Pop. Life. Suicide: A Review of New Millennium Boyz by Alex Kazemi
Living in a post-Euphoria world, it’s easy to think that your capacity for shock in youth-centered media has been eroded. Inundated with intentionally upsetting images on every social media platform has left most of us feeling as though we’ve seen the worst that the world has to offer. The general public has long forgotten the era of LiveLeak and BestGore (save for a few shady & well-protected corners of Reddit) so it’s rare to have a book encapsulate those feelings of morbid curiosity & disgust (curiosity obviously outweighing disgust by a mile). It’s a thing one feels when first met with CCTV footage of a heavy machinery accident in China or one of the thousands of cartel videos with ever-changing backstories that come out of Mexico. (Has one even lived until they’ve seen a man hold his own beating heart in his hands?)
Desensitization is a funny thing in that it’s incredibly selective. A certain amount of desensitization is recommended for most, needed really for those of us that choose to raw dog reality (ie. maintain sobriety) while retaining a modicum of empathy for the people around us. This particular brand of internet-age desensitization requires physical and mental distance from the affected parties, but when the viewer is unmoored from their own sense of self, all-encompassing apathy is primed and ready to take hold of even the purest of souls.
The protagonist of New Millennium Boyz, Brad Sela, is not one of the aforementioned pure souls, but neither are you and I. This novel is a potent reminder of the truth that human beings, some more than others, have the capacity for exceptional cruelty.
It is natural to want to feel seen by your peers, revered for your success in any chosen field. Exceptionality, greatness even, is an undeniable part of the American dream, and therefore, to be exceptionally vile is to be American. Seeking to understand the perspective of one with an identity or life experience different to your own, and failing to do so, is even more American. Having everything at the tips of your fingers and throwing it all away simply for the thrill of it is just a symptom of boyhood.
“What is the fucking point of being alive if my life doesn’t fit the vision I have of myself in my mind?”
There are certain aspects of our media-driven culture that are more palatable for mainstream audiences. Violence, especially mindless violence, is more accepted than sex, evident in our celebration of network television shows like Jackass and its skate-shop-to-VHS predecessors Landslide: CKY and CKY2K. Entertainment at all costs; pay with your life or lose the adoration of the public, and there is no more dangerous and all-encompassing high than uninhibited, public attention.
Loss of life and limb can be excused because the physical body will waste away in any case. To exist for all time is to do so in living memory. No one ever really forgets their emotional trauma, so it stands that acts, cruel and humorous in equal measure, recorded on Handycam and dispensed among large swaths of internet denizens is the easiest path to immortality. The path of digital infamy that high school senior Brad Sela chooses at the behest of his newfound friends, Shane, a deeply depressed stoner and Lu, terrifying & enigmatic in equal measure, is one of no return.
Like most ageless, omniscient figures of myth, there comes a point of regret in trading in the soft underbelly of their human experience for the unfeeling freedom of the everlasting. Self-destruction as a form of art— the glittering act of transmutation leaving behind an altogether unrecognizable corpse. Combine that with the perceived invincibility of youth and a bold depiction of the racist, chauvinistic male culture that always has and always will dominate the lives of teenage boys and you get New Millennium Boyz—a book brazenly honest about the costs of virality.
“Okay, but look, everyone always saying that they felt how I felt at my age doesn’t really help the fact that I’m living through this right now. It’s not like I fucking care what everyone else has gone through.”
Set alongside the backdrop of the cold, bedazzled heart of the Y2K era, it becomes much easier to conceptualize a world where the only way to make your own celebrity from the veritable safety of your bedroom was to do so in infamy. Achieving notoriety nowadays is as easy as it's ever been, as simple as manipulating a pre-existent algorithm that follows a clearcut cycle: violence, sex, death, retweet. Within that, there also exists a modern rigidity of social conduct that I often see decried as an unwinnable race to the finish line of neo-liberal respectability. I don’t disagree with this concept, but as a member of Gen-Z, I feel it is fair to say that the fantasy of the social “freedoms” of the Y2K we wax poetic about on social media are just that: a fantasy. An overabundance of freedom is like having an overabundance of rope: you’ll always have just enough to hang yourself with. When you read this novel, you may flinch, but you should not look away.
Kazemi walks the tightrope of the profound and the profane with his debut novel, putting into words our sickest impulses in reaction to any perceived deviation from the established social norm. Satanic rituals, Columbine shrines, and rapturous violence in living color. Alex Kazemi’s New Millennium Boyz from independent publishing house Permuted Press is exactly the pop culture phenomenon that you need (whether or not you deserve it is another question). Be sure to buy yourself a copy when it’s released tomorrow.
Ciggy Spencer is a writer, patron saint of pop culture, and editor-in-chief at Delude Magazine. You can find her at @obeliskfairy.