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This Thread is Full of Spiders –for all your Jason Pargin content needs

Safe-Keeper

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Safe-Keeper
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So I've been discovering Jason Pargin's books and YouTube recently, and I thought I'd create a new thread to share my reading progress instead of just spamming the reading at the moment thread with my thoughts and reflections.

So I've read I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, which was one of my favourite reads in I don't know how many years and absolutely has to be turned into a movie or TV series. I followed it up with the absurdist superhero movie parody Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, which had some nice wacky humour but a bit too much misery, depravity, and misogony for my taste (will still read the rest of the Zoey books, mind, and I did appreciate it for what it was). Now I'm listening to This Book is Full of Spiders, and it's been hilarious so far, and also suitably creepy. The plot so far has been a bit generic, but with a nice twist on the zombie outbreak story -–there's a kind of alien spiders taking over hosts instead of a zombie virus, and the protagonists are the only ones who can see them because they've drank a kind of magic potion called 'soy sauce' that lets them see, feel, and hear things others can't), but I'm still early in the book and knowing Pargin, there will be plenty twists and turns along the way.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Did you know he used to post on this forum?
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Really? Do you know how long ago that was?

I'm not really that surprised. I mean, all the great writers should post here. I may not be a great writer, but I do post here.


Safe-Keeper said:
So I've been discovering Jason Pargin's books and YouTube recently, and I thought I'd create a new thread to share my reading progress instead of just spamming the reading at the moment thread with my thoughts and reflections.

So I've read I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, which was one of my favourite reads in I don't know how many years and absolutely has to be turned into a movie or TV series. I followed it up with the absurdist superhero movie parody Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, which had some nice wacky humour but a bit too much misery, depravity, and misogony for my taste (will still read the rest of the Zoey books, mind, and I did appreciate it for what it was). Now I'm listening to This Book is Full of Spiders, and it's been hilarious so far, and also suitably creepy. The plot so far has been a bit generic, but with a nice twist on the zombie outbreak story -–there's a kind of alien spiders taking over hosts instead of a zombie virus, and the protagonists are the only ones who can see them because they've drank a kind of magic potion called 'soy sauce' that lets them see, feel, and hear things others can't), but I'm still early in the book and knowing Pargin, there will be plenty twists and turns along the way.
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I agree about the ...Black Box of Doom, and I am definitely going to get the This Book is Full of Spiders, but that won't be until next year.

Thank you, Safe-Keeper, for starting this thread and recommending Jason Pargin's books, although, I'm probably going to skip the Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits book.

I'm not into misery and depravity right now, but who knows what the future holds. IMO, futuristic, computer suits, hats, and underwear are only a matter of time.


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Of course, someone has to mention "spiders" every once in a while. You know, just to keep this thread a little bit on the honest side:


Venomous flying spiders with 4-inch legs spread across East Coast
Story by Li Cohen (Updated Thu, June 6, 2024 at 11:09 PM PDT)

First came the spotted lanternflies, then the cicadas — and now, the spiders? The Northeast U.S. is bracing for an invasion of giant venomous spiders with 4-inch-long legs that can parachute through the air.
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Earlier this year, New Jersey Pest Control warned of the incoming spiders, saying Joro spiders will be "hard to miss" as females have a leg span of up to 4 inches and are known for their vibrant yellow and grey bodies.
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"What sets them apart, however, is their ability to fly, a trait uncommon among spiders," the company said. "While not accurate flight in the avian sense, Joro spiders utilize a technique known as ballooning, where they release silk threads into the air, allowing them to be carried by the wind."
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Orphia Nay said:
It would have been over 10 years ago in his David Wong days. I can't remember his username, but I remember him posting in a thread about Cracked, and in other threads (in 9/11 CTs, I think).
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Do you remember his username?
 
