Phonyism
Author’s Note
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jim Steele.” —The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
YOU’RE ABOUT TO READ THE MOST BRILLIANT ESSAY on The Catcher in the Rye ever written. I wrote it back in 2005. It was my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. It has been considered by many to be the most comprehensive analysis on the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye ever written. This is not a brag. Many have said this. I am merely stating the facts.
I am posting the paper here now, in this lowly blog, for pedestrian consumption because the last legally binding contract that had tied my paper to one of a number of academic journals expired this year, in 2025—meaning I can now legally post my brilliant essay unfettered, whereas before I could not. And again, I am not bragging: the word “brilliant” has been used to describe my essay by a number of highly educated individuals, including several well-respected college professors and literary scholars.
Again, these are just the facts.
Ultimately, my hope is that, by sharing this paper with a less-educated audience, it will, on average, raise the intelligence quotient of humanity—even if only by a few decimal points—on account of how brilliant my essay actually is. Make no mistake: it is one thing to have a brilliant essay praised in high academia, but it is another thing entirely for that essay to be consumed and understood by the hoi polloi—so, in this way, I hope to wash the unwashed masses in the figurative waters of the ocean of brilliance that is my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. And yes, I realize that last sentence reads very pompously, but those words—“ocean of brilliance”—are not my words, but the words of a professor who had once published a glowing review of my essay in a literary journal.
Again, I am not bragging. I am merely stating facts. The most important fact being that the paper you’re about to read is, in fact, brilliant.
Before we get into the main body of the paper: some context. Do note that the attention span of the average human being—of which, statistically, you are (average)—is generally around 8.25 seconds. So, in case you forgot: the paper you are about to read was (and is) my Loxley University Graduate Thesis. This means I wrote it when I was very young. In fact, I was in my early twenties, and I wrote the whole thing in approximately ten hours, merely a day before it was due. That was because I was quite the wild child back then, and I had gotten completely carried away reading War and Peace (for the fourth time that year). When I finally snapped out of my Tolstoy-induced reverie—to my younger and far less educated self’s surprise—weeks had passed, and my thesis was due the next day. So, with last-minute verve and gusto, I sat my young self down at my writing desk, in front of my old Royal Quiet De Luxe—Hemingway’s preferred typewriter (in case you didn’t know)—and started typing up a small storm. And thus, after ten hours, the brilliant paper you are now about to read was complete, all without proofreading.
When I presented this paper to my professor at the time—a Dr. Thornton Daniels (who had a PhD in Philosophy and was actually quite intelligent, although not as intelligent as myself, if documented IQ tests are anything to go by)—he insisted that my paper was brilliant, from both a literary-critique perspective and a philosophical perspective, and that it had to be shared with the broader literary world as soon as possible. I recall him saying, verbatim, “In my thirty years of teaching, out of all my students’ thesis papers, I have never read something quite like this, which has really made me think in brand-new ways that I had not previously thought possible,” and he even sent my paper off to one of his old friends—a Dr. Garrison—who just so happened to be one of the most well-respected J.D. Salinger scholars in the nation, who quickly wrote back, saying, quote, “This analysis of the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of The Catcher in the Rye could have only been produced by a new type of human, one with a mind whose cognitive abilities far exceed all previously established parameters of contemporary human thought.” He too echoed Dr. Daniels’ sentiments, suggesting that I publish the paper immediately, as anything less would be a crime against humanity—and thus, so as not to deprive the world of my brilliance, I immediately sent my graduate thesis off to a number of academic journals.
At the time, I did not expect any of those journals to actually take my paper seriously because, as you might imagine from my very modest retelling of events here, I had never considered myself anything more than the average college student who had simply rushed to finish a thesis paper after many hardcore nights of Tolstoying. In fact, I was quite humble back then (and still am, if you could not tell). So again, as you might imagine, I was completely surprised when, upon sending my paper off for publication, I was, within days, overwhelmed with lucrative publication offers—many of which were legally binding—from several highly respected academic journals, including (but not limited to): Notes & Errata, The Studious Reader, Compound Nouns, The Paris Critique, Page Turners, The North Atlantic, Meanings in the Margins, The Existentialist Review, and, of course, the peer-reviewed Loxley Journal of Very Important Words. It was even translated and published in several French journals, which prompted much French fan mail to be sent my way, all of which I replied to in French, as I am something of a hyperpolyglot, and I can do advanced calculus in my head, and I have near-perfect recall—although I do not like to brag.
Again, I am merely stating the facts.
That is how my graduate thesis on the themes, symbols, and philosophical implications of The Catcher in the Rye came to be—and also why it took twenty years to publish the paper online, for free, on this lowly blog, which targets an audience of uneducated laymen, of which you, statistically, are one; although, after reading my brilliant graduate thesis, you may not be. In fact, after reading my Loxley University Graduate Thesis—which I wrote in just ten hours without proofreading (in case you forgot)—I guarantee that you will be a changed person; you will be smarter, wiser, and more aware than you once were.
And, of course, there is no need to thank me—but you are welcome.
Now, without further ado…
1, This Essay is Phony
“It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true.” —The Catcher in the Rye
IF IT WASN’T OBVIOUS ENOUGH, that entire “Author’s Note” up there is total bullshit—that’s right, I made it all up. I’m a massive goddamn phony.
Now you might be thinking, “Would a phony really just admit to being a phony like that?” And the answer is most assuredly YES. Because, in the phony’s mind, there are all sorts of games and tricks formulating at all times, like a football coach obsessing over his playbook, trying to figure out which bullshit plays work best, all to obfuscate the fact that they’re a goddamn phony—“Well, if I admit to being a phony now, then they’ll think I’m actually a genuine person, which makes it harder for them to figure out all the ways I’m actually a phony, which makes it easier for me to trick them into believing I’m not being phony later on”—or something like that. In truth, the whole point of the “Author’s Note” up there and my subsequent admittance of it being bullshit was purposely designed to lull you into believing that I’m actually the opposite of someone who would write something like that, that I’m actually a down-to-earth humble dude, which will make it easier for me to manipulate you, the reader, into accepting some of the seriously bold claims I’m about to make with the remainder of this essay. Or maybe not. Maybe I’m making all this up. Who actually knows?
