I’ve been watching Devs. I can see why “smart” people don’t like Alex Garland’s work. He leads you down these paths where your prejudices and expectations cause you to assume certain things are going to occur…and then they do not, and not only that, the narrative sort of punishes you for thinking those things.

“Smart” people do not like this sort of rug-pulling. They want to be comforted, told their opinions and suppositions are correct, that their ideas are scintillating when really they are merely clinquant.

This is why Garland’s works are disliked by this class — the dominant one among pundits, white feminists and the like.