Enough With the Bros

David Foster Wallace’s famously long novel, Infinite Jest, turned 30 this month, and an old specter came back with the anniversary: the lit bro, annoying and probably sexist, smugly reading a book that you didn’t. “The book has become shorthand for a certain kind of pretentious, performative, male-coded lit bro,” Lit Hub’s Literary History newsletter observed. “It’s no longer cool, and might even be a red flag.” Has there ever been a cleaner distillation of the type? Pretentious: The lit bro thinks he is smart. Performative: The lit bro reads to impress others. Male-coded: The lit bro is not a woman. Red flag: You thought you might want to date him, but you do not.