Chuck Klosterman’s 'Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Cultural Manifesto'

Hypothetically speaking, if you somehow managed to live under a rock for the past few decades and suddenly find yourself itching to gain a cultural understanding of the universe that you made a conscious decision to ignore while you were under that hypothetical rock, reading Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Cultural Manifesto would be a quick and entertaining fix to your lacking pop cultural capital.

From an analysis of Saved by the Bell to an explanation of pornography, to en examination of serial killers, Klosterman’s 18 short chapters will give you more than enough information to keep you afloat in a conversation with the pop cultural snobbery that you might find in an off-the-cuff coffee shop reminiscing about the glory days of cartoons like Hey! Arnold, Ren and Stimpy, and Rocco’s Modern Life, and making an effort to one up each other on obscure pop cultural references while sporting clothes that would give the impression of being well-worn but were recently purchased at urban outfitters… who knew that ripped up knees could cost a pretty penny??

Hilarious and informative at the same time, this quick read will make you cringe, laugh, and maybe even shed a tear or two if you are someone who grew up nursing a broken heart because your imagined love affair with Zack Morris inevitably failed ( not that I’m speaking from personal experience here or anything… what can I say, trudging through adolescents with a fake smile on my face trying to pretend my heart wasn’t broken can have permanent impacts on a gal of my emotional fragility!)

If you have any interest at all in examining why we are the way that we are, and how our culture has influenced our every thought, then please do yourself a favor and call up your most hipster friend and ask him to borrow his copy ( which he will inevitably have if he is a true hipster).

Or, if you didn’t make any hipster friends under the aforementioned rock, then walk, bike, scooter, or drive over to the nearest bookstore and purchase this piece of pop culture gold -- you will not, I repeat, will not, be disappointed.