I hate what Andy Weir said.

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Have you ever seen a meme or a post like this one before?

[00:00:06]Well, whether you have or not, just bear it in mind because it's at the heart of what we're talking about here today because I haven't been able to get this meme out of my head since making a video a few weeks ago on something that Andy Weir said. For those who don't know, Andy Weir is a very prolific and successful science fiction author who wrote the books The Martian, Artemis, and Project Hail Mary. Now, I want to make it clear right from the beginning that Andy Weir hasn't said anything new.

[00:00:36]At least to my knowledge, that is as naive and short-sighted as the last thing he said. But that thing he said, which I talked about in that video, really, really frustrated me. And when making that video, I was very aware of how much time I was giving to certain topics. and angles. And I said that I could talk forever about a particular thing that he said, but I didn't want to because I had a lot to cover. And I had plenty of comments from people encouraging me to do just that. You know, gloves off. Let's really dig into the problem with what Andy Weir said.

[00:01:07]So, that's what we're going to do here.

[00:01:09]Because this isn't just about Andy Weir.

[00:01:12]This video is not intended for me to just throw more punches at Andy Weir, but rather at a situation which his comment kind of embodies. Because the thing that Andy Wear said, and I'll repeat it here just to remind you, or if you didn't see that video, it is a perfect encapsulation of a broader social issue that is also pretty well communicated by the meme that I shared at the beginning. So, just as a reminder, this is what Andy Whis said that is the focus of this video today. I dislike social commentary. Like, I really hate it. When I'm reading a book, I just want to be entertained, not preached at by the author. Plus, it ruins the wonder of the story if I know the author has a political or social axe to grind. I no longer speculate about all the possible outcomes of the story because I know for a fact that the universe of that book will conspire to ensure that the author's political agenda is validated. I hate that we said I put no politics or social commentary into my stories at all. Anyone who thinks they see something like that is reading it in on their own. I have no point to make and I'm not trying to affect the reader's opinion on anything.

[00:02:19]My sole job is to entertain and I stick to that. In the description will be links to articles that I shared in the last video detailing where I got that quote from, etc., etc., as well as a link to that video so you can see what my initial reaction was. But in this video, I'm going to share some of the comments that I got from very insightful people who had interesting things to say and I think they deserve to have their thoughts and their words amplified a little bit. So, I'm going to share them here in a little bit. And this time I want to take that paragraph line by line and dissect it because as I said everything that Andy Wear said in that paragraph is emblematic of a broader social issue when it comes to privileged cishat white American men and the things that they have to say and the way that they perceive the world. Let's dig into it. Cishat white American author Andy Weir begins his statement by saying, "I dislike social commentary. like I really hate it. When I'm reading a book, I just want to be entertained, not preached at by the author. Let's start there. Here's the thing about social commentary.

[00:03:21]Typically speaking, if you are happy with the status quo right now, say you're a middle-class Republican who makes a decent amount of money, pays a reasonable amount of tax, has a happy suburban life, and no real complaints.

[00:03:34]In that situation, you are going to be far less likely to create art that has any kind of social commentary.

[00:03:40]Obviously, if you did make any art, there would still be political themes in it, whether you know them or not, as one brilliant commenter said, and I'll bring that up in a little bit, which means that social commentaries are typically made by people who have been in some way, shape, or form let down by society.

[00:03:57]And statistically, historically, it's more likely that those people are going to be of an ethnic minority background, of an immigrant background, of a workingclass background, of a queer background, or of some other minority background, like being a woman, for example. Whether you know it, whether you mean it, whether you are cognizant of it whatsoever, when you say you dislike social commentary, it could be read as disliking anything that anyone has to say who isn't a dominant member of society who profits off the status quo, i.e. a middle-class cishat white American man. Political commentaries are usually made by people who aren't happy with the political, economic, social state of their nation or of the world at large. Political commentaries are made by black artists, by queer artists, by female artists, by workingclass artists, by immigrant artists, by people who have, as he put it, an axe to grind. If you don't like that, if you really hate social commentary, you really hate it when anyone has anything to say about the injustices of our society, often as they pertain to their own people, i.e. marginalized groups of all different shapes and sizes. And you can see at this point how all of this kind of reads as either a white man's ignorance of social issues and the oppression of minority groups or it could even be argued that that person actively dislikes when people have anything to say about social injustice. That doesn't sit right with me. That makes me very uncomfortable and very angry. In my previous video, I had a lot to say about Star Trek because a lot of Andy Weir's comments were related to Star Trek and I am a big Treky. It was clear from his comments that Andy Weir doesn't know anything about the heart and soul of Star Trek who Gene Rodenberry was, what he stood for, the changes he was trying to make and demonstrate through the existence of Star Trek. And I could go on and I don't want to. This is not another Star Trek video. But in his next sentence, Andy Wear said this. Plus, it ruins the wonder of the story if I know the author has a political or social axe to grind. I hate to tell you this, Andy Weir, but Gene Rodenberry had a political and social axe to grind. The writers of Star Trek have political and social axes to grind. They always have.

