An Anatomy of ‘The Dude’

Welcome to LOST WEEKEND, VICE’s Monday briefing.

What is it with men and crying?

A couple of weeks ago, the term “crymaxxing” came bubbling up out of the infinite well of creativity that is the digital subconscious. You’ve probably seen influencer Dillon Latham explain how he uses his own tears as a hair product (basically your own private salt-spray reservoir, limited only by your capacity for overt displays of emotion). My favorite micro-take was that the lachrymose looksmaxxer was “recreating emo from first principles.”

Weeping on demand isn’t all that easy—just ask The Dude. This new type of person was defined over the weekend in an X post from @tragicbirdapp that received just shy of 2 million views. Unsurprisingly, this introverted, socially-awkward figure proved hyper resonant for people who spend way too long on their phones. As one reply put it: “Every time I open this GOD FORSAKEN app, I’m always one-shotted by one of these ultra-specific memes that hits a little too close to home.”

“Idk if any other dudes can relate, but I physically cannot cry”

The Dude is an ironicized update of the 25-Year-Old Loner character from a few years ago. For doomer types, this Wojak represents the consequences of “our collapsing, individualized society.” That these traits seem more common than ever could be taken as evidence that they’re right, but I think he speaks to a more timeless sense of alienation.

There have always been people who’ve struggled with the pressure of what feels like a loud and unrelenting world. Those who would rather listen than talk. Perhaps, at a time of noise, rancor, ring lights, and clip-on mics, being “always silent” just seems like more of an aberration than it has done in the past. While we’re likely more aware than ever of how we appear to others, the weight of being perceived is nothing new in itself. 

If you’re The Dude, chances are you “haven’t cried since childhood.” There’s so many people on X who appear to relate to this that I’m starting to feel like we’ve unwittingly used the most powerful communications technology humanity has ever conceived to precision-engineer a level of emotional repression that would be immediately familiar to my own grandparents. 

Replies like this show a level of stoicism that anyone who lived through World War II would be proud of: “Idk if any other dudes can relate, but I physically cannot cry. Not edgelordposting. I’ve actually genuinely tried to make myself cry, been in tons of situations where it would’ve been warranted, but it’s like I physically cannot produce tears. Just me?”

Sometimes, I wonder if the appeal of looksmaxxers like Dillon Latham is that they appear capable of accessing life at an emotional velocity that seems unimaginable to many of their jaded and worn-out followers. If you last “had a gf 5 years ago” and you’ve long since lost all your high-school friends, then someone like Clavicular must seem like a literal rock star. And to be fair, getting into legal trouble for allegedly shooting a dead alligator in the Everglades feels like the kind of thing that my parents would have idolized the Rolling Stones for doing during the 60s and 70s.

This is something that the Screen Rot Podcast touched on earlier this year when they compared the looksmaxxers of today, with their bonesmashing and framemogging, to emos of the early noughties, straightening their hair and listening to other men scream (“my dad would’ve probably rather I smashed my own face in with a hammer”).

As an MSN teenager, I was The Dude and feared I always would be. I smashed my way out of this incomprehensible prison of my own feelings, thanks in part to music (including emo). One thing I’ll never forget from this time was my grandfather’s face when I subjected him to Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings.” He looked as numb and confused as any Wojak I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, The Dude is “ashamed of his music taste.” For me, the opposite was true: I was ashamed of everything except my music taste, which I was so convinced of that it seemed like a sensible decision to try and build an entire life around it. This has led to a fair share of tears along the way, but I guess that’s better than the alternative.

OTHER NEWS

• The last good band left in New York, YHWH Nailgun, played C2C Festival in the city’s Knockdown Center on Friday, previewing material from their new record, Magazine. It’s fitting that their latest shard of visceral brevity should be named after humanity’s greatest medium for conveying information.
• Celebrity gossip column Page Six has been leafing through On The Rag to find stories. The other day, they shared the underground literary magazine’s Kaia Gerber “my secret rizz is being completely insane” scoop. One of these publications is America’s greatest tabloid—I’ll let you work out which.
• Ultra-violence auteur Nicolas Winding Refn’s new movie, Her Private Hell, will premiere at Cannes Film Festival. The film is being released by Neon. Turns out their name is a tribute to his last movie, The Neon Demon. Shame they didn’t go with something more creative, like Eyeball Vomit Pictures.

PREDICTION OF THE WEEK

The next stage of hantavirus delirium will see military drones stationed at landfill sites to scare away feeding birds (expect a Jonathan Franzen New Yorker op-ed in defense of trash heap ornithology).

BRAND NEW SENTENCE

“the beatles should have recorded an album called gamestop pussy”

BONUS PREDICTION: SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT…

Inspired by Sonic Youth discourse on X, Thurston Moore will “do a Greg Ginn” and put together a new lineup of the band featuring a bunch of millennials no one has ever heard of, AKA friends of his new wife Eva Prinz.

Follow Adam on Instagram @yungtolstoi

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