By this point, you’re probably confused, and you’re probably also wondering something like, “Isn’t this essay supposed to be about The Catcher in the Rye?” And, technically, yes, it is, but also not really.
Before sitting down to write this essay, I considered doing something like a book report, covering the narrative and themes of the novel; like, how it’s essentially an unreliable first-person narrative, a bildungsroman (or: a coming-of-age story) told from the perspective of one Holden Caulfield—a judgmental, contrary young man from a wealthy family, addicted to cigarettes, who hates phonies, who, before the events of the novel, had already flunked out of three high schools. And how we, the readers, tag along as Holden aimlessly wanders 1950s New York, looking for ducks, soliciting prostitutes, lying his way into seedy bars, getting publicly shit-faced, and doing many other young-and-dumb things, all told in a humorous yet deeply introspective-for-a-sixteen-year-old-kid kind of way; and also how we, the readers, follow along as Holden grows, both emotionally and existentially, from an angsty teen to a slightly less angsty teen; and how the novel deftly weaves the symbols of Holden’s red hunting hat and ducks and museums and his dead brother’s baseball glove and the merry-go-round (pictured on the front of the novel, in case you were wondering what that was), all to color Holden’s struggle coming to terms with growing up in a world he perceives as phony bullshit. But I decided not to write about any of that, because all that stuff up there has been covered many times before, by many people, all of whom probably have far better reading comprehension and compositional skills than I do.
So, if that’s why you’re here, to read a book report on The Catcher in the Rye, well, unfortunately, you’re not going to find it here, because this essay is not an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye at all—despite the fact that I read the novel like three times front-to-back in the two months leading up to this, and it might even be my favorite book, ever. Yet, despite all that, I’m still not sure I really understand the novel in full. Because, despite it being only 234 pages, give or take, it’s actually incredibly dense in meaning, much of which might even be completely up to reader interpretation. So, it follows that another reason this is not an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye is that I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be writing one to begin with. Instead, I think you should just read the novel yourself, do your own analysis, because the meaning of The Catcher in the Rye will always be unique to you, and it will change depending on where you’re at in life when reading it, which is part of what makes the book so special.
With that being said, instead of writing an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye, I decided to write an essay about being a goddamn phony. And I figured what I’d do was, I’d use the backdrop of The Catcher in the Rye, and Holden’s character, as a springboard for that—and I’d call the thing Phonyism. And that’s what you’re reading right now.
So, of course, my hope was that, upon reading that fake “Author’s Note” up there, you’d come away thinking I’m a goddamn phony on some level. But that’s only the beginning. I’m going to take it even further: What if I told you that you, too, are a goddamn phony? And then, what if I told you that, actually, everyone’s a goddamn phony?
I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, those are some seriously presumptuous claims; this guy’s a know-it-all and an asshole.” And that’s fine that you think that, for now, because that’s kind of the whole point of this essay: to prove that every single one of us is a poser, fraud, charlatan, impostor, or mime of some sort, kabuki through and through. It’s all Phonyism, all the way down, and I’m going to prove it. And you know what? Phonyism’s not always a bad thing. In fact, in some cases, it’s actually preferable to be a phony.
So, with the rest of this essay, I’m going to convince you that I am, in fact, a phony. And then I’m going to convince you that you are, in fact, a phony, too. And then I’m going to convince you that, in many cases, it’s actually a good thing to be a phony.
And, to that end, there’s no better place to start than with Holden Caulfield himself.
2, Holden is Phony
“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.” —The Catcher in the Rye
NO ONE KNOWS PHONIES BETTER THAN HOLDEN CAULFIELD. And, just like me, Holden, too, believes that everyone is a goddamn phony—only, unlike me, he hates phonies more than anything else in the whole goddamn world.
Holden even hates his own brother, D.B., a writer who—in Holden’s mind—became a “prostitute” when he started working in Hollywood. And he also hates movies in general, because they are phony imitations of real life. And he especially hates the actors and actresses in those movies, whom he perceives to be the biggest phonies of all, always pretending to be someone they are not, rehearsing their phony lines while making their phony poses in the mirror. And he hates people who flatter others to get what they want, which is something his school dormmate Stradlater does all the time. And he hates people who say “good luck” when you’re walking away to do something, because what do they care? And he hates school, especially Pencey Prep, with its phony slogan about turning students into “splendid, clear-thinking young men,” because in Holden’s estimation there’s not even one clear-thinking young man there. And he hates the phony headmasters, like Mr. Haas, who give special treatment to wealthy parents and their kids, because they care more about money and reputation than education. And he hates people who think that good writing is all about “putting the commas in the right place.” And he really hates pianists who put all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and he especially hates when they do those phony bows after performances, and when people applaud. And he hates people who describe things as “grand,” because there is never anything “grand” about it. And he hates people who laugh at their own jokes, because who do they think they’re fooling? And he hates those Ivy League guys who all look and talk the same. And he hates phony white dudes who are into Eastern philosophy and only date Asian women, yet go to Columbia and live in high-rise apartments. And he hates people who say stuff like, “How marvelous it is to see you,” when they know damn well there’s nothing marvelous about it. And he hates preachers who give sermons in phony “Holy Joe” voices instead of their real voices. Hell, he even hates his own on-again-off-again girlfriend, Sally Hayes, who may look pretty and act polite but is actually a shallow narcissist only interested in her own reputation. And he really hates balding dudes who comb what little hair they have over the top of their head to hide their bald spots. And he especially hates guys who do a lot of show-off tricky stuff on the dance floor—and that last one is really important, because Holden himself likes to dance a whole hell of a lot. He especially likes to tap dance and do the jitterbug.
In fact, the only thing Holden likes more than dancing is his ten-year-old sister, Phoebe, even though she’s quite snotty, which is actually one of the reasons he likes her so much—because at least she’s honest, whereas most adults are snotty but try to hide it behind polite Phonyism, which Holden can’t stand. In fact, Phoebe is one of the few people in the novel whom Holden does not describe as phony in some way. The other non-phony, according to Holden, is some kid named James Castle, who once said some mean things about a group of bullies at school but wouldn’t “take it back,” which ended up with Castle falling out of a top-floor window, resulting in his death; meaning, Castle died due to his utter commitment to being honest. So, it goes without saying that Holden admires those who are true to themselves, both inwardly and outwardly, regardless of the consequences, even when that consequence is death.
