Interview with Rob Henderson
Rob Henderson is an American writer, conservative political commentator, and bestselling author of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class.
BFFs IRL
Contents
Max Raskin: So you are a part of this Internet people — do you have anyone that you met on the Internet that became a really good friend in real life?
RH: Interesting. Kyle Kashuv — we met online. Razib Khan, the geneticist. Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom host — he and I first met through online Twitter podcasting world, and now we're friends in real life. I would say I have at least as many friends I met online than in real life now.
MR: What about, have you ever met any of your heroes or people that you enjoyed reading intellectually and became friends with them?
RH: There was a period, especially years ago, when Jordan Peterson first appeared on the scene and I had a lot of admiration for his intellectual courage. Now, we're on friendly terms. Glenn Loury — it would be a stretch to call him a friend — but I've interacted with him multiple times. Steven Pinker is another thinker I admire a great deal and now know.
MR: Yeah I don’t necessarily mean BFFs like you guys have bracelets.
RH: I mean, we don't have the bracelets yet. We're working on it.
MR: I want to talk to you about eating. What does your diet look like?
RH: I generally try to keep it pretty low carb. There was a period where I was very disciplined with a low carb, ketogenic-style diet, but doing that over the long term was unsustainable in terms of social life, so I've loosened up on that a little bit.
Parasocializing
MR: You go to a lot of events, right?
RH: Yes, now I do.
It was easier when I was in grad school. There was a period in grad school, where I was rowing, working out, keeping my diet in check. I'd have to wake up at 6:00 AM every morning to row, and so that made it impossible for me to stay out late at night. I would always go to bed by 10:00 PM, 11:00 PM. But now I have much more control over my schedule.
MR: So much of your personality and your background is a part of your writing — do people come up to you and just feel like they know you and start asking personal questions?
RH: I think most people are socially aware enough that they can't come up to me and ask me extremely probing questions. It does happen once in a while, and people will tell me that they feel like they know me. Maybe there's a little bit of that parasocial quality where they've read a lot about me and so they feel like they know me. Initially it was a little strange because I wouldn't know anything about them, and so there was that asymmetry. Over time, I've gotten used to it. When I read about people's lives and then I meet them in real life…in some ways I feel closer to them than maybe I should.
MR: Is your preference to hang out with intellectuals or regular people?
RH: I like both. I don't know if I could choose. I like the intellectual stimulation of talking to interesting smart people who think about a lot of the same things I think about, or completely different topics where they have expertise in, and I can ask them questions or learn from them. But on the other hand, I do like spending time with regular people who don't like talking about intellectual topics. Just sort of taking a mental break from going deep on complex or abstract topics and talking about movies, pop culture, regular stuff.
MR: Do you have best friends?
RH: Yeah, I have best friends.
MR: Where are your best friends from?
RH: Most of my best friends that I spend the most time with now are from college because they live here in the city. I have good friends that I stay in touch with from my hometown.
MR: Do you have any friends from the military that you stay in touch with?
RH: I have one friend that I still stay in touch with from the military.
MR: Why so few?
RH: Well, it's been 10 years since I left, so it gets hard to sustain friendships after a decade of your lives diverging over time. I think this happens with a lot of people. You move on in your life, you get a job, you go to college, and you make some friends, and then your lives start to grow apart. Initially, you try to stay in touch, whether through social media, group chats, texting, whatever. Then the longer time goes on, you make new friends, your social life starts to shift, and then what gets left after five years, ten years are the people who you had a really close bond with initially during those early years.
I think that's what happened with me — I still stay in touch with two guys that I grew up with and then one guy from the military. That's probably because those were my best friends during those periods of my life.
MR: How many group chats do you think you're in?
RH: I'm in too many now. I can't keep track of them all. I know that there's probably four or five that I at least attempt to read and contribute to regularly, but I'm probably in 10 or 12 total.
Recommendations on X
MR: Do you have any apps on your phone that people might not have heard of that you think are great?
RH: This isn’t really an app, but it's a mode on your phone — grayscale — that I'll use sometimes. It modifies your phone to look black and white; it just looks very gray, very dull. It's less appealing and it's a little bit more straining on the eyes. Back when I was in grad school and I was working on my book and my PhD, I’d use grayscale to avoid looking at my phone.
