Jon Lindsey, co-founder of Cash 4 Gold Books, the indie press that published Peter Vack’s Sillyboy, recently told me he believed Peter was hardwired to the internet through an IV drip in the crook of his elbow. We were discussing the overwhelming number of memes about Sillyboy that Peter was posting across several Instagram accounts, creating an inescapable presence for the book on social media. That’s probably why it showed up in one of my dreams: I checked it out of my university library, but as I started reading, I noticed that my ex-partner had covered the text with his handwriting, making the book unreadable. That’s when I woke up. The Summer of Freud came for me too, apparently.
Sillyboy, the erratic love story between the struggling eponymous male starlet and his tattoo artist girlfriend, Chloe, gained traction on social media thanks to Cash 4 Gold’s bet on Peter Vack’s prolific meme-making skills, much like Vack’s now-infamous Poem did. Both appeared in countless Instagram stories, praised by scene-adjacent people who claimed not to be readers or poetry enthusiasts, yet were captivated by Vack’s words. Soon, videos surfaced of Vack’s embodied performance of the Poem at readings, and of the Sillyboy micro-celeb-studded release party at Gonzo’s. Before Vack’s writing actually reached me, I felt as if I had already read, heard, and seen it, and I was ready to dismiss it as just a scene spectacle—not necessarily a good one. Nevertheless, I decided to give the novel a chance and was surprised to discover that, beyond the performance, it offered an engaging and innovative reflection on modernity.
The plot of Sillyboy is fairly commonplace—set against the backdrop of Instagram-obsessed 2015 New York, it explores the dangers and consequences of jealousy in a romantic relationship between two beautiful, image-obsessed individuals who respond to life’s challenges mostly with crass narcissism. The narrative is split between Chloe’s despair over her inability to retain her boyfriend’s attention and loyalty, despite being very hot and cool, and Sillyboy's musings on the struggles brought on by his physical perfection and perceived genius. Throughout the novel, Vack’s narrator oscillates between discreet mockery and overt tenderness toward the characters, leaving us uncertain about his stance on the various internet phenomena he deals with. From provocative comments on woke politics, gender dynamics, class consciousness, and cancel culture that make you wince, to the depiction of intense emotions stemming from abusive relationships—whether romantic or familial—,Vack’s Sillyboy explores what happens to individuals when the self is constantly on display.
As for the Poem, it is an autofictional, tragicomic, loghorreic scene piece, filled with brilliant witticisms and some offensive punches, all organized around anaphoras stemming from memes like “Nooooo put me back…”, “You come to me on this the day…” and, of course, “Pussy from…”:
“Pussy from guy who says “teleologically” at the bar
Pussy from a girl who’s read the Wikipedia on Poetry
Pussy from jealousy
Pussy from zero eq dude
Pussy from guy who hates his dad
Pussy from guy with same haircut as you
Pussy from guy thirsty for an indie press
Pussy from guy who needs psychoanalysis
Pussy from narcissism of small differences
Pussy from your heckler’s gorgeous angelic genius ex
Pussy from a guy who’s addicted to sex”
In both works, what captivated me most were the parts where Vack obliquely reflects on time, trends, and the futility of the latter given the elusiveness of the former. I remember discussing the Poem with author Allie Rowbottom, who wrote about the Sillyboy release party, and sharing my perplexity, as someone living in France, at the accumulation of hyper-specific scene references, despite my time spent delving into Dimes Square’s cultural productions and politics. She mentioned that many of these references would likely remain obscure to most and were meant to be fleeting and ephemeral. Moreover, when I asked Peter to send me the written version of the Poem so I wouldn’t have to repeatedly consult the recording posted by Dana Dawud on her Pleasure Helmet podcast, he sent me three different versions, each straying from the recording. I found his approach to transience as the only permanent feature of his writing quite innovative, especially given his background in cinema, the art of restlessness par excellence.
