Tao Lin enjoys vegan organic food, eBay, and drawing his own renditions of catatonic hamsters in varying states of being. On first glance, he might sound like your average breed of angsty and self-indulgent Holden Caulfield. But what separates him from the anti-social, idle minds–- besides his desire to accumulate 20,000 MySpace friends-– is that the 24-year-old author has taken boredom and the often melancholic conditions of youth, and turned them into brutally honest books: novel Eeeee Eee Eeee: short story collection, Bed: and two collections of poetry-– you are a little bit happier than i am, and the most recent, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy–- making the soft-spoken, laconic writer more aptly likened to a modern-day Hemingway. Lin has even managed to become one of the best-selling authors of DUMBO-based independent publisher Melville House, who recently threw a launch party (complete with vegan organic snacks) for his newest book.

psychoPEDIA joined Lin for an intimate discussion over gmail chat, days after the release, to discover more about finding “meaning” in his life and the many quirky musings on his Reader of Depressing Books blog:

How many hours do you spend each day in front of a computer?
About 30% of days like 10-12 hours. About 20% of days like 2-4 hours. About 50% of days like 6-8 hours.

You quote from your critics extensively in your blogs. Do you often search for what positive things are said, or if people are bashing you?
Both. It doesn't make much difference to me if someone is shit-talking or saying they like me. It's just something to do so my brain can be occupied until I can eat again or it's time for something to happen that I have been looking forward to.

Do your critics’ comments affect what you write about?
It affects it a little probably, but not a lot. Me changing what I write based on reading a review would be like me getting converted to Christianity or Buddhism or whatever every day when I'm walking and someone is preaching or handing out flyers.

Do you check often to see your total blog hits or where your books are ranked on Amazon?
Yes. Probably hundreds of times a day. I don't know what else to do most of the time.

How did you devise the promotional tactic for your new book?
On gmail chat I said something like, "I should make stickers that say BRITNEY SPEARS on half of it and my book cover on the other half to promote the book." Then that got "edited" to just "BRITNEY SPEARS." I feel really good about the stickers.

Would you ever exhibit Britney-like behavior in public to gain attention and catapult the popularity of your books?
Maybe. If it was "inherently" funny and original I would do it. If it wasn't "inherently" funny and original I might still do it.

One of your posts was about how people can help to promote your career. Has anyone approached you with offers?
Yes. Every few weeks or something someone emails me saying they're my intern or want to be my intern. Someone named Ken Baumann, a 19-year-old actor who writes things and has a blog, offered me $100 one time.

How many interns do you have now?
I don't know. Around 20. I think many of them are "inactive."

What kind of things do you have them do?
I don't tell them to do anything. Some general "guidelines" I made in some blog post were that they could blog about me and write reviews of my books on Amazon and make my wikipedia entry really long.

Do you ever go on an Anna Wintour power-trip?
No, I feel bad telling anyone to do anything. I mostly do not tell anyone ever to do anything for me unless I know I have already done more for them than I am going to ask them to do for me.

Why did you choose the title of your newest book?
It wasn't a cliche, it felt "clean" and "neutral," it had a lot to do with the book, it was funny to me, and it had "marketing possibilities," sort of. People who are in therapy might look at it and want to buy it. A lot of people are in therapy.

Do you want people to think it's a textbook or guide?
Yes, I blogged that it was a textbook and maybe 10-15 people believed it. Which was "fun" to me.

Are “people in therapy” your target audience?
My target audience is hipsters.

In the poems in your newest collection, are you the hamster protagonist?
Yes, I am the hamster. Hamsters are funny to me. Because their faces never change. Their faces convey the same emotion which is "neutral" to me. Or "enlightened." Hamsters are enlightened according to their facial expressions.

But they eat their own babies sometimes. Is that "enlightened"?
Actually that is sort of "enlightened" in a way since it opposes consciousness. If everyone ate their babies, there would just be rocks and trees, which is what the "enlightened" person recognizes as the "true" state or something, the state of things without paradox or something. Hamsters only look “enlightened,” I know they really do not understand the arbitrary nature of the universe.

How many emotions do you go through in a single day?
If I don't think about it too hard…two. Good and bad.

What made you feel "good" today?
Drinking an energy drink, eating almonds, eating a pear, eating an apple, and completing items on my to-do list. I'm trying to be more social.

Your blog says you want to use the names "Haley Joel Osment" and "Dakota Fanning" in your next book and that journalists will focus on it. Why do you want to reference them?
They will be the main characters. I just use the names, the characters have nothing to do with them as they are in real life. I just think it is funny and makes me feel good. Also people will talk more about it and talk less about narrative arc or use literary criticism terms or whatever. My life feels meaningless a lot of the time. I need to do things like this to make it more "exciting" or something.

What does give your life meaning, if only in a transient way?
Trying to meet people I like, trying to find art that makes me "feel good" or "feel excited" and then watching or listening or reading that art, being productive, trying to create art that does those things, trying to make myself "better," eating food, setting goals and trying to accomplish them, cleaning my room, those all give my life meaning. Or not "meaning" but "something to do." I'm not sure what "meaning" is exactly I think.

~Leann Peterson


All photos courtesy of Tao Lin