American Psycho Today: Patrick Bateman in the Age of AI and Instagram

Written By James Taylor
Patrick Bateman Would Have a Perfect Feed and Nothing to Say

AI, Status and the Perfect Lie

Patrick Bateman Would Check His Engagement Before He Checked His Conscience

Imagine Patrick Bateman waking in a Manhattan apartment today. Before speaking to anyone, he checks his sleep score, the response to yesterday’s workout video and whether a colleague has been invited somewhere he has not. His morning routine is ready to film. An AI assistant has drafted a thoughtful post about leadership. He has not decided whether he agrees with it.

That is one plausible answer to what American Psycho would look like today. Bateman would still measure human worth through wealth, appearance and access. Social media would make those comparisons continuous. Artificial intelligence could supply the opinions, messages and images needed to maintain his public personality.

Bret Easton Ellis’s novel appeared in 1991 and depicts the affluent world of 1980s Manhattan. Mary Harron’s 2000 film turned its rituals of competitive consumption into some of cinema’s most recognisable black comedy. This is a speculative modern reimagining of those themes, rather than a description of an announced adaptation. It discusses the original story’s violence and unresolved ending without graphic detail.

The useful question goes beyond which apps Bateman would install. It concerns what would happen when a man who already experiences himself as a collection of desirable surfaces gains tools that can manufacture those surfaces for him.

The Business Card Scene Would Become a Private Account Comparison

The business card sequence works because the differences are so small and the emotional consequences so large. Paper and lettering become evidence of a man’s place in the hierarchy. Bateman experiences another person’s taste as a personal defeat.

A modern equivalent could begin with four phones laid beside drinks. Someone opens a colleague’s profile. The photographs are understated. The right people follow him. An apparently casual weekend image reveals access to a house none of them could book.

Bateman studies the details. The watch is almost hidden. The caption contains no obvious boast. That makes it worse. The colleague seems to possess a level of social confidence that allows him to display less.

Follower counts alone would be too crude for this circle. Bought attention would carry little prestige among people who pride themselves on recognising it. The argument would concern which followers matter, who appears in the background and whether a particular invitation was earned or purchased.

The cruelty lies in the shrinking distance between an ordinary post and an intimate verdict. Bateman could leave dinner believing he had performed well, then spend the journey home discovering that everyone else had apparently enjoyed a more exclusive evening.

His humiliation would follow him into bed. He could refresh it whenever he wanted.

He Could Work in Finance and Still Sell Himself as a Founder

Moving Bateman into a technology company is an obvious update, but keeping him near finance might be sharper. Wealth still needs people who arrange transactions, cultivate clients and explain why the people already holding money deserve more of it.

He could work in private equity or manage investments for wealthy families while describing himself online as a builder. His biography might list several advisory positions. An AI venture would provide another title, although the audience would remain unsure what he contributed.

This ambiguity would preserve an important feature of the original. Bateman’s professional identity matters enormously to his status, while the substance of his daily work often feels strangely remote.

A contemporary version could show him practising an explanation of his company’s mission for a podcast. He knows the language of transformation. Asked which customer problem the product solves, he returns to the size of the opportunity.

Artificial intelligence would serve two roles here. It would be a practical tool and a prestige term. Bateman would resent being thought technologically ordinary, even if he understood little about the systems attached to his name.

The satire would turn on the difference between building something useful and securing public credit for being the sort of person who builds things. His most carefully managed asset would be the impression that he belongs in the room.

AI Could Write the Personality He Struggles to Produce

Bateman already consumes culture partly as a script. His knowledge of labels, restaurants and music helps him perform a recognisable version of sophistication. A modern Bateman could ask generative AI to prepare that performance.

Before dinner, he might request an informed view of an exhibition. Before a date, he could draft a charming response to someone’s interests. Before publishing a leadership post, he could ask for a warmer tone and one detail suggesting vulnerability.

These would be imagined uses by a fictional character. They do not establish that using an assistant for writing makes someone dishonest. People routinely use editing help to express ideas they hold. Bateman’s particular attraction would be the possibility of producing the appearance of an inner life without doing the work that appearance implies.

The joke could develop through small failures. He repeats a polished interpretation but cannot answer a follow-up question. A colleague delivers almost the same anecdote, generated from a similar request. Both men briefly suspect the other of stealing something neither created.