MR: Who are your favorite people to follow on Twitter?
RH: I like Razib Khan.
My friend Richard Hanania is always cantankerous and interesting. He has a certain style that I appreciate.
MR: Is he the most famous person you are actually friends with?
RH: My friend Ed Latimore also has a large following.
The Sociology of The Sopranos
MR: My roommate from college was obsessed with what you wrote about The Sopranos. What is the TV show you think you've watched the most times in your life?
RH: It's funny, I'm re-watching The Sopranos now, so it's probably that one.
MR: Who's the first character that comes to your mind right now?
RH: I mean, obviously, it's going to be Tony because he is the protagonist.
MR: If someone asked you to impress them with a quick ten-second insight from The Sopranos, what would you say?
RH: In ten seconds? That's tough. I've written whole essays about this.
The Sopranos did two different things. On the one hand, I think it promoted this idea that therapy can be valuable, especially for men. It sort of normalized it. It communicated to male viewers that you can have a tough mob boss that’s going to therapy. But if you pay attention to the story, therapy actually makes him worse over time. Despite the fact that it probably helped to get more men to go to therapy, the underlying message is that at least for this character, this specific guy, therapy made him worse in terms of his moral compass.
MR: Yochelson!
RH: At the end, that's right. Yochelson and Samenow.
MR: Have you been to therapy?
RH: Yeah, I have.
MR: Was it a particular kind?
RH: Let’s see. Shortly after I was adopted, therapy was mandated by the social workers and the state because I had been through all the foster homes. I don't know if it helped or not. Then later, as an adult, I went as well. Brief stints here and there, but I don't do it anymore.
Montaigne and Daily Life
MR: What’s a typical day of working for you?
RH: I'll wake up, make some coffee, and I'll read for maybe an hour, hour and a half.
MR: What do you read?
RH: So right now I'm reading Michel de Montaigne’s essays and a new book by Scott Barry Kaufman, the psychologist at Columbia, called Rise Above.
MR: Do you write marginalia?
RH: Oh yeah. I deface my books. I'll write in the margins, underline, dog ear. You can tell when I've read a book, because it's often in much worse shape when I'm done with it.
MR: What book of yours do you think is in the worst shape?
RH: Oh, interesting. I have this book, Prejudices: A Philosophical Dictionary, by the sociologist Robert Nisbet — it was published in the 1980s, and I bought it at a used bookstore a couple weeks ago. It's got yellowed pages and kind of hanging on by a thread.
MR: So after you finish reading for the day, what do you do?
RH: So by that point, I'll take a walk. Usually I'll either make lunch or I'll often have lunch meetings.
MR: Do you have the same thing every day for lunch?
RH: Yes. I'll cook some steak; I'll cook some vegetables.
MR: What kind of steak?
RH: Ribeye usually.
MR: How do you like it?
RH: Rare, medium/rare.
MR: Do you put anything on it?
RH: Salt and pepper.
MR: No garlic powder or anything?
RH: Sometimes I will add garlic powder.
MR: Do you have a favorite place you order from in the city?
RH: There’s a great Thai place called Sabai that I like, and I'll get their som tam papaya salad. I'll also get the red curry with a side of broccoli.
MR: When are you writing or producing?
RH: Usually right after lunch.
MR: Do you drink at lunch?
RH: I don't drink at lunch. I might have a Diet Coke. That’s as adventurous as I'll get during lunchtime. I don't drink and write.
So then I'll get my laptop and I'll spend maybe two or three hours writing.
MR: Do you type everything? Do you handwrite anything?
RH: I type everything. I'll hand write if I'm at home and I have a thought and a piece of paper and pen happens to be nearby. But generally my notes are taken either on my phone or I'll dictate them sometimes on a voice note app.
MR: Do you keep track of your notes in any organized fashion?
RH: No, it is really scattered. I have a couple of Google Docs and if I remember, I'll take all the notes that I have on my phone or scattered scraps of paper and put them in a Google Doc, but the Google Docs are messy.
MR: Can you share with me the last note you wrote?
RH: “An argument stands or falls regardless of where it comes from.”
Living in the Bubble
MR: I want to talk to you about your idea of luxury beliefs. What's the easiest way to signal to someone that you're rich?