But the problem with all this is, Holden Caulfield has a blind spot: out of all the phonies in the novel, he’s the biggest phony of them all. That’s right: Holden Caulfield is a big goddamn phony.
Holden’s own Phonyism is apparent from the first few chapters, wherein he’s pretty much just lying his ass off to everyone all the time. At one point, he even admits that, once he gets started lying, he can go on for hours: “No kidding. Hours.” For example, while riding on a train, he ends up sitting next to the mother of one of his classmates, introduces himself as “Rudolf Schmidt,” and then starts telling the mother lie after lie about her son, building him up as a super nice kid who wouldn’t run for class president on account of how modest he was, when in reality, the kid was a terror to everyone around him, and he kept going like this because he enjoyed watching the mother’s reaction. Later, he tells a group of girls that his name is “Jim Steele,” and even later gives a prostitute that same phony name while also claiming to be twenty-two years old. Then, when he was in the hotel room with that same prostitute, he made up a phony story about how he had an operation the night before so he wouldn’t have to sleep with her. Holden also exaggerates constantly about everything; anytime he references someone’s age or the number of times a person did something, he always doubles or triples the number—the person was always “about a hundred years old” and they always did something “about a thousand times.” Holden is also incredibly sarcastic, constantly giving people compliments when, internally, he’s rolling his eyes and thinking about all the ways they’re phony. He changes his behavior depending on his audience—like, in one example, when he’s riding in a cab, he starts saying all this “corny” stuff to the cab driver, then justifies it by saying, “When I’m around somebody that’s corny, I always act corny too.” And he self-admittedly “drops hints” instead of actually speaking his mind, to prevent hurting people’s feelings or to prevent violent altercations. And he’s always telling people phony stuff like “I’m glad to have met you,” when he’s not glad to have met them at all, and then he turns around and criticizes people for doing the exact same thing. And he looks down on people who engage in sexual acts with those they aren’t in love with, yet he admits he’s “probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw,” and he can’t even live up to his own standards because he still “horses” around with girls he doesn’t truly like; for instance, right after swearing he wouldn’t fool around, he turned around the very same day and did exactly that with a girl he described as a “terrible phony” named Anne Louise Sherman; meaning, he can’t even keep the promises he makes to himself. And, of course, the biggest lie of all—the pivotal lie of the novel—is that he doesn’t tell his parents he’s flunked out of Pencey Prep and instead goes wandering around New York for three days, fantasizing about running away and pretending to be a deaf-mute so that he never has to face any consequences, which is sad, really, because Holden could do well in school if he actually applied himself—he’s incredibly intelligent—which is yet another thing he lies to himself about, constantly insisting that he’s “dumb as hell,” when in reality, he’s way brighter than most of his classmates, as evidenced by the fact that they’re always asking him to write their essays. And on top of all that, Holden admits he’s “yellow”—too scared to stand up for himself—even when someone has wronged him; at one point, he imagines what he’d do if someone stole something from him, and he admits that even though he would want to punch the thief in the face, he knows he wouldn’t go through with it, so instead, he just stands in front of the mirror, striking tough-guy poses and reciting phony lines from the movies, just like one of those actors he thinks are so phony.
So, yeah, Holden is the biggest phony in the book.
By this point, you’re probably sitting there thinking, “I thought this wasn’t supposed to be an analysis of The Catcher in the Rye?” And you’d be right about that. I’m sorry for going on a 1348-word tangent up there, but there’s a point to this whole thing, and the point is:
Holden and I are pretty much the same person.
We’re both phony as hell.
3, I’m Phony
“I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.” —The Catcher in the Rye
MY DEFAULT IS PRETTY MUCH “FUCK YOU” but I’m all smiles and how-do-you do’s—just like Holden Caulfield. And, just like Holden, I chain smoke like a fiend, or at least I did. And, just like Holden, when I’m all alone, I talk to myself in the mirror and make dramatic poses. And I failed all my high school classes, except for English Literature, just like Holden. And I exaggerate all the time, especially with personal stories and numbers, just like Holden. And I even flunked out of a private school and eventually dropped out of public school on account of a total lack of motivation and a frankly unwarranted contempt of all institutions, which really just stemmed from the fact that I’m a big contrarian, just like Holden. And I could keep going, but I think you get the point.
And no, I’m not typing all this up just to subtly make myself seem cool by attaching myself to a highly popular literary figure—because I actually don’t think Holden Caulfield is all that cool to begin with. Maybe, if I had read the book back in high school, I might have thought he was cool back then, but nowadays, in my thirties, he mostly just comes off as incredibly immature, and that’s probably because I see myself in him, because back when I was a kid, I was immature as hell, way more immature than the average teenager, in fact. And since it takes one to know one—so, I feel like I know Holden Caulfield.
Back when I was a kid, I was wealthy, just like Holden. Well, I wasn’t personally wealthy, but my stepfather was; he owned three mansions, all of which he had custom-built, on a gated private island resort. But, just like Holden, I could never get into the whole wealthy-lifestyle thing. I always felt out of place and weird, like an outsider. Everything felt phony. Maybe this was simply due to my latent contrarianism, or some undiagnosed depression, or something. I don’t know. I don’t mean to analyze it too much here, only to give you some background, to color the story I’m about to tell you. Anyway. I remember I was always hanging out up in my big mansion room, alone, playing video games, reading science fiction, writing whiny blog entries for my LiveJournal, and listening to music that came out way before I was even born. I didn’t really do much else back then. My real friends were hundreds of miles away, and I barely knew any other kids, because there were barely any other kids on that private island. And the kids who were there weren’t like me at all—not to say that I was better than them in any way, although I might have thought that back then—they just weren’t like me: different interests, different priorities. They were OK with the whole yachting scene, the whole ballroom culture. They were OK with polo shirts and khakis, I wasn’t. I was into quote-unquote “punk” rock and goth stuff; the whole early-2000s-corporate-counterculture thing, itself very phony, thinking about it in hindsight, with its $200 pairs of ripped jeans and Nirvana T-shirts purchased through huge retail chains. I wanted people to think I had a tough life, like I wasn’t some sort of super privileged white kid, all while obviously being a super privileged white kid, especially considering how pale I was.