NIST’s generative AI risk profile identifies confidently presented false information and homogenisation among the risks such systems can introduce. For Bateman, those limitations would offer rich comic possibilities: an invented fact delivered with perfect composure, or a supposedly distinctive worldview shared by every man at the table.

He would pay for a better model after discovering that someone else sounded more original. The problem, in his understanding, would be the subscription tier.

Instagram Would Turn His Life into a Production Schedule

Bateman’s apartment would need to function as a home, a set and proof of his judgement. The kitchen might contain expensive equipment that appears more often in photographs than in use. A book left open beside coffee would have to communicate the correct interests.

The novel’s long inventories could become an account of the labour behind apparently effortless posts. Which image looks least arranged? Which detail suggests money without seeming desperate to display it? How many attempts are acceptable before spontaneity becomes difficult to believe?

He could be sincerely distressed by a beautiful moment that photographs badly. A dinner might fail because the lighting makes his skin look tired. A holiday could become intolerable when another person publishes a better version of the same view.

The camera would influence what he chooses before he experiences it. He would reserve the room that produces the right background, then spend the visit comparing it with photographs of other rooms.

This would give the story a different rhythm. Original Bateman often catalogues what surrounds him. Modern Bateman would also monitor how successfully those surroundings travel through a screen.

There is comedy in the extra work. He has bought enough comfort to avoid many ordinary inconveniences, then constructed a daily obligation to prove that comfort to strangers. His assistant could organise the upload schedule. Someone would still need to keep checking whether the audience cared.

His Body Would Become a Dashboard

The skincare routine would survive easily. Today’s version could add wearable devices, elaborate recovery equipment and consultations presented as essential investments in performance.

The point would concern his relationship with measurement. Sleep, exercise and medical care can help people live better. Bateman would treat every reading as evidence that he was defeating other men.

Imagine him receiving excellent results and feeling furious because a colleague claims better ones. A morning spent caring for his body becomes another competition he cannot finish. Even rest must demonstrate discipline.

His public language would emphasise longevity, consistency and responsibility. Privately, the prospect of ageing would threaten the only identity he trusts. He could describe his routine as preparation for a long life while showing almost no interest in what he wants that life to contain.

An especially sharp scene would involve his inability to enjoy good health without public confirmation. A workout that fails to sync might feel wasted. He might repeat an activity because the record is incomplete, then complain that technology prevents people from being present.

The contradiction would belong to Bateman. The story would lose precision if it treated every gym member or person wearing a fitness tracker as a miniature version of him.

Dating Apps Would Make His Language of Ranking More Explicit

Bateman would approach a dating profile as a positioning exercise. The photographs would communicate fitness, money and the possibility of access. The written answers would suggest just enough humour to make the calculation look accidental.

He might maintain different versions of himself for different audiences. One woman receives literary curiosity. Another encounters an apparently spontaneous traveller. AI could help prepare the messages, while his genuine attention remains fixed on whether he has secured the response he wants.

The ugliness would emerge when the woman becomes specific. She disagrees with him, changes a plan or reveals a need that cannot be converted into admiration. Bateman has prepared for preferences he can mirror. He has little patience for another person’s independence.

A contemporary story could also make his private vocabulary visible. He discusses desirability as though it were a market price. He treats rejection as evidence of malfunction because the profile has already established his supposed value.

Yet the apps should also create resistance. A date can compare messages with a friend. Someone can preserve what he said and challenge the version he later presents. His efforts to maintain separate identities could produce contradictions.

The important target would be his entitlement. Dating technology supplies an environment in which he expresses it; it does not explain away his responsibility for deception or abuse.

The Manosphere Would Offer Him a Ready-Made Excuse

A modern Bateman could find an audience prepared to interpret detachment as strength. He might consume advice that turns every relationship into leverage and every disappointment into proof that someone has failed to respect his rank.

He would select whatever language protected his ego. Vulnerability could become weakness when someone asks him to apologise, then become evidence of courage when he needs sympathy. The ideas would change according to what they permitted him to do.

His dependence on approval would make the performance of independence especially comic. He might record an explanation of why successful men ignore outside judgement, then repeatedly check whether people admired it.

This is where a modern version should resist making him too composed. The character’s cruelty does not make him insightful. His confidence can collapse under a minor comparison. A stranger’s indifference can occupy him longer than a serious moral accusation.

The existing analysis of Patrick Bateman provides the foundation: his polished appearance conceals profound instability. An update could put that instability into public circulation, where a clip can remove the embarrassment surrounding a gesture and leave only the appealing silhouette.

