Tom Haverford already made a huge splash in the Pawnee business community this year with his Rent-a-Swag clothing rental store for teens, tweens and everything in-betweens, but I’m told by my therapist that he’s just a character on Parks and Recreation and that Pawnee isn’t a real place. So I guess it’s even better news that Aziz Ansari was reportedly just paid a $3.5 million advance on his very first book, according to Publishers Weekly.
As opposed to an autobiography or some kind of memoirs about his 30 years on this planet, Ansari is going to write about dating in the 21st century, which sounds like it could be a same old, same old approach to a worn out subject, but it seems like he’s actually going to put in the leg work, do some serious research and crunch some numbers, as opposed to a lot of other relationship authors who simply seem to use their own experiences to justify why young men and women act like complete morons around each other.
And, of course, it will feature Ansari’s delightful style of humor.
In addition to his first person perspective, Ansari will work with “noted academics” and “conduct original research to help bring this new reality into focus.”
Ansari offered a peek at the book in the statement announcing the deal.
“You know when you text someone you’re romantically interested in and you don’t hear anything back and then you see them post a photo of a pizza on Instagram? That’s exactly what I want this book to deal with. These are strange conundrums that no generation has ever faced before and it’s a fascinating jumping off point for what I hope will be a very interesting book about modern courtship.” (Via The Hollywood Reporter)
Naturally, since everything in this world is a competition, people feel the need to point out that Ansari’s $3.5 million advance is slightly less than Lena Dunham’s $3.7 million and possibly more than other popular comics like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and it’s a dumb topic because they all deserve a lot of money.
For much more important analysis, though, I reached out to Jean-Ralphio Saperstein for his take on this matter.
(Photo via Getty)
