Hater: On the Virtues of Utter Disagreeability

(Hardback)

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A manifesto for everyone tired of pretending to like things--really, really bad things. Hater begins from a simple premise- that it's good to hate things. Not people or groups or benign belief systems, but things. More to the point, it's good to hate the things everyone seems to like. Scan the click-baiting headlines of your favourite news or pop-culture website and you're likely to find that just about everything--from a premium cable adaptation of a novel to Will Ferrell singing a Whitney Houston song at a college commencement ceremony--is, supposedly, "what we need right now." We are the victims of an unbridled, unearned optimism. And our world demands pessimism. We need to curb our collective enthusiasm. It's vital to be contrarian--now, as they say, more than ever. Because ours is an age of calcified consensus. Criticism has been supplanted by aggregation, be it in the form of Rotten Tomatoes or the cumulative Metacritic score--metrics that make even the thumbs up/thumbs down schema of Siskel and Ebert seem highly sophisticated. Consensus is the inertia that keeps our culture snowballing. And Semley hates that. In this scathing and funny rebuke of the status quo, journalist and pop-culture expert John Semley provides a rallying cry for a generation struggling to agree on what stuff is actually any good. Looking for and identifying nonsense isn't just a useful exercise for society, it's also a lot of fun. But Hater doesn't just skewer terrible TV shows and hit songs--at its core it shows us how to meaningfully talk about and engage with culture, and the world. Ultimately, Hater is what we actually need right now.

Reviews

[A] reminder that contrarian opinions can motivate us to think about what were consuming and what were taking for granted. Radheyan Simonpillai,NOWmagazine

Well-argued and warmly rendered an unmistakable call for a new scepticism, a disciplined interrogation of one's own ideas and courage to express them despite the crushing pressures of conformity or indifference. Brent Bambury, CBCsDay 6

In this clarion call to turn down the suck, John Semley turns up the good. Do hate the player, do hate the game, and do read Hater to do so decently." Benjamin Errett, author of Elements of Wit

In an age where pop-culture opinions are evenly sorted between rigid agreement and insubstantial trolling, John Semley makes a fierce case for the dying art of informed criticism. Hateris necessary reading for the modern misanthrope. Andray Domise, Macleans Contributing Editor

Defying the relentless pressure to stay positive, John Semley stands up for the righteous cause and dying art of ruthless critique. Frompredictablecommodified culture to phony corrupt politics, theres a lot to dislike these days. This is a scathing guidebook to hating in good faith. Astra Taylor, Writer and Filmmaker

Like a lot of manifestos, [Hater is] also a passionate broadside, a clarion call to wake the sheeple from their slumbers the message of a book like Hater is more important than ever. Literary Review of Canada

Author Bio

JOHN SEMLEY is a pop culture and media expert who regularly writes arts features and reviews. He is a frequent contributor to Salon, as well as many other publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire,The A.V. Club, Globe and Mail, Now, Maclean's, Walrus, Toronto Life, Toronto Star, and others. He also lectures in film studies at the University of Toronto.