Bateman might eventually encounter an admiring edit of himself. For a moment, someone else’s editing would give him the commanding identity he has been unable to sustain in ordinary conversation.

LinkedIn Would Give Him a Moral Vocabulary

Bateman would understand the value of appearing thoughtful about work. His professional profile could discuss inclusive leadership, mental health and the importance of listening. Those subjects would offer opportunities to display judgement without surrendering power.

The sharp scene would follow the post. After publishing a reflection on empathy, he dismisses a junior employee’s problem because it disrupts lunch. At a charity event, he knows precisely where to stand for the photograph and cannot remember the name of the person explaining the cause.

This would be satire of the gap between his language and conduct. Employers and individuals can make real commitments to the values they discuss. Bateman would exploit the fact that a polished statement is often easier for distant observers to inspect than the behaviour behind it.

AI could make that statement quicker to produce. It could not make his conduct consistent with it. An assistant might improve the apology he is preparing while he complains about the person who expects one.

The richest humour would involve genuine conviction about his own decency. He could regard the public statement as a completed moral action. Having announced that he listens, he feels unfairly burdened when someone asks to be heard.

A Chatbot Could Become His Most Carefully Managed Relationship

A private AI conversation offers another possibility. Bateman could explain a conflict while leaving out the details that make him responsible. He could ask why other people misunderstand him and seek an answer that protects his preferred account.

This does not require a chatbot that always agrees. A responsible system could challenge him or refuse a harmful request. His revealing response would be to edit the question, abandon the conversation or try elsewhere when he receives an answer he dislikes.

NIST identifies risks around human overreliance on AI and emotional entanglement with such systems. The fictional extension would concern Bateman’s wish to be understood without allowing someone else an independent claim on him.

He could enjoy the language of intimacy while retaining control over the encounter. There is no dinner to compromise over, no remembered disappointment unless the system retains it, and no other person whose welfare must matter to him.

At the same time, the conversation could expose his dependence. A service interruption might provoke more anxiety than a friend’s absence. A routine change in response style could feel like rejection.

The satire would arise from his attempt to purchase frictionless recognition. He wants confirmation that someone knows him, while continually altering the information from which that understanding must be built.

Digital Abuse Would Broaden the Story’s Violence

A contemporary American Psycho should take seriously the ways harm can travel through screens. Its violence need not consist entirely of updating the original’s physical brutality with newer equipment.

Impersonation, harassment and fabricated intimate material could threaten a person’s safety, livelihood and control over their own identity. NIST’s profile includes abusive synthetic content and information integrity among its areas of concern. These are real categories of harm, although any incidents involving this imagined Bateman would be fictional.

For him, the attraction would be an extension of an existing desire: treating another person as something he can arrange. A woman’s refusal would become intolerable because it establishes a boundary his money and appearance cannot erase.

The story should remain with the person facing that harm long enough to show its consequences. Time spent correcting false claims is time taken from work and relationships. Being believed by friends may not stop strangers from encountering the fabrication.

Giving those people names, routines and allies would strengthen the adaptation. Bateman’s narration attempts to reduce others to functions in his life. A modern story could challenge that reduction through evidence and perspectives he cannot fully control.

Its most important technical choice might be refusing to make the abuse a demonstration of cleverness. The interest belongs in what it costs another human being and how people respond.

Cameras and Messages Would Make His Original Freedom Harder to Preserve

A modern setting creates a practical problem for Bateman. A phone, a booking system or a payment can leave a record that contradicts his account. Other people have cameras and message histories. Wealth cannot guarantee that every copy disappears.

An adaptation would need to respect that friction. Simply giving him an app that removes all evidence would weaken both the thriller and the satire. A credible digital world should sometimes frustrate him.

The more interesting question concerns what happens after information emerges. Who connects it? Who has time to examine it? Does a plausible public reputation influence the initial response? Can people preserve evidence while facing pressure to withdraw?

These are choices for a hypothetical story, rather than claims that any particular institution would protect him. He might benefit from loyalty, confusion or cowardice in one scene and meet an investigator who refuses his assumptions in the next.

The tension could run through an assistant who knows his calendar better than his friends know his character. An apparently minor inconsistency becomes meaningful because someone remembers the person affected by it.

The comparison with Orwell’s surveillance anxieties has limits. American Psycho would focus on private status, desire and moral evasion. Its digital traces could nonetheless make being watched a source of exposure as well as control.