I thought that I was the only unique person in the whole world, that everyone else was just a big godman phony conformist.
So, at school, which was on a different island nearby, I aligned myself with people who were like me. There was this one older boy I thought was pretty cool—I think his name was Andrew—and at one point, I wanted to be just like him. He was a punky kid with a buzz cut, wore Minor Threat and Fugazi shirts, and was one of those straight edge kids—no drugs, no sex, a vegan—for ethical reasons, or so he claimed. He was, in general, just a smart kid, like a teenage punk rock philosopher, always saying some pretty high-minded smart stuff for his age. I wanted so much for Andrew to like me that I once told him I was straight edge too, which was an easy claim to make, considering I was thirteen, with little access to drugs or alcohol, and more interested in video games and music anyway. And I also told him I was a vegan, which was a huge phony lie. And to convince him of all this, I drew the big X’s on my hands, which was a straight-edge thing inspired by the X’s bouncers used to draw on minors’ hands at punk shows to keep bartenders from serving them alcohol. Anyway. I drew those X’s on my hands just to signal to Andrew that I was, in fact, a straight-edge, vegan punk, just like him.
All of this is to say that, for a moment there, when I was thirteen, I tried really hard to be something I wasn’t, mostly just to impress this one guy who, honestly, I barely knew, aside from talking to him a few times while walking the halls between classes.
One day I was hanging out down by the pier with a couple of other kids, surrounded by that pungent fishy smell and those dirty fishermen who lined the massive boardwalk, and we were watching waves go up and down, trying to spot dolphins, and suddenly here comes Andrew, walking up from behind us with a simple “Hey.” And I got that whole electric feeling you get when someone you really like shows up out of the blue—like the feeling of anticipation being fulfilled and the lingering static afterward, or butterflies waging full-scale war inside your stomach, or something. So Andrew and I started talking, and I again told him that I was indeed a vegan, just like him, and I had those big phony X’s on my hands, and he was really buying my whole phony act. Then one of the other kids suggested that we walk to the gas station to grab some snacks and a couple of sodas, to which Andrew said, “I don’t drink caffeine,” and naturally I said the same, but we agreed to go to the gas station anyway because it was midday and hot as hell outside and we were all quite thirsty, so off we went to the old Parker’s.
We walked a couple of blocks, strode past a few of those “I’m on Island Time” souvenir shops, walked by the old candy and ice cream place, and crossed the street by Palm Coast Coffee to get to the old Parker’s gas station, and there we spent a few minutes picking out our drinks and snacks. I remember Andrew got himself a water and a bag of pretzels. And I remember that I really wanted a Mountain Dew—something I normally drank at home—but, on account of wanting to maintain the whole phony “I’m straight edge too!” thing, I forced myself to grab a bottle of water instead, and then I grabbed a bag of Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, and then I checked out.
With our snacks in hand, we left the old Parker’s and sat down on a nearby bench, me sitting right next to Andrew, who was sipping water between handfuls of pretzels. At which time I pulled out my water, twisted the cap, and took a sip. Then I pulled out my gummy crawlers, tore the bag open, removed one of those little worms, and dropped it right into my mouth, smacking and chomping quite loudly while doing so—all while Andrew was kind of glaring at me with one eyebrow raised, which, at the moment, kind of confused me, but I pretended to ignore him, instead just shoving more gummy worms into my mouth, followed by more smacking and chomping. But after a minute or two, I noticed Andrew had stopped eating his pretzels and was pretty much just staring at me, and that’s when I started to feel kind of strange, so I said something like, “What? What is it?” And after a long pause, during which I ate a few more gummy worms, still smacking and chomping like crazy, spit and gummy particles probably flying everywhere, Andrew finally said: “You know those have gelatin in them, right?” And I responded with something like, “What do you mean? Gelatin? What’s that?” I was a pretty dumb kid. And he said, bluntly, and with something like contempt in his voice: “It’s made of animal bones.”
At which point, my bag of gummy worms and my stomach both dropped—the former to the ground, the latter to whichever pit in hell is full of all the terrible phonies forced to relive their most embarrassing phony moments over and over again. Then, my mouth still full of animal bones, I said something like, “I didn’t know, I promise, I had no idea, really, I swear.” To which Andrew just let out a little grunt, turned away from me, and then started talking to one of the other kids. Needless to say, after that day, Andrew never spoke to me again, and I learned a valuable lesson about Phonyism.
Or, at least, I thought I did.
The truth is, I haven’t changed much since then. Shortly after that whole Andrew thing, I started smoking cigarettes like a fiend, and I started experimenting with drugs, and I flunked out of high school on account of skipping class all the time. I fell deep into an anti-consumer, anti-capitalist, hippie-adjacent mindset, thinking that everything money touched basically turned to shit, all while being a super privileged white kid. I was still very similar to Holden Caulfield—just high on weed, amphetamines, and Marxism. I became one of those fashion-statement Marxists who are wealthy but do absolutely nothing to further the cause, who instead just spend their time complaining about how the system sucks while doing nothing to change it, thereby unleashing more and more negativity into the world, all while being strung out on drugs and playing video games, and I was doing this all from the comfort of my own lavish mansion, paid for in full by my wealthy stepfather, who, to this day, I have no idea how he made his money—on account of him being kinda shady about the whole thing—but I do know he was very much a Republican, while I was very much a Democrat who leeched off him quite substantially, at one point even racking up a $1,000 iTunes bill on his credit card, which he initially tried to ground me for but eventually agreed to make it my Christmas present, which just further illustrates how super privileged and white I was (and still am).
