E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction by David Foster Wallace 

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I don't know if anyone else gets the same experience, but when I first read David Foster Wallace, I found that many of the conclusions he expanded upon and explains are all thoughts I've had, Like a little flashes of thoughts that was expanded completely match up with what he saying. Like all of the background thought I had observing modern society this guy just immediately calls out.

He was incredibly prescient, eloquent and multi-dimensionally, incisively insightful. I wish he was still alive and writing.

honestly, nothing has changed, it's just shifted mediums. you could argue that the patterns have become more potent and harder to get out of, as you can now engage with the images you see yourself, in real time, but they are pretty much the same. seeing without being seen, bringing more exciting and stimulating slices of reality into your perception whenever and whereever you want. feeling like you've spent time around people all day, whilst really just sitting by yourself in an empty room.

"they decline to bear the emotional costs with being around other humans" Well i feel seen.

I'm glad you read like Wallace without like impressionisting him. You're just doing the same well-paced, clear, just-enough intonation thing that he does. Good on ya.

You've done a tremendously good job with this reading. DFW is my favorite. I was a student at Illinois State University at the same time he taught there. Wish I'd taken his course. Wish even more that he were still with us. This essay is spooky in how it applies to the progression of watching on the internet. Thanks for posting it. Cheers

This doesn't just apply to television but explains even social media quite well. One of the personal questions I've been asking is how Gen Z can simultaneously have a fixation on individualism and personal expression while also viewing the entire world through stereotypes ie. This gf that bf, or all the people from a city are a certain way. This essay helped make sense of that strange phenomenon almost immediately since it's one founded in solipsistic, cynical irony.

dude you should keep doing this, better than most professional audiobooks.

Glad to see, or should i say hear, another one of these.

Thank you for narrating these writings.

Thanks so much for doing this! One of my favorite essays by Wallace

this is amazing. thank you.

Thank you for your readings. I miss DFW so much.

Yesterday I came across your reading of Tense Present and stayed glued to the headphones. Thank you for the great work.

Always an awesome job on your end

Thank you for this reading! The style really fits the author. Smashing good essay, too. The part that gives chills is when he starts to describe what would soon be Zoom visits to grandparents.

Amazing

Love your stuff! No hard recommendations except maybe more of his from Oblivion, I loved your Good Old Neon vid. I would love to have this accessible outside youtube though!

Muchas gracias voy a la mitad

Excellent content, HIGHLY RELATABLE in this CLOWN WORLD. [reality]

Wallace would've really hated what happened with phones

Thanks for this, if you don't mind my recommendation; DFW's part in fate time and language

Thanks for the reading! The volume is very low for some reason though.

I’m grateful you’ve recorded these, but you should probably Google how to pronounce less common words. For example, the “s” in “Gestalt” is pronounced like “sh”

Could you please record some of his fictional work? Perhaps "The Soul is Not a Smithy", or like anything from Oblivion or Girls With Curiouis Hair?

I wonder what DFW's take on modern internet culture would be?

1:15:14 this is quoted in I’m thinking about ending things!

I feel like the outcome we have--with our incredibly-online selves--is touched on with respect to Gilder's rosy vision of massively expanded choice, and how that choice, with no 'choosers manual', is just crippling. That is rather what it feels like to me anyway. I wish I had been exposed to this when I was younger, though; I spent so much time thinking about the aspects of postmodernism's self-reflexivity and skimmed-over references, and I knew instinctively that it needed to be eschewed somehow because it was in everything and often didn't seem to land on any fixed sentiment, but I couldn't quite enunciate how this was so for a long time. And it's totally true how reversion to conservative dogma is a complete non-option, and that while a lot of the literary illustrations of this feeling, while definitely impressive, are forgettable because of their seeming unwillingness to take up an unguardedly frank position. What DFW himself settled on seems like the only reasonable choice, which is what I perceive as 'the only way out is through', only to redound to a genuine sincerity. And still this is perceived as just another variation on postmodernist lit, only where the dominant elements end up upholding the moments of human connection rather than sneering at their apparent contrivance. I guess it's time to hold onto a robust framework and just get cringe.

jesus, what would be say about internet consumption?¿

No wonder he checked out.

1:17:30

33:08

20:30

1:40:58

Simply AMAZING. DFW is [an] ultra relatable and based af old soul.....his works [SS/IJ] are additive, in the best possible way.....People can RELATE!! A man of deep thought, as he was told: ''too good for this world''/ highly intelligent/men of wisdom/''old souls'' are SUFFERING. It's just a game of numbers [as everything seems to be]-- The US population is likely: NPC's 90%+...people mimicking the corrupted/evil cult.ure....Atomized population + brainwashed/programmed + horrible will[power] + short attention spans = anybody who likes to [actually] think 2-5% at best. Clown World USA. David Foster Wallace saw what we are experiencing in 2024-- 40 years ago. A sensitive soul, lost in this reality......I think I can relate. RIP DFW. I know your essence still pervades us in hell [Western World/USA]

Without knowing about this author, I wrote a book pleading with Americans to Kill Their TV back in 2014. It's called, We Are The American Zombies.

Seems like the ramblings of an average American conservative, he would have felt at home with his critiques... but for him and his social circle being a conservative would be like voluntarily naming yourselves not just old fashioned but more as a child rapist.

I'm shocked someone of such intellect could write such mindless drivel. If any Dude was in need of video games, I wager it was this Dude. He is definitively overanalysing TV and projecting a load of weird views onto it... he may be right about our 'inherent religiosity' but the more of this particular banal piece I hear, the more I can confirm that this 'inherent religiosity' is less a universal trait of man and more a specifically American problem. Makes sense when you consider the USA is chock full of religious zealots too extreme to be allowed to stay in their home countries. The 'almighty intellectual David Foster Wallace says TV is bad'; I counter with 'too much of ANYTHING is bad, David. Maybe don't drown yourself in water just so you can angrily rant about how dangerous water is, because don't forgwt that it also keeps us alive.'

I'm not sure about this so do correct me if I'm wrong- is it common convention to read "etc." as E. T. C.? I was a little confused at first when hearing it but then realized it's indeed et cetera