[00:06:24]That's why Star Trek is the way it is. A political axe to grind might look like a future society that has entirely done away with capitalism, even down to no longer having money. A political ax to grind might look like the first TV show in the history of the world to feature an interracial kiss. A political ax to grind might look like gender equality. I I I could go on and I said I wouldn't.

[00:06:47]I'll stop talking about Star Trek now, but it's funny. It's ironic and it's honestly a little bit painful to hear someone talk about how they don't like when someone has a political axe to grind almost in the same breath as saying how much they love Star Trek and wish they could have made a Star Trek TV show. Like that's ridiculous. This next line, I think, is desperately naive when it comes to what kinds of politics people explore in their fiction. I no longer speculate about all the outcomes of the story because I know for a fact that the universe of that book will conspire to ensure that the author's political agenda is validated. I hate that. I love that you keep saying how much you hate social and political commentaries. That just fills me with confidence. The phrase political agenda will be validated is deeply frustrating to me. For example, I am a queer writer.

[00:07:34]I have written queer stories about the transgender experience. My stories have been inspired by things like medical bias against trans people, the physical dangers that we face when we go outside into the world on our own, and the ways in which we are expected to perform both digitally and physically in order to get the approval of the rest of the world.

[00:07:57]I've written stories on all of these topics and I will continue to do so. So what exactly is meant by political agenda being validated? Because if I or I guess any queer author has a political agenda with their fiction, it's going to be raising awareness of how we are treated. Raising awareness of how society could treat us better, raising awareness of the abuse that we face, raising awareness of what the equality that we could have might look like, etc., etc., or loads of other things besides. You can just have a story with a trans person in it that is just a story with a trans person in it because trans people are allowed to have happy endings. Trans people are allowed to fall in love. Trans people are allowed to be terrible and make mistakes like anyone else, etc., etc. When you say this, the universe of that book will conspire to ensure that the author's political agenda is validated. It feels like gaslighting if I'm honest. That's how I interpret it. As if what we go through isn't valid. As if the experience of a woman walking home at night feeling frightened for her physical safety isn't valid. As if a black man driving through the American suburbs fearing the moment that the cops are going to pull him over for being black, yank him out of his car and beat him up. As if that isn't real. As if that is an agenda. As if by writing fiction about that we are validating it only through the fiction. Like otherwise it's just not a thing. This is not a political agenda. This is us making you aware of what life is like in our shoes, the shoes of anyone who isn't a cishat white American man. Our fiction will validate our experiences in so far as it reflects our experiences. When you say agenda, we mean inspiration, motivation, the metaphors that we lace our fiction with. These are not agendas so much as they are purpose and as I said metaphor and inspiration, themes, ideas, expression, human expression through our art. Calling it an agenda is weaponizing your language. Calling it an agenda makes it sound like we are doing something twisted. This is conservative dog whistle 101. Calling what we feel, what we experience, the art we create, and the messages of our art an agenda makes it sound nefarious, like we're up to something. We are not up to something, Andy. We are trying to express ourselves through our art, just like you are. But I guess your art has no politics in it according to you.

[00:10:22]Therefore, it must be lifeless. But it does have politics in it, doesn't it?

[00:10:26]Because everything does. Next, Andy Weir says this, and here I'm going to introduce some comments that other people have said. I put no politics or social commentary into my stories at all. Anyone who thinks they see something like that is reading it in on their own. I have no point to make and I'm not trying to affect the reader's opinion on anything. My sole job is to entertain and I stick to that. I'm going to let some brilliant comments from some brilliant people speak for me here. So, it's not just him coming from a position of privilege, but of profound and curious ignorance. Does he even read sci-fi? Like did he never read Asimov or Clark or Heinland or Nan or Leguin? It is disappointing that he thinks his perspective so universal and baseline that to depart from it is to depart from the human baseline. The man should know better. What a waste. You say apolitical, I hear fine with the status quo. And this next comment, this this really got me thinking. This is in particular in response to what he said at the end of that paragraph. Years ago, I used to teach creative writing. And one of the first things I told my students while teaching about theme is that your story will have something to say about the world around you, whether or not you are aware of it. So, you might as well make sure you know what it's saying from the get-go because astute readers will see it even if you don't. And that is very much reflected in Andy Wear's writing. Anything that we read as political in his fiction, and there is plenty of it, is something that we have to assume based on what he's said he is not aware of. But it is extremely telling of what his politics are, what his lived experience has been, etc., etc. Because when you write fiction, you write it based on your experiences and the world that you live in. We are sponges. We absorb everything. We see, we hear, we experience. Everything around us, every day that we live inspires how we see our lives, see the world around us, see everything. And when we put all of that into fiction, that fiction will reflect the world around us. And the world around us is political. There is nothing you can do about that. The only way to create art that isn't political is for that art to exist outside of human experience, outside of time and space.