Eventually, at the age of 18, I decided enough was enough and did the most non-phony thing I had ever done in my life: I voluntarily moved out of my stepdad’s big-ass mansion. I could have stayed there, living the easy life, but the cognitive dissonance caused by being a mansion-dwelling Marxist just became too much. So I decided that I had to go out on my own and make it in the world all by myself. So, with the help of my mom, I got an apartment with some friends. But only about a month passed before I had to start begging mom for rent money because, as it turns out, I was totally unprepared to live on my own. So, once again, I slipped into the kabuki theater of being a pro-Marxist living off the wealth of my parents.
Eventually, however, after several months of mooching, I got a job in a call center and started paying my own rent. And I stayed with that call center for about ten years, moving up very little, just kind of coasting, sustaining myself so that I could play video games on my off hours or whatever, and that was my life for a long time. I was still of the anti-corporate, anti-money, anti-consumer mindset, yet all my hobbies, namely video games, were consumerist as hell, and I was still sustaining myself with corporate money. So basically, when I think about it real hard, from childhood to adulthood, nothing really changed: I just traded in my parents for chief executive officers. And so, I benefit from the systems I claim to be against, all while weakly biting the hand that feeds, pretending that makes it OK somehow.
I’m realizing now that my youthful desire for financial independence, away from the pocketbooks of my parents, only put me on a path further into the bad kind of Phonyism, because eventually, after a decade—and after getting married and having two kids—it led to me getting a job at a software company, and that job eventually morphed into a sales position, and that sales position eventually morphed into a management position, and now, as of writing this, I’m corporate. I’m corporate as hell. I am the very thing I claim to hate: corporate. It has all led to this. This is where my lifelong lazy-ass, drug-addled, gaming-addicted, cigarette-smoking, hyper-contrarian attitude has landed me: managing a fucking sales team in a corporate software company.
I cannot stress this enough: I NEVER WANTED TO BE CORPORATE. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to play an instrument. I was in a band in high school, for god’s sake. I wanted to paint. I wanted to be a painter. I wanted to write novels. I wanted to be America’s next great novelist. In fact, one of the main reasons I’m writing this essay is to low-key convince both myself and some non-existent audience that I am, in fact, a genius writer, just like the author of the “Author’s Note” up there. So, please believe me when I say that I NEVER WANTED TO BE CORPORATE. In fact, corporate is pretty much the antithesis of everything I stand for.
And before you start thinking, “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do to get by in this world, blah blah blah,” STOP. Just stop. I could have said NO at any step in the corporate process. I could have quit my job and worked at a farm or traveled the world pretending I was a deaf-mute or joined a Buddhist monastery or something; but NO, instead, I actively pursued a corporate job in the software industry. I climbed the corporate ladder. I really did. I sent the emails. I made the slide decks. I did the interviews. I presented to clients. I did the on-site visits. The Zoom calls. I spoke at the conferences. I did it all. The whole corporate nine yards, all of it. I did it all. And the kicker is, while doing all that cringe corporate crap, I knew: I knew I wasn’t being true to myself, but I kept doing it, I kept climbing the corporate ladder, and I’m still climbing that ladder, even to this day.
I could say that I do it to support my family, or because I have no other options, or whatever—but, at the end of the day, those are all just excuses, because, no matter what I say, I’m still an anti-corporate corporate goon. I’m basically a Marxist, in sales.
So, remember when I said, in the first chapter, that I was going to convince you that I’m a big goddamn phony?
Well, there you go.
4, Everyone is Phony
“If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did.” —The Catcher in the Rye
IT’S NOT JUST ME, I see it everywhere: the Phonyism. And I’m not just saying that to excuse my own Phonyism. I’m saying it because it’s obvious. It’s very very obvious. Everyone and everything is phony.
From all the corporate phonies, like myself, who claim to be artists or writers or whatever, but work unfulfilling corporate jobs that ultimately contribute nothing to society; to those of us who make small talk with people we barely even like; to all the Instagram filters we use to make ourselves look pretty; and the cashiers at restaurants who say “my pleasure” after literally every sentence; and the guys who grow their beards because they’re self-conscious about their jawlines but will never admit to it; and the girls who wear pounds of makeup because they think they’re ugly without it due to some arbitrary standards reinforced by decades of toxic television and movies; to the corporate retail chains that sell t-shirts with anarchy symbols on them; and especially the creeps on LinkedIn with nonsense job titles like “Brand Evangelist” or “Culture Architect” that post AI-generated images of themselves as action figures and have thousands of followers somehow; and the television shows like South Park that mock corporate greed yet air on corporate networks, therefore only existing because of the very same corporate greed they mock, thus profiting from the very thing they claim to be against; to clothing, in general, because we’re all ashamed of our bodies for some reason; and those of us who excessively lift weights to satisfy some socially constructed bullshit standard of what we should look like but pretend it’s “for our health” or whatever; and “The Communist Manifesto, Free With Spotify Premium”; and, of course, those of us who have ever wanted to punch someone in the face because they were saying some real stupid shit, yet refrained from doing so to avoid causing a scene or going to jail or whatever; to every goddamn insurance company that finds some ridiculous loophole allowing them to refuse coverage, because they care more about their own bottom line than human lives, which is the exactly the opposite of what their phony “Mission Statement” states on their website; and politicians (I shouldn’t have to explain this one); and all the AI-generated slop found all over social media; and all the animal lovers working at shelters that have to turn down all the big dogs because big dogs don’t get adopted as quickly as small dogs and the boss wants those dogs out of there as fast as possible to keep racking up those adoption fees; and all of us who applaud real loud at the end of every performance, even if it was a total bore; and book publishers who publish both The Bible and Fifty Shades of Grey without a second thought, because money trumps principles; and all the reluctant coders working at Google or whatever who are encouraged by corporate to use AI to write code, thereby kind of facilitating their own unemployment in a roundabout way; and that one episode of Black Mirror that warns of the dangers of subscription-based services, yet the show itself can only be watched on Netflix, which is a subscription-based service itself; and all those customer service people who say stuff like “your call is very important to us” and “we value your feedback” and “I totally understand your frustration” because they don’t want to get low scores on their calls and thus not get a raise that year; and those of us who say “sorry” all the time for literally everything, even when it’s not our fault and we’re not sorry at all; and those of us who always say “good” or “can’t complain” when someone asks us how our day is going; and, of course, all those people who even ask us how our day is going to begin with, like they actually give a damn; and those lawyers who save guys’ lives but only do it because they want to be patted on the back at the end of the trial and told how good of a lawyer they are; and big shots who donate a lot of money to some charity, but only do it so that everyone knows they did it; and those charity workers who do it less because they genuinely care about helping people and more because it makes them feel morally superior or less guilty or personally fulfilled or whatever; and those of us who only say “I love you” when we’re leaving, like at the end of a phone call or something; and all these people who try so hard to appear “normal,” but they’re fucking freaks underneath the facade; and all these people who cry their goddamn eyes out at the movies, but nine times out of ten, they’re mean bastards at heart; and, of course, the movies themselves, because even the most realistic ones are never an accurate representation of life; and all of us who share news headlines pretending that we actually read the whole article but didn’t even click the damn thing; and those of us who offer help just to appear generous, hoping that the people we’re offering help to don’t actually take us up on it; and those of us who go to family gatherings or parties or whatever but don’t actually want to be there; and all those well-off hipsters with top knots who pretend to be Buddhists or whatever yet have book collections and watch Breaking Bad and eat at McDonald’s three times a week; and all the parents who tell their children that Santa Claus is real and that peeing in the pool turns the water red and that the family dog didn’t die it just went to live on Grandpa’s farm or whatever.
