Is The New "American Psycho" A Silicon Valley Tech Bro?
Brett Easton Ellis thinks Patrick Bateman would fit in well in Cupertino.
In 1991, Brett Easton Ellis introduced Patrick Bateman, an immaculately dressed, Wall Street Banker and full-time psychotic murderer in American Psycho. Nine years later, Christian Bale brought Bateman to life, playing a deranged careerist who slaughtered his victims in a spotless Manhattan apartment. Sixteen years after the film, American Psycho is now a play, bringing the same late-eighties capitalist fervor to new audiences, but Ellis imagines the specter of Bateman haunting a new setting: Silicon Valley.
In an essay for Town and Country, Ellis said he’s thought about Bateman’s life after the events of American Psycho. In the late nineties, Ellis said Bateman would have founded several dot coms, partied in the Hamptons, and eaten up the East Coast. But a true 21st century Bateman would have assimilated just as well in the software-mogul and tech-bro social scene of Silicon Valley.
I think that if I had written the book in the past decade, perhaps Bateman would have been working in Silicon Valley, living in Cupertino with excursions into San Francisco or down to Big Sur to the Post Ranch Inn and palling around with Zuckerberg and dining at the French Laundry, or lunching with Reed Hastings at Manresa in Los Gatos, wearing a Yeezy hoodie and teasing girls on Tinder.
It’s a perfect fit. Patrick Bateman on Tinder is every woman’s nightmare.
Look, there is no good reason to ever involve power tools on a first date.
Bateman loved the thrill of tossing money around, and Silicon Valley has turned Venture Capitalism into a sport.
Dear Inverse investors, we swear this isn't personal.
He loved working out, and looked damn good doing it. Tech bros also love working out — start ups are often pressured to offer crazy perks like in-office Crossfit classes or gym memberships.
Crossfit! Crossfit! Crossfit!
Hell, it may have been a critical flop but Batman v Superman did nail down the super-villain tech bro trope.
Ellis also said he could have seen 21st-century Bateman back in the Financial District as a hedge fund manager, but there are few places that nurture the frenetic energy and psychotic greed of an American Psycho better than Silicon Valley.