Okay, about halfway through This book is full of spiders. Zombie apocalypse outbreak stories aren't really my genre of choice, but it has some cool twists, such as that
the infection seems to come from some kind of rapidly breeding alien (?) spider monsters the size of squirrels who crawl inside your mouth and take control of your entire body, and that the infected also develop horrific superpowers
), but I'm really enjoying it so far. It has the usual zombie story tropes, but also the usual Pargin observations about society and human nature, and it can suddenly get realistic in unexpected ways. For example, you run into the typical group of young men who have trained for years and years with guns and indulged in macho fantasies about how they'll be heroes when the ◊◊◊◊ hits the fan, but when the outbreak actually happens they cower in their RV with their guns, and Amy has to bully them into actually taking action. Pargin dryly describes their training with guns in the woods as the antics of a bunch of young men who have stubbornly decided to remain children until the age of 35.

Also, the fact that the protagonists David and John are just two bumbling young rednecks (granted there's also Amy, who appears to have her ◊◊◊◊ together to a much larger degree) who on the one hand seem to have ample experience with fighting the supernatural, but who also keep managing to mess things up and embarrass themselves is funny, too. The book also plays the 'protagonists in horror movies keep doing stupid things' trope completely straight, there's several moments in the book where things would've gone a lot better --or the day could've been saved-- had only the heroes not done something incredibly reckless and stupid :D .

Also, although it's obviously fiction, it's presented as a non-fiction book, with the author (under his pseudonym 'David Wong') also being a character in the book, and talking about the (I take it fictional) controversy and class action lawsuit against the first book in the foreword, in a little monologue about how you probably shouldn't even read the first book because it makes him come across as a horrible person.

The book also has little gems like this one throughout:
Note: Do not ask the author how the details of the following sequence of events was obtained. The explanation would only leave you more confused and dissatisfied than would any explanation that you could come up with with your own imagination.
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Also, I love that it goes all out on the absurdity at the most unexpected of times:
The sauce is in a little silver container (...) When we find it, don't open it! Not only will the ◊◊◊◊ kill you if it gets on your skin, it will come after you!
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Overall, I'm enjoying it so far, though I also get why some fans of these books weren't that thrilled about I'm Starting to Worry... The books he usually writes are really pretty different from that one.
 
Just finished This Book is Full of Spiders. It's one of those books I didn't truly enjoy and appreciate until I got near the end, but once I did, I couldn't stop listening. Holy ◊◊◊◊ what a read.

This is a zombie story and also almost a parody of zombie stories, and it subverts a lot of the typical zombie apocalypse tropes. It's also a story about a couple of dudes with the supernatural power to see things others can't, and a collection of weird and magical artifacts they've accumulated from previous adventures.

Also, for those of you who read I'm starting to worry..., it definitely has the same snart, satire, and observations of human nature.

Oh, but if you're quesy about stuff happening to animals
(major spoiler):
The dog dies at the end


Oh, and while there's time to edit
1735875427294.png

(No, I'm not gonna name That Book because it's the worst dumpster fire I've ever read, written by a weapons-grade psychopath, and worst case scenario is one of you will chime in and say you liked it and I'd have to never talk to you again.)

Oh, and I should probably explain the garbage truck inside joke
 
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www.imdb.com

John Dies at the End (2012) ⭐ 6.3 | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror

1h 39m | 15
www.imdb.com www.imdb.com

they ended up making a movie of john dies at the end, which was a novel that was adapted from a series halloween short stories he has written for his website before cracked, pointless waste of time. honestly, i didn't know he kept adding to the universe beyond that, so that's really interesting to learn. john dies at the end was a pretty fun read, i remember he put all kinds of gifs embedded in the background of the short stories as well.

i remember when he dropped that website, pointless waste of time which was kind of teamed with with another website by a friend of his named john cheese called john cheese's magical pimp bus (who has his own unfortunate story after that), and migrated over to cracked. the site started out strong, and they went into making a lot of sketch comedy style videos as well. cracked kind of went the buzzfeed route of enumerated lists and cookie cutter articles and he did much less writing for cracked that pwot, and i felt it went from a more underground style internet comedy to a much more business oriented people like numbered lists and comedy by the books because it's what gets views style that i lost interest in.