I could keep going, but I think you get the point.
What I’m trying to say is, everyone is a little bit phony. And those who think they're not, well they might just be the most phony of us all, maybe even phonier than Holden Caulfield.
And if Holden is right about one thing, he’s right about this: modern life is phony, and it makes us do all sorts of phony things as a result. Not only is modern life phony, but human life has always been phony, across all time periods—or, at least, since we crawled out of the caves and started making huts or whatever. Phonyism is intrinsic to humanity, because with great intelligence comes great capacity to lie, especially to ourselves, and we use this great power to cope with the heinous world we live in. Phonyism has been ingrained in us all since the beginning of human civilization, and we have become dependent on it to survive, so now it’s the only way we can reach any semblance of homeostasis. And this Phonyism continues to spread unchecked to this very day because of three main reasons:
The first reason is that resources on this planet are limited, so civilizations always end up using some sort of barter system, which ends up like something resembling capitalism. And these barter systems, by their very nature, encourage collection and competition, which encourage greed and fraud, which encourage lies and deceit. And these barter systems cannot exist in a vacuum, meaning everyone nearby has to participate, otherwise they get screwed over—which means that, to participate in civilization, we must worship the almighty dollar, in some way or other, regardless of whether we really want to or not.
Take, for example, South Park, a television show that frequently criticizes corporatism but could not exist without that very same corporate structure it criticizes, because it takes resources to write, draw, and animate a television show—resources that the average everyday person just does not have, but corporations do. So, even if the writers of the show have anti-corporate inclinations, they still have to participate in some corporate system to even get the show created, thus compromising their principles, thus Phonyism.
But consider: even if that is the case, does that mean South Park—(or whatever show, South Park is just an example)—should not exist at all? Does compromising one’s principles, even just a little bit, mean one should forsake their goals entirely? One might argue that, even though principles were compromised in making of South Park, we would never have any television shows at all if principles could never be compromised to begin with, and since we like television shows, then maybe we should allow for some level of compromised principles. If we grant credence to that hypothetical argument, then we have to grant that Phonyism can sometimes produce good outcomes—like South Park, or Daria, or whatever.
But not only that—on the flip side of this—take, for example, a lawyer who only does the job because they want to make a lot of money, but they end up saving hundreds of lives in the process. Is the end result somehow tarnished by the fact that the lawyer’s motivations were less than pure? In this case, do the positive ends justify the phony means?
Regardless of whatever views you have on consequentialism, what I’m trying to drive at is: money makes people phony; just look around at all the people working these unfulfilling jobs. Do you think anyone really wants to work at McDonald’s? Or Walmart? Or even for a software company, taking customer support calls, making sales, doing project management, or whatever? When you look at the guy trying to sell you a cell phone from his little booth in the mall, do you really think that guy enjoys his job? Do you really think he wants to be there, hawking cell phones at you? Do you really think he wakes up in the mornings, smile on his face, all ready to shout at people in the mall about how his phones are cheaper than anywhere else and how he can throw in a free rhinestone case if you buy right now? No, of course not. He’s just trying to survive in a world that’s phony as hell, just like the rest of us. And the profession doesn’t matter; you could swap out the cell phone guy with literally anyone else. Even someone “doing their dream job,” like a musician or a teacher or something, surely dislikes certain aspects of the job but does them anyway—thus, Phonyism. For the musician, it might be having to sacrifice some artistic control because of record company contracts; or, for the teacher, they might have to pass some kids that really shouldn’t pass so that they (the teacher) keep their quota up or something, or they might not teach specific courses because of local government mandates, or they might have to avoid teaching certain books they really love because those books are banned. (Note: The Catcher in the Rye was once on several “banned books” lists across the United States). And regardless of whether it is a dream job or not, there is always one particular goal that everyone seems to be striving for—one that highlights the true Phonyism underlying all human professions—and that goal is: Retirement.
Everyone, no matter what profession, wants to comfortably retire, which is tacit admittance that none of us really want to participate in this money-obsessed system we find ourselves in. Considering this, it seems to me that, if we had our way, we’d all be playing games, hanging out with friends, going fishing, knitting, reading books, writing, or whatever, forever. It seems to me that we all want a peaceful, quiet life, doing the things we actually like doing, surrounded by friends and family, and everything up to that point is just a phony means to an end. And maybe that’s OK. Maybe that’s the way it has to be. I mean, things have to get done, it’s just unfortunate that things have to get done like this, it really is.
