Frankie Muniz has gone from Malcolm in the Middle to a millennial approaching middle age

Mel Magazine

Muniz's Twitter account has become a tally of the 34-year-old former child star's chronic ailments, both literal and spiritual, says Miles Klee. "You could say that his Twitter presence, by turns banal, self-loathing, misanthropic, yearning, vague, Wife Guy-ish, mystical and sexually forthright, is a committed exercise in asking the public to regard his pains and his pleasures as actual substance, and not an abstract comedy — only to have thousands laugh anyway," says Klee. "On and on, the catalogue of calamity unfurls," Klee adds. "He splits his head open whitewater rafting. His feet hurt in a way that is specific yet unaccountable. He wrecks his cars and gets in motorcycle accidents going a mile an hour. He’s fond of the rather dated initialism 'FML,' or 'f*ck my life,' which he’s appropriated as 'Frankie Muniz’s Life,' a catchphrase that pertains equally to getting dicked around by the IRS, breaking a jump rope (and whipping himself) and oversnacking. Yet in documenting these agonies large and small, Muniz reaches a philosophical equilibrium you might call peace."