Deepfakes Could Change the Argument About His Confession

The original story leaves viewers and readers wrestling with unstable accounts, mistaken identities and the failure of confession to produce clear resolution. A contemporary version could add synthetic media to that uncertainty.

Bateman might publish a disturbing recording and discover that the first argument concerns its authenticity. Some people believe it. Others suspect a stunt, an altered voice or a fictional performance. His established persona influences what each group finds plausible.

The existence of deepfakes would not make genuine recordings worthless. Material can be authenticated through context and corroborating evidence. A careful adaptation should give that work weight rather than imply that technology has made truth inaccessible.

Its bleak possibility would be more specific: public certainty can become fragmented even while investigators are establishing facts. A confession could accumulate reactions faster than shared understanding.

That would connect Bateman to the wider problem of bots, propaganda and synthetic media. A message’s reach and persuasive force do not establish whether it is true.

He could become furious when people interpret his admission as unusually committed performance art. Meanwhile, someone identifying a real victim might struggle to move the discussion away from his face, tone and supposed intentions.

The failure would concern attention as much as belief. People could accept that a person had been harmed and still spend most of their energy discussing whether Bateman had damaged his brand.

A Manufactured Reputation Would Have Limits

It would be tempting to give modern Bateman an unlimited supply of artificial supporters. A stronger story would make the difference between appearing influential and being trusted harder for him to control.

The commercial trade in manufactured credibility is already a regulatory concern. In August 2024, the US Federal Trade Commission announced a rule addressing practices including AI-generated fake reviews and the commercial misuse of fake social media indicators under specified conditions. That announcement provides a concrete reference point for reputation becoming something people attempt to manufacture.

For the fictional Bateman, artificial applause could become another source of uncertainty. He might inflate a public signal and then find himself unable to enjoy it because he knows what he bought. A rival’s smaller audience might remain more socially valuable.

This would prevent the technology from solving his central problem. Paid visibility cannot force a desired person to admire him. A generated endorsement cannot give him the memory of having earned it.

His obsession might eventually turn inward. Which responses are genuine? Which friends like him? Which part of the profile would survive if he stopped paying the people and services maintaining it?

The man who wanted an indisputable ranking would find himself surrounded by numbers he had helped make unreliable.

The Funniest Version Would Let Him Fail at Being Unique

A modern adaptation would need room for sustained embarrassment. Bateman could not spend every scene looking intimidating against expensive architecture. That would reproduce the advertisement he wants to inhabit.

Imagine his outrage when several colleagues arrive wearing the same discreet luxury item. Each has been advised that it communicates individuality. Nobody wants to acknowledge the recommendation.

Or consider a supposedly personal apology whose wording appears in another man’s post. Bateman resents the duplication but cannot explain why he recognises the template so quickly. At dinner, he performs expertise about a cultural event until someone who attended asks where he sat.

These scenes would expose a particular weakness. He seeks distinction through systems designed to make desirable choices widely available. He follows recommendations while resenting the people who receive them too.

AI would sharpen this tension because he could request originality directly. He might keep asking for a more authentic voice until the output matches an admired colleague’s manner. The demand reveals what he means by authenticity: recognition on favourable terms.

The audience should see the effort. A smile practised before recording. An apparently relaxed photograph rejected for making him look too eager. The interval between a notification and his attempt to pretend it does not matter.

That interval is where the black comedy would live.

The Ending Could Leave the Audience Inside His Business Model

The weakest ending would reveal that an algorithm had made Bateman cruel. That would give him an explanation too convenient for a character who spends so much energy avoiding responsibility.

A better ending would preserve human choices. Someone harms another person. Someone believes a warning. Someone dismisses it because taking it seriously would be inconvenient. Technology changes what these people can do, but it does not make their decisions for them.

Bateman could face exposure and still discover that the public argument keeps rewarding his presence. An interview intended to confront him produces a flattering clip. A critical documentary generates demand for his clothes. People who condemn him remain curious about his apartment.

The story would need to make that discomfort visible without pretending every viewer shares the same response. Some would reject him. Others would defend him. Many could recognise the critique and still feel the pull of the image.

One possible final scene returns to his phone. A serious allegation has reached an audience large enough that he can no longer ignore it. For once, he has no polished response ready. He opens the analytics before opening the message from his lawyer.

Below the post, a stranger has asked where he bought his coat.

Sources

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