The second reason Phonyism persists is because we humans are herd animals, first and foremost. We are social creatures. We desire companionship, affection, and acceptance from those around us, and we go to great lengths to acquire these things, and many of those “great lengths” are quite phony indeed—like someone wearing the latest expensive designer outfit to signal to some high-class social group, or a dude watching the latest streaming show so they don’t feel left out because all their friends are talking about it, or those “nonconformists” who wear all the crazy goth clothes with the belts that they bought from some corporate chain because “fuck the system” and “I don’t care what other people think,” or those people who go to the coffee shops with their coolest band T-shirt and their laptop and just sit around pretending to be busy on their computers but really are just looking for people to talk to, or those people in any of the countless echo chambers online like Reddit or whatever that pretty much ostracize anyone with an opinion that doesn’t conform to whatever the current hivemind opinion is, or religious people who gather every week to worship and gossip about how Cindy’s daughter has turned into one of those godless heathen goth girls, or anyone who goes to a singles hook-up night at the local bar or whatever, or those online communities in which people just post pictures of birds and exclusively follow other people who just post pictures of birds, or thirteen-year-old me pretending to be vegan to fit in with the post-hardcore vegan kids, and the list could go on forever, really.
What I’m trying to say is, even those of us who think we don’t do this whole phony song and dance, do. We’re all performative, on some level. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. We all want to be accepted, somewhere. We all want to belong. This is Phonyism. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that, by itself.
From pep rallies to poetry readings, we’re all a little bit phony. And that’s fine, for the most part, but it can go too far in some cases, especially when people try so hard to fit in that they hide their true selves completely. Take, for instance, all these people who dress and act totally normal, as if they’re trying to look like the most generic person on the planet—usually to avoid some perceived ostracization in the form of other people thinking they’re “weird”—so they wear the polos and the khakis and put the MUDLIFE stickers on their trucks and act like they’re just another good ol’ country boy from the South or whatever; but really, when you get to know them, you find out they have a bobblehead shrine in their basement with over 600 bobbleheads and they can blow the sickest spit bubbles you’ve ever seen and they play the violin.
What I mean by that is, even the most mundane, generic people you can think of are unique in some way, but you might never know it unless you met them one-on-one. In fact, to tell you the truth, thinking back, I have never met a single normal goddamn person in my whole entire goddamn life. And it usually tracks that the more normal a person seems at first, the more strange they actually are, because once you get to know them, even a little bit, you find out they’re fantastic whistlers or a collector of fountain pens or a connoisseur of fine wines or they use Pokemon cards as bookmarks for classic literature or they’re trying to build a bomb shelter in their backyard or they’ve written three erotic novels or they exclusively listen to music on cassette or they collect their own pee in glass bottles for some reason or something. Everyone’s a freak underneath the facade—and that’s fantastic.
People are phony to fit in, and there are different degrees of this: sometimes it’s fine, other times it’s not; and when it’s not, it can be kind of depressing, because, ideally, a person should lean into their weirdness—signal to the weird social group that aligns with their weird behavior—instead of being ashamed and going to such phony lengths to hide it. But sometimes that’s just the way it goes with Phonyism. There’s always some good with the bad, or vice versa. Yin-yang, wabi-sabi, Phonyism.
The third reason Phonyism is so ingrained in us is that, in our intellectual pursuit to rise above the violence of the animal kingdom, we have taken certain steps to suppress our default monkey-brain impulses, and we call this suppression “being polite.”
We all have dark impulses, aggressive tendencies, that voice inside our heads that talks bad about everyone else—the default FUCK YOU attitude—but we like to pretend that we don’t have these animalistic urges. We don’t want to be associated with lions slaughtering their own in mating rituals and monkeys brutally beating each other to death in tribal territory wars, or whatever. We want to distance ourselves from all that. Yet, deep down, we kind of know we’re not that far off. And I’m not saying humans are so mindlessly violent—although serious arguments could be made (so I kinda am)—all I’m saying is that we’re part of it, the whole violent circle of life, but we don’t want to be, so we invented cotillion.
I think we all know, deep down, about the darkness—about the primal urges, the visceral rage, the base desires, all that stuff. We have all felt it in some form or another. And we don’t like it. So we try to hide it. We try to bury it under rules and systems. Hell, we’ve even created entire religions to do just that; take Christianity, for example, in which one of the core tenets is that all humans are sinners, yet we should strive not to be—this “sin” being our true, dark impulses that exist inside all of us; the same dark impulses we’ve just covered here, which we are commanded by “God” to suppress. And when we can’t suppress them, we are told to beg for forgiveness and repent, or else we suffer for eternity or whatever. It’s all kind of phony, but it does lead to people treating each other a little better than they would otherwise. And this is not a commentary or a dig on Christianity—simply an acknowledgment that, for a very long time, since maybe the beginning of human civilization, we have been developing systems to control and suppress our true impulses, be that through laws, gods, shame, or whatever. So, in a way, the systems themselves are phony by design—and by adhering to these systems, we are adhering to Phonyism—because otherwise, we’d be giving in to our base impulses, attacking each other over petty disagreements, forcing ourselves on one another, and just being awful in general, and we don’t want to do that at scale, because we know that will lead to absolute chaos, so instead, we smile and fake it; we say “please” instead of “do it now,” and “thank you” instead of “it’s about time,” and stuff like “I respectfully disagree” instead of “I want to fucking kill you right now.”
And maybe that’s OK.
5, This Conclusion is Phony
“I’m always saying ‘Glad to’ve met you’ to somebody I’m not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.” —The Catcher in the Rye
MAYBE PHONYISM ISN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL—or at least it’s preferable, in some ways, to being true to yourself. Because if we were true to ourselves all the time, it would be chaos, more so than it is right now. But this insight isn’t really all that profound. In fact, if I ended this essay on that note, I would be ashamed of myself, for how shallow and basic that conclusion would be. I mean, it’s so basic that a little kid could figure it out. Holden Caulfield even figured this out himself, per the quote up there that accents this chapter. But the thing is, Holden doesn’t fully understand it. He doesn’t understand Phonyism.
