Bit Rot
Author: Douglas Coupland
Release: March 7, 2017
Tagline: stories + essays
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Genre: Essays, Short Stories, Anthology
ISBN-10: 0399575804
ISBN-13: 978-0399575808
Synopsis: From the inside cover; “A thought-provoking, binge-worthy new collection of essays, stories, and musings from Douglas Coupland, Bit Rot explores the different ways in which twentieth-century notions of the future are being shredded, and it is a literary gem of the digital age.
‘Bit rot’ is a term used in digital archiving to describe the way digital files can spontaneously and quickly decompose. As Douglas Coupland writes, ‘Bit rot also describes the way my brain has been feeling since 2000, as I shed older and weaker neurons and connections and enhance new and unexpected ones.’
Bit Rot the book is a fascinating meditation on the ways in which humanity tries to make sense of our shifting consciousness. Coupland, just like the Internet, mixes forms to achieve his ends. Short fiction is interspersed with essays on all aspects of modern life. The result is addictively satisfying for Coupland’s established fanbase hungry for his observations about our world, and a revelation to new readers of his work. For almost three decades, his unique pattern recognition has powered his fiction, his phrase-making, and his visual art. Every page of Bit Rot is full of wit, surprise, and delight. Reading Bit Rot feels a lot like bingeing on Netflix… you can’t stop with just one.”
Declassified by Agent Palmer: Avoid your own brain rot, and read ‘Bit Rot’
Quotes and Lines
These pieces all written since 2005, “trace my odd voyage from the twentieth-century brain to the twenty first.”
“Starbucks needs an express lane. Do they ever count how many customers leave because they don’t want to wait for ten minutes behind useless people ordering complicated, useless beverages?”
“Is it healthy to live in the future? I suspect not. We’re not really built for permanent high-speed change–accelerated acceleration.”
“We may well look back at the 1990s as the last good decade.”
“At what point are we dishonoring the soul with medication?”
“Part of accepting the future is acknowledging that some things must be forgotten, and it’s always an insult because it’s always the things you love. We lost handwriting and got Comic Sans in return. That’s a very bad deal.”
“…we once had a thing called a larger-attention-span-than-the-one-we-now-have.”