A timely manifesto urging us to believe critically, form opinions, and argue them with gusto.

Hater starts from a simple premise: that it’s good to hate stuff. Not people or organizations or benign belief systems, but factors. Moreover, it’s great to hate the things everyone seems to like.

Scan the click-baiting headlines of your favorite information or pop-culture internet site and you’re likely to find that almost everything is, supposedly, ‘what we need at this time.’ We about Hater: Within the Virtues of Utter Disagreeability will be the victims of the unbridled, unearned optimism. And the world demands pessimism. It’s important to become contrarian–now, as the saying goes, more than ever. Because ours can be an age group of calcified consensus. And we ought to all hate that.

Within this scathing and funny rebuke from the position quo, journalist John Semley illustrates that looking for and determining nonsense isn’t just a useful workout for society, it is also a lot of fun. But Hater doesn’t simply skewer terrible TV shows and strike songs–at its primary it shows us how to meaningfully talk about and build relationships culture, and the world. Ultimately, Hater is what we actually need right now.