Remember back in Chapter 3, when I said Holden was immature? I said that because, for one, he’s a kid, and for two, even though he seems to understand the need for some Phonyism—like the general politeness in everyday society—and he’s an expert at recognizing when people are acting phony, these insights are actually basic and surface-level, because they’re obvious as hell—a kid could figure this stuff out, and they often do, considering that Holden is pretty much still a kid himself. He’s a kid on the edge of a cliff called adulthood, and behind him is a field of rye. The cliff does not lead to death, but to change, and Holden hates change; he thinks change is akin to being phony, like cutting off a little piece of yourself to become something new. And to him, all Phonyism is bad, full stop.
Anyway. Back to the field of rye. The field of rye is comforting and fun, and there are other children running through it, enjoying themselves—some enjoying themselves a little too much, because they’re recklessly running toward the edge of the cliff—and Holden sees it as his job to catch anyone who might fall off that cliff, especially himself. Thus, in Holden’s perfect world, everyone is a child forever. But by standing at the edge of the cliff, being the catcher—one foot in the rye, another almost dangling off that cliff—he’s not remaining a child forever, like he wants to be; instead, he’s just fully aware and hyperfocused on the Phonyism of the cliff all the time, basically going insane, just totally obsessed with it, in the darkest way possible. He never wants to grow up, and he doesn't want anyone else to grow up either, because that would be phony. But the thing is, Holden doesn’t understand that youth—the field of rye—is not meant to be forever, because nothing lasts forever—and that’s OK, because if things lasted forever, they’d become dull and boring. There is beauty in transience. The field of rye is a phase, just as falling off the cliff is a phase; both are phases in a cycle of change; and change, even if a little phony sometimes, isn’t always a bad thing.
And here I said this wasn’t going to be a book report.
What I was trying to say with that awful analysis of The Catcher in the Rye up there is that Holden Caulfield is immature because, not only is he a kid, but he also views all Phonyism as harmful, and because of this, he cannot function in society; he crosses his arms, hates everyone except kids and nuns, and is constantly depressed or pissed off because of it. The Phonyism kills him, as he likes to say. But it’s only killing him because he doesn’t truly understand it. He doesn’t understand that Phonyism can actually produce good outcomes, and he doesn’t understand that if everyone is a phony, then he, too, is a phony—and therefore he’s on the same field and cliff as everyone else, and therefore he should have a little bit of empathy for those he looks down on for being so phony, because he himself is phony as hell.
To further illustrate how Phonyism can be a good thing, let’s go back to another real-life example: the hipster with a top knot who goes around telling everyone he’s a Buddhist but lives in a nice condo and collects vinyl records, video games, and books, or whatever. This guy is obviously not a Buddhist—he’s a materialist phony—but Buddhism is a fine thing to pretend to be, because it promotes certain positive behaviors like compassion, mindfulness, patience, and generosity. So, the top-knot guy may be a phony, but at least he’s pretending to follow the right path, and surely pretending to follow Buddhism is better than pretending to follow white nationalism or something. In this way, some things are worth being phony for, while some are not. And this tracks even if the individual’s motivations are selfish—like, for example, if the hipster Buddhist is just doing it to appear “cool” or whatever—even in that scenario, he’s still pretending to reach an overall positive goal, which requires him to alter his behavior at least somewhat, which is better than nothing. In fact, it might even lead to him, down the road, becoming a bona fide Buddhist. So, even though he might not fit the full definition of a Buddhist monk right now, at least he meditates sometimes, which helps him overcome stress, and he’s trying to be more generous and compassionate. So, in this scenario, even if this hypothetical caricature of a hipster Buddhist (who’s not based on anyone I know personally, I swear) is just doing it to be cool, the ends sort of justify the means. Would I prefer the hipster Buddhist guy to fully practice what he claims to believe and not be a big goddamn phony? Probably. But who fully practices what they claim to believe, anyway? At least he picked the right thing to be phony for.
So yes, I’m implying that everyone starts out as a phony with all things, pretty much. Hell, three years ago I picked up writing after not writing for over a decade, and back then I was pretending to be the best goddamn writer on the internet because I thought it was cool. (And, in many ways, I’m still doing this.) And let me tell you, I felt like a big goddamn phony, but I kept doing it anyway. While that was a very phony image I was projecting, that Phonyism inspired me to write more often, which improved my writing ability, which led me to learning how to use compound adjectives and em dashes at least somewhat correctly (although I still barely understand semicolons, despite overusing the hell out of them, and I’m sure most people think I’m pretentious as hell, which I kind of am, I guess). So again, it seems to me that when starting out at something new, everyone is a little bit of a phony, but that Phonyism can lead to good outcomes, like learning how to write, or becoming a Buddhist, or something.
Pardon the overused aphorism, but with everything in life, we fake it until we make it, in some form or another. From new jobs to new hobbies, we all fake it until we make it. This is Phonyism. This is how we learn. This is how we improve. Impostor Syndrome is just part of the human condition. It’s all Phonyism, all the way down. And eventually, the things we pretend to be, we become. This is something young Holden Caulfield didn’t understand; he saw all Phonyism as negative Phonyism, which hurt him in the long run because it led to an inability to adapt and fit in with those around him. It drove him crazy, pretty much, and it got him into a lot of trouble, too.
But, to Holden’s credit, this was something I didn’t understand either back when I was his age—back when I was crossing my arms, hating life, chain-smoking like a fiend, and pretending I was better than everyone else, just like Holden was. Back when I retreated into myself, coasted through life, ended up in a call center for a decade, then in sales, then corporate—all because I saw life as some sort of sick, phony joke that just needed to be ridden out. I thought that by hating everything, calling out the phoniness, and being sarcastic all the time, I was being cool, that I was not participating in the phoniness. But the whole time, all I was really doing was holding myself back.
And of course, the kicker is that, just like Holden Caulfield, I was just as phony as everyone else—maybe even more so; I just couldn’t admit it to myself. But I wish that I had, I really do, because Phonyism isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s actually something to embrace, because if we all recognize that we’re phony, then we can all pretend to be whatever we want to be, which means we can do anything, which means we are unbound, which means we are without limits.
So, the next time you feel like an impostor, remember: you are.
But then remember that you are limitless.
This is the power of Phonyism.
Thank you for reading my Loxley University Graduate Thesis.
If this essay made you feel something, please let me know via email at f0rrest@pm.me.