If Bret Easton Ellis hasn't gotten across to you yet that he hates David Foster Wallace -- the humble but legendary writer who took his own life four years ago at the age of 46 -- it's not for lack of trying. For a span of eight hours this Thursday, the "American Psycho" writer and Twitter malcontent tweeted a steady stream of vitriol exclusively about Wallace, prompting a reverse stream of mostly angry tweets about Ellis. Click through the slideshow above for Twitter reactions.
The catalyst to this vitriol? D.T. Max's biography of Wallace, published last week. According to the opening tweet of his rampage, Ellis was in the process of reading Max's book, "Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story," when he felt compelled to write a book report for his 300,000 odd followers. "OMG is the solemnity of the David Foster Wallace myth on a purely literary level borderline sickening," Ellis tweeted:
During that first round at least, Ellis' audience was game. The people who weren't outright on Ellis' side were only very quietly whispering support for the other team. Then, 2 minutes later, Ellis found he had something to say not just about Wallace, but about "anyone who finds [him] a literary genius."
Neither the sudden chill in the air nor the shame of misspelling "douchebag" could deter him.
By this point, people had seemingly stopped caring. But Ellis, a strict observer of the two minute break between tweets rule...well, he had more to say!
Then Ellis wrote basically the same tweet he'd written seven minutes earlier, when the world was still innocent.
Yes, yes we know that. We know all that. But what about Wallace's Kenyon College commencement speech? One of your followers thinks you might like to listen to it! Any chance? Any chance you might be coming down a little hard on a man who, as they say, can't defend himself?
No, then.
Here marks the first time Ellis took longer than the time it takes to pee between tweets. Did the break give him time to count to ten, calm down, maybe get a massage?
Probably not!