---
source: mastodon
date: 2024-10-20 04:10:59.01 +00
title: "Mastodon post from October 20, 2024, 113337791874294252"
in_reply_to: 113296286000527805
post_uri: https://mastodon.social/users/gravely/statuses/113337791874294252
post_id: 113337791874294252
tags:
  - mastodon
descendants:
- 113340295340682488
- 113340315262614781
- 113340327560683362
---
25: “I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom” by Jason Pargin ( [https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/starting-to-worry-about-9781250285959/](https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/starting-to-worry-about-9781250285959/))


![publisher’s hardback illustration for the hardback of “I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom” by Jason Pargin, as I read it. The book is black but the dust jacket is white with black caps sans in three descending rows along an arc ending on DOOM over a bright green splatbelow the title an illustration of the protagonist, a girl in a red hoodie and green sunglasses sits on a black road case labeled A NOVELI'M STARTING TO WORRY ABOUTTHIS BLACK BOX OFD00MJASONPARGINBESTSELLING AUTHOR OFJOHN DIES AT THE ENDA NOVEL](./113337791621121487.jpeg)


a few of my favorite very-online writers—but I'm think of Pargin and Jeb Lund (who for all I know don't know each other at all) specifically here and not like, uh, Lockwood—are pretty good about using their veterans-of-forum-wars (or at least that era of online) past to be pretty strong voices for not being assholes on the internet.

this is a lot of that

cw: mens rights nonsense

my point: so if you feel like you don't need some old guy rubbing your nose in a “deuteragonist" (I had to look up the word for that) “hey look at this kid who is a twitch streamer who is kinda black pilled, don't be lame like this”, because you yourself are also over that, maybe skip this one

Ultimately it's a fun read and a break from the John and Zoe books and pretty mad at the same stuff a lot of people are on mastodon are mad about re: the other social networks, so, I'm glad I read it.