I began to see Vack’s foray into literature as a hyper-ironic and delightfully self-aware statement on ephemerality—of culture, the internet, and even himself, as a self-proclaimed niche internet micro-celebrity. The Poem is not so much about being in on the clout joke; it’s about experiencing disorientation and instability in the form of a 21st-century performance that reuses the codes of 19th-century French salon aesthetics. But this time, Vack is naming names, some of whom will soon be swallowed by the very internet that made them recognizable in the first place, only to be replaced by new ones.
Just as the Poem offers a reflection on our inability to experience anything more tangible than the present moment, Sillyboy explores the theme of obsolescence—of trends and relationships, which are only ever outlasted by narratives, as pliable and unreliable as they may be. Sillyboy, an egomaniac with a distorted sense of the outside world, makes a Faustian pact as an acne-riddled teenager to become beautiful, only to find his attempts at success constantly thwarted—or so he believes—by a society that finds his perfection boring, lacking in character, and devoid of potential for greatness once he reaches his late twenties. Supported by loving parents, desired by beautiful women, and convinced of his exceptionality, Sillyboy lacks the substance that would make him a real—successful and recognized—boy.
Vack excels in passages where the narrator examines Sillyboy under a microscope, with a blend of disapproval and tenderness only a parent could possess. Sometimes outdated, overpowered, and belittled, Sillyboy fails to recognize the relative banality of his journey, marked by a gradual erasure from the very book that bears his name. His first act in the story—getting 'his name tattooed over his bellybutton with a stylish new spelling'—is an attempt at reinvention that simultaneously scrapes off or at least archives parts of his identity, a perfect metaphor for what the internet is and does. Like Vack’s speaker in the Poem, he is provocative, subversive, and at times filled with immense, unrelatable privilege—a portmanteau figure whose beauty serves as a blank canvas for modern indignities and anxieties to be projected upon.
The dramatization of Sillyboy’s effacement takes many forms, the most notable being the way Chloe claims the narrative focus for much of the book. Compared to her genuine concerns over her boyfriend’s betrayal, Sillyboy's discourse is hilariously meta, commenting on the constant flux and polarization of internet culture. His naïveté and lack of self-awareness—'What if Sillyboi has made a mistake in his self-appraisal?'—drive the narrative, alongside the substanceless newspeak in some of the dialogue, such as Sillyboy's exchange with his friend Ivan who describes his boundless pride at producing a pre-brunch ritual video that garnered 3.5 million views. Finally, Chloe’s jealousy and Sillyboy’s envy crystallize a brilliant reflection on the influence of porn, plastic surgery, and Instagram aesthetics on interpersonal relationships, exposing the destructive effects of society’s conflicting and relentless desire for both change and permanence.
Sillyboy and Vack’s Poem are as much reflections on internet culture as they are products of it. They explore a potential avenue of fiction in the post-2020 era, shaped by corecore aesthetics, shitposting, doomposting, and meme-posting. Vack’s experimentation with tone, atmosphere, and levels of irony—including jabs at his own literary practice—, along with his ability to create chaos by blending different narrative layers and incorporating multiple voices, is a testament to his sharp understanding of contemporary culture.
By setting Sillyboy roughly ten years in the past—an eternity by our immediacy-obsessed 21st-century standards—Vack tells the story of a world already lost to us, a funeral we should attend with both glee and a hint of fear. It becomes a reflection on the passage of time and the various processes of erasure at play as the world marches toward catastrophe, all conveyed through one of the most enduring modes of expression: writing. Vack’s experimentation with form is most striking in his manipulation of narrative levels, creating proximity with the reader through often hilarious direct addresses, a technique he masters in his Poem.
Vack’s writing walks a fine line between irony and sincerity, keeping the narrative’s tone ambiguous throughout. Even when venturing into parody or satire—whether poking fun at health-obsessed holistic discourse or narcissistic psychological self-diagnosis pervasive on social media—he never mocks or takes a clear stand. Instead, he comments on the obsessions of our age without judgment, while always remaining aware of their fleeting nature.