pwot, old man murray, portal of evil, seanbaby, jay pinkerton dot com, those kind of websites are all gone and replaced by virality on social media. it's a shame really.

anyway, maybe i'll check the books out. he is a very funny and creative guy
 
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dirtywick said:
pwot, old man murray, portal of evil, seanbaby, jay pinkerton dot com, those kind of websites are all gone and replaced by virality on social media. it's a shame really.
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I really miss the old decentralized Internet in general. When we all hung out on forums, chat rooms, blogs, and personal web sites, not giant social media web sites geared for addiction and polarization. I still haven't lost hope that we could find our way back to that. Jason's old web site sounds really fun, too. You don't remember the URL? Would be interesting to see if the Wayback Machine has it archived.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Yeah, Cracked used to be brilliant when Pargin/David Wong was writing for it.
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Yeah, I don't know how much time I spent there, but I think most of us read this at some point. Browsing his writings on the site today, I recognize other stuff he's written, too.

1737944322897.png
Bummer.​
 
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Safe-Keeper said:
Just had to share this Pargin short as it actually, seriously, blew my mind.

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Ok, that was pretty weird, and also pretty cool, but of course the reason it works is...


because it's kind of like telling people not to think of a pink elephant, except in reverse, or maybe as an opposite?

Anyway, if you tell people to watch the folks in the white shirts, they'll tend to ignore everything in black.

Actually, I think I remember seeing this very thing a long time ago in one of my college psychology classes.

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AmyStrange said:
Ok, that was pretty weird, and also pretty cool, but of course the reason it works is...


because it's kind of like telling people not to think of a pink elephant, except in reverse, or maybe as an opposite?

Anyway, if you tell people to watch the folks in the white shirts, they'll tend to ignore everything in black.

Actually, I think I remember seeing this very thing a long time ago in one of my college psychology classes.

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hahaha as soon as the video started i was like "there's too much ◊◊◊◊ going on here i can't pay attention to all that" and then i saw it immediately
 
Reading If this book exists, you're in the wrong universe and I figured I'd share quotes and reflections as I go.

It opens with a series of in-universe ads for haunted or cursed artifacts from other dimensions, which is really funny, and a nice mix of descriptions of the supernatural (like an indestructible glass table that has a reflection that's delayed by 24 hours, which led to the owner of the table discovering that her husband was cheating on her with the young maid when she had breakfast and saw "the reflection of the young maid's ass rocking back and forth in the act of lovemaking") with very mundane descriptions you'd find in everyday ads ("the table wobbles slightly because one leg is slightly shorter, but you can stick a matchbox under there or something").

It then starts the story off by introducing us to the three main characters and how their role in society (apart from being redneck ne'er-do-wells, at least the two guys --Amy, the girlfriend of one of them, has her ◊◊◊◊ together to a much larger degree) is to help people who have had their heads taken over by a kind of spider-parasites only the two male protagonists can see. This particular parasite has tried to help improve his life by making him hallucinate a lovely wife, which causes some hilarity, but it (the parasite) eventually comes clean and also admits it's dying. Since removing them is near-impossible, they all agree to take the guy downtown and faking a shotgun suicide, using the noise from the July 4th fireworks finale to mask the sound of the gunshot.

So far it reads a lot like a vintage Stephen King novel, which is great, though of course it also of course has Pargin's own touch, which among other things means I keep running into hilarious absurdist and/or dark humour like:
Some part of my brain kept reminding me that we were probably going to have to explode a guy's head at the end of the night, but, as usual, a few beers helped me get proper perspective on the whole thing.
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It's a pretty long one, too, at nearly 500 pages.


edit: typo
 
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