See Dick Throw a Hissy Fit: The Rise and Predictable Fall of U.S. Culture
By Dr. Lauran Star
America didn't break overnight-it threw a tantrum.
In See Dick Throw a Hissy Fit, Dr. Lauran Star delivers a fearless cultural autopsy of a nation caught between nostalgia and chaos. Through razor-sharp satire and uncompromising analysis, she resurrects Dick, Jane, and Sally-not as innocent childhood characters, but as modern archetypes of America's political theater and cultural meltdown.
Dick embodies grievance. Jane clings to the myths. Sally sees the whole mess coming-and calls it out.
This book dismantles the manufactured myths, weaponized nostalgia, and fragile identities that have dominated U.S. culture from the Civil Rights era to the Trump years. Dr. Star exposes how America perfected the art of the "hissy fit"-a cycle of outrage, denial, victimhood, and regression that has shaped policy, leadership, and the national psyche.
This is not polite commentary. It's a bold, satirical, deeply researched exploration of how cultural fragility became political strategy and how the nation's most powerful tantrums drove us into the modern era of polarization, disinformation, and performative patriotism.
Blending social psychology, historical insight, political critique, and dark humor, See Dick Throw a Hissy Fit reveals the predictable patterns behind America's cultural decline-and why the next chapter depends on whether we confront our tantrums or keep reenacting them.
A provocative must-read for anyone ready to understand how America unraveled-and what it will take to rebuild.
About the Author :
Dr. Lauran Star is not here to play nice-she's here to dismantle the status quo with a mic in one hand and a blowtorch in the other. A US Army veteran, organizational disruptor, and workplace equity architect, Lauran doesn't write books to coddle egos. She writes to confront, awaken, and leave a cultural bruise in all the right places. Her career spans 20+ years of flipping toxic leadership on its head, rebuilding broken systems, and calling out performative diversity from the boardroom to the classroom.She's been the executive whisperer behind healthcare powerhouses, the sharpest voice in DE&I strategy rooms, and the unapologetic truth-teller in spaces that confuse whiteness with neutrality and comfort with correctness. Whether she's on stage, in print, or dragging entire policies by their privilege, Lauran brings the fire-and the receipts.Her work has appeared in think tanks, HR transformation playbooks, and whispered warnings passed between fragile CEOs. She's also the creator of the Workplace Equity Nexus, which redefines how organizations move from intent to impact.When she's not rewriting systems or disrupting mediocrity, you can find her raising disruptors of her own at home-because change doesn't pause for homework.This is not your standard HR leader. This is a revolutionary with credentials. Judi Harrington is an editorial strategist and writing coach who specializes in helping disruptive thought leaders articulate uncomfortable truths. With a sharp eye for cutting through cultural BS, she transforms rebellious ideas into compelling narratives that actually get read.As editorial strategist for See Dick Throw a Hissy Fit: The Rise and Predictable Fall of US Culture, she helped shape this unflinching examination of American society's spectacular meltdown-making it digestible for readers while ensuring they didn't set themselves on fire in the process.Author of Fuckery: The Life and Times of A Legend (In Her Own Mind)-a memoir in essays that serves as both a middle finger to perfection and a love letter to family-she's as willing to skewer herself as the sacred cows of contemporary society.She lives in Medford, Massachusetts, where she continues helping authors say the things that need saying, even when-especially when-nobody wants to hear them. LISA McKENNA brings a lifelong career in design and a deep love of visual storytelling to this book. She began her career in publishing and still loves the rhythm of words and images working together on the page. For more than twenty years, she co-led a Boston creative agency, shaping brands and campaigns long before design went digital.When the world paused in 2020, Lisa found a new canvas in digital art that reignited her creative voice. Her work has since been exhibited in London's Tube, Paris, Times Square, Art Basel, and featured in 100 Artists to Watch catalog, juried by Christie's and MoMA.Her latest venture, Rebel Art Lab, offers courses for the curious who to experiment, question convention, and explore digital fine art. What began as a "quarantine experiment" has grown into a community of hundreds of creatives who are welcoming digital art into their practice.
