ibori

To date RPO is the only book to ever earn the distinction of being flung completely across the room by me not once but TWICE, so revolted was I by its crimes against the written word

my ex told me "you have to read this! it's so good, and really funny" and after about 30 pages I was like, "wait, but you think I'm funny, what am I doing with my whole life" full-blown existential crisis mode

The quality of the writing is atrocious, but as a white male capital-g Gamer who grew up in the 90s and 00s diving through the 80s media enjoyed by the generation before me while dreaming of a VR-enriched future... it's still absolutely atrocious slop. Slop that directly pandered to me through "Oh hey, I get that reference. Oh hey, another reference I get. Hah, that's cute how those references have been mixed together. Oh hey this bit is about one of my favourite movies. That's an obscure super robot." I basically see it like the low-grade YouTube Poop of writing, just a mishmash of references assembled into something vaguely original, that is in fact just riffing on other, better works.

I read rpo on my e-ink tablet, which allowed me to scrawl "ew, fuck" in huge block letters across a page without actually defiling a book. and then it got a movie adaptation? by steven spielberg?!!?

full disclosure I remember having fun watching the movie. I don't know if I'd watch it again, but I've definitely seen worse things

This is the same book I use as an example when my partner feels unsure if she can make it as a writer (and the same argument, that anyone could do better than this)

You might like the first 8 episodes of 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back, a podcast by Conor Lastowka and Michael J. Nelson (from MST3K) which started as the hosts needing a platform to discuss how bad Ready Player One is.

i’m still astonished that this debut novel had a film deal before it was published

i read rpo because i worked in tournaments and a coworker recommended it as an insight into the mindset of competitive gamers and to this day i have no idea which part he was thinking of

i read it back in like 2014 and made inked revisions all over it so i really enjoyed myself

It's a ride, somehow, despite such conflicting feelings

Bad media being successful is one of the major sources of inspiration for me. Yeah, it's spite. That's good.

A book that manages to celebrate gatekeeping while reminding me how viscerally gross the "gets the girl" trope is.

"I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city," a tragic story in one sentence

Jesus Christ this feels like getting stabbed

if only he had punched this up with one or two vaguely esoteric references. "Godzilla, Gamera...Legend of the Overfiend? you bet your bottom dollar, buddy"

God, it's like the catalogue of ships in the Iliad except fished out of the toilet

i would say "jesus christ" if i thought he was still listening

editor voice Hey Ernest bro dude look I know they say "write what you know" but I don't think they mean like, literally, as a list

I live out of spite in part because this book exists.

SKFJGKDF UUUUGGHH THE ACCIDENTAL COMEDIC TIMING ON THE BILL HICKS LINE LMAOOOO "im so cool 😎 i even mEMORIZED FUNY EDGY COMEDIAN"

i've never heard anything about this book other than "it's popular and has a big movie" so i Assumed there was a good reason people liked it so much???? but oh my GOD LOL

credit where it's due, it is funny, but only if you're laughing at the author

i read this when i was like 12 and it didn't strike me as weird just given how everything online seemed to be about things from the 80s and 90s i had barely heard of. i was like yeah yeah whatever half of all the things i watch are about, like, mario 64 or ocarina of time anyway. this was my view of all adults; obsessed with consumerist trash from their childhood and completely arbitrary in the rules they set up based on them.

i also remember thinking 'going to school exclusively online', 'deepfaking you from just a second of your voice', and 'spending all day in your room for your entire life' were silly and horrible concepts too though. and now a bunch of loser rich ceos think 'making cool thing from book real' is the way to go societally. so im just sayin. i think rpo is like a deeply repulsive unsettling mirror to the psyche of the average millenial (the main character boy) and to societys "pioneers" who have all the money (the ceo guy who was obsessed with like, pacman or whatever.)

I remember liking this book in my teens and looking back w h o o f

rpo is truly astonishingly bad. like it's hard to communicate to people who haven't read it how bad it really is lmao, you just have to show it to people and say "people thought this was really good. critics loved it."

it won an award for "libertarian science fiction" :^)
the sequel is bad in a whole new way, also

There was a time I had never read a single page from Ready Player One. How I yearn to go back. You made me read this.

Yes! YES!!! When it first came out this page was making the rounds on Tumblr, but then it was dmca'd or something and I lost it forever. It's such slosh.