Making his Mark: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck becomes a documentary
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck transformed the global self-help industry. Its best selling market per capita? Australia. As he prepares to turn the book into a documentary, author Mark Manson shares a few thoughts on why.
Mark Manson is feeling lost. This seems an unexpected state of mind for someone who’s built a career on giving others life advice — especially the man who taught the world how to give less of a f*ck. But recently, Manson has been coming to terms with the fact he’s made his contributions to the self-help industry, and that perhaps it’s time to apply his skills elsewhere.
“My motivation for writing The Subtle Art was that we needed to have more practical advice, more scientific-based advice … stuff that’s helpful for people dealing with day-to-day struggles, instead of the, ‘this will change your life in three days’ stuff,” reflects Manson, who made money as a pick up artist (an online dating coach) providing men with “emotionally healthy” dating advice on his now-defunct blog Post Masculine, before he turned to the field of self-help. “And I did that. And now that is the normal message in the market and so … I feel kind of lost again.”
He pauses, and then adds that this is definitely for the better. “The market is much healthier now. A lot of the things that I was saying seven years ago, I was the only person saying them. Now there’s hundreds of people saying them.”
It’s true. When The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck was published in 2016, it completely altered the tone of what was once considered the domain of pseudo-philosophers and hippie soul searchers. “Back then, if you were reading a self-help book, you’d put another sleeve on it,” says Manson. But the no-nonsense, pragmatic style of advice contained in Subtle Art was based on academic research, and it resonated with generations of people that were raised to believe positive self esteem was the key to happiness, but who, like Manson, saw the limitations of this theory and, ironically, the unhappiness it bred.
The book contains three main messages. The first: not giving a f*ck doesn’t mean being indifferent; it suggests becoming more comfortable with the inevitability of adversity and failure. Second: to not give a f*ck about adversity, you must first give a f*ck about something more important than adversity (like family, or the environment). Third: “We all have a limited number of f*cks to give; pay attention to where and who you give them to.”
Despite being almost eight years old, the book continues to dominate bestseller lists; it’s sold over 15 million copies, has been translated into more than 65 languages and turned Manson into one of the world’s most bankable writers (he spent three years helping the actor Will Smith write his 2021 memoir, Will, and in 2019, penned a follow-up to Subtle Art about hope. It’s called Everything Is F*cked).
People all over the world live by Manson’s advice. Interestingly, but perhaps not shockingly, on a per capita basis, Manson’s work is most popular in Australia. “It’s my best market by quite a bit, actually,” he says. It also sells well in Singapore and Russia, “but it bombed in Japan and China.”
When we ask Manson why he thinks Australians have been the most receptive to his advice, he pauses to think. “My personal conclusion is that societies where there’s tension, that seems to be where the book really lands. Societies that are a little bit more relaxed and homogeneous … they don’t seem to identify with the advice as much.”
Perhaps our desire to maintain a facade of laid-back-ness in the presence of Western hustle culture makes us the perfect candidates for Manson’s ‘care less’ approach? “I don’t know what it is,” he demurs. “But I love Australia. Whenever I’m there on a speaking tour, I’m always texting my wife telling her I want to move there.”
New Zealand is another antipodean country Manson has taken a liking to. In 2021, he spent four months there filming the most challenging project of his career: the documentary adaptation of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
If you’ve read the book and you follow Manson’s blog, you might be wondering what new spin a documentary is going to put on Manson’s ideas — ideas that, by his own admission, he “didn’t make up”. “I just repackaged them and put f*ck on the cover,” he concedes. The truth is, the documentary doesn’t really introduce any new philosophical ideas (it’s structured like a long interview with Manson, with captivating animations breaking up the monologue). But in the film Manson is candid about his personal struggles — his parents’s divorce, the death of a close friend, the break up of a formative romantic relationship — experiences that have shaped his outlook on life, and the style of his advice.
“I’ve always been pretty open with my personal life, so there wasn’t really any anxiety or trepidation about worrying whether something was too personal or not,” says Manson. “But when I saw an early screening of the film I was like, ‘please, please don’t embarrass me.”
Again, it’s odd to find the king of no f*cks worrying about how he looks on screen. But even Manson admits that sometimes, he needs to take his own advice.
“I sometimes tell people that I write this stuff because I need it. The fact that other people have seemed to need it, too, is just the side benefit. But my first audience is myself,” he says.
As for those ‘other people’ — 15 million of them – Manson acknowledges that today, they have far more sources of advice to choose from.
“As somebody without an academic background, I saw my job as reading all the academic research, and then I would translate it for people. Now the professors just start translating it themselves, and I’m like, ‘that makes my job harder’. You know? I’ve lost my advantage.”
“The market has moved again, so I feel like I’m kind of … I’m looking for my next dumpster fire to put out. I feel like that’s just like my role.”
The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck is available for digital download on iTunes, GooglePlay, TelstraTV, AppleTV and PrimeVideo from January 11.