Edgelords -- My father, the minister -- Identify despite itself -- In Arcadia ego -- The rules to live by -- Anti-fashion -- California gothic -- Mean boys

Fusing personal essay and cultural critique, a critic and style expert chronicles his journey to join a global, influential elite until he's forced to confront the price of mistaking status for belonging in a world designed to make us want what's bad for us

"In this pyrotechnic memoir-in-essays, Mak ranges widely over our landscape of paranoia, crisis, and frenetic, clickable consumption. He grants readers an inside pass to the spaces where culture was made and unmade over the past decade, from the antiseptic glare of white-walled galleries to the darkest corners of Berlin techno clubs. As the gay son of an evangelical minister, Mak fled to those spaces, hoping to join a global, influential elite. But when calamity struck, it forced Mak to confront the costs of mistaking status for belonging. Fusing personal essay and cultural critique, Mean Boys investigates exile and return, transgression and forgiveness, and the value of faith, empathy, and friendship in a world designed to make us want what is bad for us" --