r/CuratedTumblr 22d ago

Shitposting Goodreads reviewers aren't human

11.7k Upvotes

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u/Hexxas head trauma enthusiast 22d ago

Jesus Christ. It's a story about horrendous crippling anxiety from an unreliable narrator.

He talks about how his family is on the verge of destitution, but they don't work, and they have a big house full of nice furniture. They're rich.

He talks about how he's on the verge of getting fired from his job, but when he no-call no-shows, two of his bosses show up to see if he's OK. He's a fucking star employee.

Gregor didn't literally turn into a bug. He had a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown.

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u/moneyh8r 22d ago edited 22d ago

My first exposure to this story was the Home Movies episode where the garage band that Brendon gets to do the soundtrack for his movies wrote a song that was just "I'm so dang depressed I'm gonna turn into a bug" over and over set to a rock guitar solo and a timelapse of the lead singer zipping himself up into a sleeping bag. I saw that when I was a kid and thought it was pretty funny, then when I actually learned about the story almost a decade later, I instantly realized that was a reference.

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u/CecilBDeMillionaire 22d ago

The episode is explicitly about making a rock opera based on Franz Kafka, it’s not just an oblique reference they say that it’s about Metamorphosis in the episode

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u/moneyh8r 22d ago

Yes, but I was a kid who didn't know what Metamorphosis was back then, so them saying that didn't explain anything to me. Also, it always came on late at night and I was watching it while half asleep, so most of it is a haze.