[00:12:50]But no matter how inhuman you made it, if you made a sci-fi novel about a square and a circle falling in love, well, why isn't it a square and a square? H, is this a gender thing? I'm being silly, but you get my point.

[00:13:04]Everything is political. You grow up in a heteronormative world, you're more likely to write heteronormative fiction.

[00:13:10]It's not outwardly political, but it is political. You haven't attempted to write something political there, but you have assumed a heteronormative stance based on the world around you and put that into your fiction. Thus, politics.

[00:13:22]And to bring up Star Trek again, this commenter said something brilliant. Gene Rodenberry created Star Trek for the sake of political commentary. Like Rod Sterling, he did science fiction as a way to do social commentary without running a foul of the network sensors.

[00:13:37]It wasn't even remotely hidden.

[00:13:38]Rodenberry putting an alien, a black woman, a Japanese American, and later a Russian on the bridge was very political and very risky. It was the first series to feature an interracial kiss, which was massively political. Famously, none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[00:13:55]persuaded Michelle Nichols to remain on the show because the presence of a black woman on the bridge was such an important political message. We seems to have no idea what Tre has always been about. But I also agree that any sort of commentary on the human condition, which all good storytelling is, will always have some political point of view. A lot of people in the comments also brought up the critical drinker, which is what sparked all of this. He was on the Critical Drinker podcast, and that was a red flag. And at the time, I was not really sure who the Political Drinker was. I know he's a YouTuber. I know he has like 2 million subs, I think. and I know he mostly reviews films and my experience with him was one day the algorithm showed me one of his videos.

[00:14:40]It was a review of some Star Wars related thing. I think it was the acolyte. I clicked on it and about 20 30 seconds in he used the R word. Now unlike the nword, when I say the rword, you might not know what I mean and how else to describe it but an outdated and offensive slur typically used to imply that someone has severe learning difficulties. and he used it immediately. Now, the critical drinker is Scottish. I live in Scotland and I have to say this doesn't just apply to Scotland. This is all of the UK. I have not heard anyone use the R word since about 2002. That word has been a big no no in this country for like 20 years.

[00:15:21]People don't say it. If you say it, you're being inflammatory. You are being purposefully cruel. In my opinion, I do generally think it's more likely to hear that word from an American. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'm really sorry, but it doesn't seem to be quite as taboo in the States. That might not be right.

[00:15:39]So, please correct me if I'm wrong there. But the critical drinker is British. And him saying that just shocked me. I was like, we we don't no you don't say that. Nobody says that.

[00:15:49]What is wrong with you? Okay. And I clicked off it. Then when I was looking at the comments, I realized, oh, okay, the critical drinker is specifically conservative, anti-woke, all of that tired internet I'm so done with that. I'm too old now. I I can't.

[00:16:02]And so it turns out the critical drinker is far more of a loser than I ever realized he was. And Andy Weir being on his podcast in particular is well, it's a choice, right? So to wrap up and bring all of this back around to that meme I shared at the beginning, this is why everything that Andy Weir has said here is emblematic of a much larger issue where the status quo is that which focuses inward on the person at the center of society which as it stands right now is a middleclass cishat white American man. And I unfortunately am a big fan of video games. I play a lot of video games. I am at least slightly aware of the kinds of things that gamers say. I'm also aware of the kinds of things that film bros say and so on and so forth. This attitude as exemplified by that meme is that there are two races, white and political. There are two genders, male and political. There are two sexual orientations, straight and political, and so on and so on and so on. When you say that something has a political agenda, the underlying implication, at least as I've learned it to be, is that the thing with the political agenda is not white or is not male or is not straight. It is something outside of the status quo in some way, shape, or form. When someone says, "Keep politics out of my video games, out of my films, out of my books, whatever," history teaches us that what they're saying is, "Keep ethnic minorities, keep religious minorities, keep lowincome workingclass people, keep queer people, keep women out of my art, out of my films, out of my video games, etc. How am I not supposed to read all of that into what Andy Weir said? He hates political commentary. Therefore, he doesn't like it when people have an agenda. And Andy Weir is not alone. His comment is like a placard held up by all of the cishat white American men who don't like being reminded that women direct films, that black people write fiction, that queer people create beautiful art, that we have things to say, that we have axes to grind. Andy Weir is not alone in his statement. Far from it. in fact is starting to feel like it's the norm. It's the ordinary thing to say or at least it is the thing said by so many people who exist within the status quo benefit from the system as it functions right now and don't like the idea of having to face an alternative. Face any other way of living because it benefits them. Don't rock the boat. Don't have anything to say. Don't be counterculture. Don't think outside the box. Don't wonder if there is another way to live, another way of doing politics, another way of existing, another way to make the world a fairer, more equal place for everyone.

[00:18:54]Don't think about that stuff. Focus on the stuff that isn't political. Cishat white American men. Those are the stories we need. We don't have enough of them after all. Subscribe for books.