In these lockdown days, the escalation of video calls on WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom etc and online team meetings, means that David Foster Wallace’s inspired piece on video telephony in ‘Infinite Jest’ has become highly topical. The whole section is hilarious and here is just a taste of what he had to say:
“Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener’s expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges. Those callers who out of unconscious habit succumbed to fuguelike doodling or pants-crease-adjustment now came off looking rude, absentminded, or childishly self- absorbed. Callers who even more unconsciously blemish-scanned or nostril-explored looked up to find horrified expressions on the video-faces at the other end. All of which resulted in videophonic stress.”
Infinite Jest was written over two decades ago but is still remarkably topical in an age where the line between entertainment and ‘real life’ is increasingly blurred.
So far this year I have read two prize-winning ‘novels’ – The Sell Out by Paul Beatty (
I read this passage today and, although it is from a book published in 1996, I was immediately struck by how topical it is. What do you think?:
