

American Loneliness - prostoalex
https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/american-loneliness?src=longreads

======
scoofy
Just before the article turns to the television show, the author points out
that "every piece of art I’ve ever loved is about the loneliness of other
generations."

Does anyone know where i could find significant pieces dedicated to loneliness
in different eras in history? I also find the topic fascinating, and would
like to see how technology has changed the art in form and subject.

~~~
dkhar
Well, some classic "high school English literature class" books that fulfill
that criteria are Miller's _Death of a Salesman_ and Wharton's _Ethan Frome._

Still in the Western classical canon, Puccini's _Madame Butterfly_ is
fantastic, if you're into opera.

------
securingsincity
I never caught the TV show but the film was fun if not a little hard to buy
because it was so over the top. I think probably the success of the show can
be helped mostly on the high profile catfish of star college football player
Mante Te'o. A very large audience had been first enthralled by the idea of his
cancer stricken girlfriend that he was playing for. But then that same
audience learned both the phrase "catfish" and the hard truth that he had been
duped because that girlfriend didn't exist.[0] It was national news for awhile
and broke thanks to research from Deadspin. How ABC and other outlets
(ESPN,CBS,Sports Illustrated,NYPOST) didn't look up if the girl had existed
before they spoke about it still blows me away.

[0] [http://deadspin.com/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-
hear...](http://deadspin.com/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-the-most-
heartbreaking-an-5976517)

~~~
DanBC
> the film was fun if not a little hard to buy because it was so over the top.

But people who fake cancer to gain friends are over the top.

Ten Year Cancer Hoax: [http://gawker.com/5914621/the-long-fake-life-of-js-
dirr-a-de...](http://gawker.com/5914621/the-long-fake-life-of-js-dirr-a-
decade%20long-internet-cancer-hoax-unravels)

A cancer patient who is befriended by fake cancer patients, not once, not
twice, but thrice: [http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-lying-
disease/Content...](http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-lying-
disease/Content?oid=15337239)

Here's a fake cancer sufferer created by a child and her friends, but
abandoned by them, and then taken over by the mother:

Guardian UK newspaper report:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2001/may/28/internetnew...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2001/may/28/internetnews.mondaymediasection)

Wikipedia Entry
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaycee_Nicole_Swenson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaycee_Nicole_Swenson)

The FAQ
[http://web.archive.org/web/20050115092141/http://www.rootnod...](http://web.archive.org/web/20050115092141/http://www.rootnode.org/article.php?sid=26)
on the wayback machine

The metafilter investigation [http://www.metafilter.com/7878/The-Kaycee-
Nicole-Swensen-Faq](http://www.metafilter.com/7878/The-Kaycee-Nicole-Swensen-
Faq)

Deconstructing Kaycee
[http://psychcentral.com/blogs/kaycee.htm](http://psychcentral.com/blogs/kaycee.htm)

------
laxatives
Am I missing something? This is just a review of some MTV reality TV show. Why
is this article interesting to anyone (least of all Hacker News readers)?

