ethan was a young genius who was promoted to middle school when other boys were in third grade. Because he was so small he was a target of young Johnny and Dee Dee Sidebottom, who would kick his ass every day in a bid to impress Amanda Kenyon, Tamarah P, Katherine (who was legit cute, the only Babbler I’d consider a looker), and ‘ooligan after their phases of tortured-soul and disaffected-heroin-chic didn’t work out for getting chicks. ethan was humiliated as Adriana planted a kiss on Johnny and grabbed Dee Dee’s ass as she moaned, “take me now, I don’t want to die a virgin!” as ethan lay on the ground beneath the victors, blood smearing the scratched lend of his glasses. Life was unfair. ethan was conscious that he was physically weaker than the Sidebottoms (who, conversely, were high-school-aged and had been held back.) He began to harbor deep insecurities about his masculinity and from there it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to sexuality and he developed a full-blown homophobia.

“good luck buddy” showed that, under all the rage and misogyny at the core of his wounded masculinity, ethan was fundamentally a good, decent guy. He had called Ken a fag, sure, but he didn’t want to part in strife. He could let bygones be bygones and embrace Ken as a long-time fellow Babbler who would be missed. Vaya con Dios, buddy.

I think this is what ChatGPT was getting at. Like Georg Solti’s martial take on the Eroica, in some sense it has sussed the essential humanity of ethan. Far from a hallucination, the hagiography of Ethan (as ChatGPT proudly caoitalizes it) proved that in issues of human nature, psychologists and philosophers are next towards the great job chopping block that will reorder industry. ChatGPT is the next BetterHelp.