the NYT's best sellers list. I did a little research into the author, opening me up to the world of Tucker Max and his very vocal fans and critics.
First of all, Tucker Max is a jerk. He drinks to excess, is verbally abusive to nearly everyone, and treats women nearly exclusively as sex objects. Every single story -- literally every single one -- is about one or all of these traits. In this sense, there's nothing new here. I've heard talk that his books have spawned a new genre called "fratire" (fraternity satire), but that's like putting biofocals on a swamp rat and calling it a professor of sludge. These stories are not clever, insightful, or even well-written, and since they claim to be about real events (there's apparently a lot of dispute about this), you can't also claim that they are a satire, unless you want to use that term to apply to Max's entire life. Even Tucker himself himself disputes this. Quoting the author from the HuffPost blog, Tucker says that "fratire" is not about alcoholism, unabashed rudeness or cavalier sex, but is instead "nothing more than men writing about being men in an honest and authentic way."
Of course, men are different everywhere. Tucker's insistence that he is tapping into a ubiquitous and truthful vein of what makes dudes dudes is wishful thinking. These books are about what makes Tucker Max Tucker Max and nothing more. (You can argue against this by pointing at the book's sales numbers, but that's a common logical error. People buy books for any number of reasons, and not just because they speak to or touch an essential part of themselves or humanity. After all, the Bible is the greatest-selling book in the world, but that doesn't make all of its purchasers Christians nor immediately prove as true the stuff it has written inside.)
People hate the books for a lot of reasons. They are not well-written, for one thing. There are numerous grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors, as well as missing words. Tucker is also not a particularly unique narrator or character. People have enjoyed watching obnoxious jerks wreck havoc since the days of Aristophanes on down to the cast of Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or The League. The problem is that the folks in those sitcoms are arguably way funnier than Tucker Max ever is, most likely because they have talented writers working behind them.
And therein lies the rift. The humor. Tucker Max has one joke -- "Look how rude/drunk/sexist I am! CAPITAL LETTERS MEAN I'M YELLING!" -- and the formula does not vary. If you happen to like Tucker's one joke, I can understand you enjoying part of the book, but the joke is told over and over, and without much panache or wit. Some of what he considers funny is actually baffling to me, since it sounds so obviously puerile and childish. Tucker Max still considers people "nerds," makes fun of his buddy for having a black best friend, and attacks fat people who happen to be walking by. "If this were Lord of the Flies, you'd be dead already," he says to a "kinda fat" guy. Ha ha! Because he's fat, you see. At another point, he claims that his favorite kind of woman is a slut because she will have sex with him. That "joke" contains the essence of every other joke Max has to say: obviousness, stupidity, and a lack of originality.
So why have his books sold so well? Tucker Max is not clever or witty. He's obnoxious and mean, and because he gets away with it, he pleases readers a) who wish they could also be obnoxious and mean (and probably also as sexually successful as Max allegedly is), b) who enjoy watching others be obnoxious and mean for no good reason, and c) who are also obnoxious and mean. If you enjoyed Tucker Max's stories or books, it is for one of these three reasons: envy, misanthropy, or douchebaggery. (If you can claim to like these stories on any other level, I'd like to hear your excuse. And I mean "like" the stories, not find them interesting on a sociological, psychological, or other intellectual level.)
If -- and it's a big IF -- If Tucker Max's abuse was even marginally intelligent or unique, there might be something to recommend it. Unfortunately, the majority of his insults are either cribbed from other sources (everything from The Simpsons to Winston Churchill) or just sloppy and lazy (e.g. he says a fat girl is suffering from hoof-and-mouth disease, because she's fat like a cow, you see). The book reads like the soulless struggle of a wanna-be stand-up comedian who has never bothered to write good material because he is surrounded by friends and weaklings who both encourage and endure his watered down "witticisms." At one point in this book, a friend called SippyCup is insulting a fat girl because he doesn't like fat girls. Inexplicably, Tucker Max acts as if this behavior is uncalled for, and even types, "Funny requires intelligence and mental dexterity: it's not about hurting the person..." However, the only "mental dexterity" that Max shows is the cognitive dissonance needed to say things like this without realizing how deeply contradictory he's being.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Max finally admits that "if you read between the lines a little bit, in between all the bravado, you can see a lot of self-loathing." You don't have to read between the lines at all, though. In the same book -- without a trace of irony -- he complains about "tools" and "obnoxious jerks," describing them in the exact same words he uses elsewhere to describe himself. He yells at people for doing the very things he does, and then excuses his behavior by claiming that he's "smarter" or "wittier," when ultimately he's just louder and less caring. One of the fat girls that Tucker encountered actually sent him an email he includes in the book wherein she thanks him for being "a truth teller," further inflating his ego. Max does not tell the truth, though. He tries everything in his power to get under people's skin (in more ways than one), and when he is called on his antisocial behavior or rebuffed, his go-to line is "F*** 'em if they can't take a joke."
The joke, however, is on Tucker Max. And the fact that he is only just now realizing this (as he says in the Forbes interview) shows you even further that these books were not a way to lampoon himself or a world that celebrates narcissistic violence. They are stories that, in their own vicious, repetitive, and mindless way, represent an ignorant co-mingling of self-love and -hate. Even if you like that sort of thing, there are much smarter and better-written books out there that deal with it, ones that are aware of their own irony and that have something better to prove than their own vomit-drenched version of nihilism.
In case you absolutely must know what Tucker Max's stories are like, I have created here a handy Build-A-Story to help you write your own. Have fun.
Roll a Dice: In your story you are (1,2) drunk and rude, (3,4) rude and sexed up, (5,6) drunk and rude and sexed up.
Roll Again: Your story takes place (1,2) in a public place around mostly strangers (e.g. a Muslim wedding is wacky!), (3,4) in a public place around mostly friends (e.g. a Vegas bar), (5,6) in a private place with friends and/or a misguided lover.
Roll Again: (1) You make fun of a fat person. (2) You make fun of a "nerd" (whatever that is). (3) You make fun of a slut. (4) You make fun of a person's culture or implied heritage. (5) You make fun of a weak or frightened person. (6) You speak IN CAPITAL LETTERS. [If you are unaccustomed to making fun of people, do not attempt any baroque comparisons. Stick with the basics, i.e., ask a fat person if they have "freed Willy" yet, or tell a nerd to suck on your "Monty Python."]
Roll Again: (1,2) You puke/pass out. (3,4) You have sex/get into a fight. (5,6) You have sex/get into a fight, and then puke/pass out.
Sample Story: (dice=3) Interested readers, let me tell you this awesome story about how rude I was to this girl that still slept with me. (dice=2) I was hanging out at the Chuck E. Cheese ball pen and had no idea how I got there. "I wish I was drunk," I thought. (dice=5) A scared seven year-old girl asked me to please leave the ball pen, and I told her that there was no god. She cried and ran off, and I suddenly realized there WAS a god: me! (dice=4) That's when I grabbed a waitress with a pizza and said, "Guess what my favorite topping is? PepperBONE-ME!" Ha ha ha! Zing! I don't need to tell you whose ball pen that waitress stayed at that night. My ball pen, that's whose. Because I'm referring to my crotch. The end. Oh, and this story was totally true.