RH: So you can always fake being rich — isn’t that the lesson of The Talented Mr. Ripley?
You could do the usual signaling with goods. You could drive a Maserati or something that will indicate that you probably have deep pockets.
MR: You think conspicuous goods is a really easy way to do it?
RH: It's an easy way to fake being rich, but then there are more costly and reliable ways. For example, if you went to a very expensive university. So in the Ivy League colleges, there are more students from the top 1% of the family income scale than the entire bottom 60%. If you go to one of these schools, it's highly likely that you come from an affluent family.
MR: Do you remember Charles Murray’s book Coming Apart?
RH: Yeah. It’s a good book.
MR: And do you remember the “Do you live in the bubble” test?
RH: I remember the bubble quiz.
MR: He should have just asked one question: Are you taking this quiz right now on PBS? If so, you live in the bubble.
RH: Yes — I suppose by the time it reaches your eyes, you're a certain kind of person. People who are on their feet all day working blue collar jobs probably don't have time to take quizzes by social scientists from prestigious thinktanks that put them up on the PBS website.
I took a class with Charles Murray at AEI years ago. I was still an undergrad. It was a summer program, and he had us all take the bubble quiz, so I remember that.
MR: Did you live in the bubble?
RH: No, I didn’t.
MR: Do you remember what your score was?
RH: I think it was 55 or 56. It was the highest in that class of 25 or 30 people, unsurprisingly.
MR: That's cool.
MR: Do you know who Jimmie Johnson is?
RH: No. That was one question I didn't know…I didn't know who Jimmie Johnson was.
MR: But you could recognize a chevron, right?
RH: Oh yeah.
One of the things it asks is, “Have you visited one of these chain restaurants in the last six months?” And it lists like Chili's, Red Robin, Applebee's. What's funny is I still go to those places sometimes. I didn't realize until I got to college that those types of chains were looked down upon, because where I came from, those were nice restaurants. Anytime a hostess welcomes you and seats you at a table, to me, that was fine dining. Then later I discovered that…oh, no, Olive Garden is actually not impressive to a lot of people.
Class and the Borg
MR: Do you feel like a fish out of water in this world that you live?
RH: Sometimes. Over time, I've adjusted.
MR: You've joined the Borg.
RH: A little, but there are times where I feel that identity conflict. I'll still go home and visit my mom and my friends back home.
MR: Your mom's from Korea, right?
RH: Yeah, my adoptive mother. I mean, this is a whole other story.
MR: That's the whole book. Don't get into it.
RH: Yeah, but my mom’s ethnically Korean, but she's not from Korea. My adoptive mother was born there, but moved to the US. She was adopted herself when she was two.
MR: Who do you call your mother?
RH: My adoptive mom. Of all the parents and foster parents from my childhood, she was around the longest.
MR: Do you date people who are part of the Borg?
RH: Well, what do you mean by Borg?
MR: They would get much lower scores than you on the quiz.
RH: That’s assortative mating, right? You tend to date people who are around you, who have similar levels of education and interests.
MR: There’s lots of people around you who don’t have similar levels of education and interests.
RH: No, that's not true. 60% of residents in Manhattan have a bachelor’s degree.
MR: Do you date Borg people?
RH: Yes. But I don't tend to date people who are very politically active or people who do the same kinds of work that I do.
MR: How would you classify yourself by class?
RH: I was probably born into the lower class. We lived in a car for a while. My biological mother and I were probably about as poor as you could be in a first world developed country. Then I went through foster homes, adoption…I’d call that maybe working class or lower middle class.
By the time I got to the military, maybe middle class, and now probably upper middle class.
This is a perennial question. If you look at writers and sociologists and people who think deeply about social class, some claim that you can never really ascend more than a step or two beyond your class of birth. That’s simply because you adopt the mannerisms and the habits and the mindset and the worldview of the class you're born into so much that even if you find yourself moving up or down, it's hard for you to fully become or join that class.
MR: That's interesting about not being able to go down.
RH: If tomorrow Zuckerberg or some of the old money families like the Kennedy's lost all of their money, do they become lower class? Probably not. Because they've spent their time immersed in this upper-class, rarefied environment.
MR: All their social capital.
RH: They have the social capital, they have the cultural capital, they have the connections, and they could probably reverse their financial situation pretty quickly.
MR: So of all the restaurants on the quiz, where is your favorite?
RH: Was Cheesecake Factory on the quiz?
MR: I think so.
RH: I like the Cheesecake Factory.
MR: What do you get there?
RH: I'll get the Buffalo Blasts. I'll get any kind of burger or pasta. Then obviously, at the end you got to get the cheesecake. I usually just get the plain cheesecake.
MR: Who are your favorite comedians now? When you need a laugh what do you do? Memes?
RH: I like stand-up comedy. The last full one I watched was Bill Burr's latest on Hulu.
MR: What about memes? People must send you some pretty “dank” memes.
RH: Yes.
MR: Who sends you the best stuff?
RH: A lot of the stuff is from college friends, people who aren't public figures.
MR: Do you have a favorite meme genre?
RH: Meme genre? I don't think I have a favorite. Images are fine, but I have little patience for videos. If someone sends me a video and it's more than maybe 20 or 30 seconds long, there's a good chance I won't watch it.
MR: Do you have a long attention span?
RH: If I'm interested in something, I have a pretty long attention span.
MR: Do you play video games?
RH: No. I like video games, but I haven't played in a long time.
MR: What do you do to relax?
RH: I'll read. I'll work out. Take long walks. I used to row when I was living in Cambridge, but I don't do that anymore. Now, it's just a regular gym routine.
MR: Do you have any hobbies?
RH: Other than reading and exercise, probably not.
MR: Do you obsessively check your book sales?
RH: No. Initially, maybe the first month after my book came out, I was checking the sales probably much more than is healthy. Then once it became clear that the book was going to be successful, I stopped checking all the metrics.
MR: But you still check every day?
RH: No, I don't. I don't really check anything obsessively.
Generally anytime I start something, I check the metrics to see is this resonating with people? Is it hitting, is it not? Then once it becomes clear that something is going to do well, I stop. I used to check my Twitter following obsessively for example.
Luxury Beliefs
MR: When was the first time you went viral? Or that you knew there was something there.
RH: It was probably the thread I wrote in 2019 on luxury beliefs. At that point, I didn't have that large of a following. I might have had like 1,500 followers on Twitter, but I wrote a thread about luxury beliefs, which was the first time I started speaking about this idea publicly. It started as a Twitter thread, and then some really big accounts started to share it. Then from there, people were asking me to elaborate, and then that became the idea I'm most known for.
MR: It’s kind of cool being known for an idea. When did that idea of luxury belief come to you? Literally just the phrase, not the concept.
RH: I was standing in line at a Starbucks in Cambridge. I was procrastinating on some research paper I was working on, getting another coffee. It just occurred to me that we had luxury goods. Luxury goods are what people care about in order to signal their social rank. Now it’s luxury beliefs.
MR: Like Thorstein Veblen.
RH: Yes — it starts with Veblen. He’s credited with originating this idea of goods where demand goes up as prices go up because people want to signal.
MR: He wrote one of the worst economic essays ever written on why his idea of conspicuous consumption disproves the theory of diminishing marginal utility. I think every step in the argument is wrong.
TV and Music
MR: Do you watch TV before bed?
RH: Right now I’m watching season two of The Rehearsal and as I mentioned, The Sopranos. There are usually a handful of shows that I'm slowly working my way through. Your Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV is not bad, but on the weekends, I'll watch movies.
MR: What about music — what kind of music do you listen to?
RH: Most of the music I listen to is the kind of the music that I liked when I was younger.
MR: Can I guess?
RH: Sure.
MR: Green Day.
RH: Green Day. I have some Green Day in my playlist, but I haven't listened to them in a 0while. I like Green Day. I liked them a lot in high school. I liked The Offspring, Blink-182.
MR: But what’s the music that you loved?
RH: A lot of hip hop from the 90s and 2000s. Biggie, Tupac, early Eminem, the Game.
MR: Who do you think you listened to most last year?
RH: Maybe J. Cole.
MR: What about song?
RH: I don’t remember for all of the year, but for last summer I listened a lot to “Tobey” by Eminem with Big Sean & BabyTron.