As far as I can tell the message of the movie is "consumerism is bad because it's emasculating and feminizing, real liberation can be found in ruthless hierarchies of masculine violence"
The only person I know who likes it IRL also has a tendency to complain about the "pussification of modern men"
Discussion of themes, part 2 - :joker-dancing:
I'm gonna do something I deeply dislike doing and discuss nihilist philosophy. This means more Nietzsche, sorry.
Nihilism is one of those things at this point. Y'know it's so saturated into the public zeitgeist that you probably have some idea of what it is just via cultural osmosis.
Rather than prattle on like a fool for, like, a couple hundred words I'll spare us both the indignity and link to a video essay that does a better job of summarising nihilism than I possibly could for anyone reading this that legit doesn't know, but at this point you all probably get the gist.
Ok, with all that out of the way, let's talk about Fight Club's connection to nihilism.
Back to "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (listen I read a lot of Nietzsche as a sad and angry teen, let me have this) Nietzsche writes, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?" Or if you aren't a completely pretentious wanker, our current moral system is built upon layers upon layers of different religious beliefs and as the trend of declining religiosity continues, these morals will need to be evaluated and as people we will need to decide what should be kept and what should be discarded. And more to the point, what defines a meaningful existence in a world deprived of reason behind its presence?
I feel that this same conundrum is one that fight club wrestles with, Tyler Durden exists to present us with what Nietzsche postulated would the the solution to a nihilistic existence (striving to become an Ubermensch) and through the Tyler Durden, Fight Club presents a criticism of this answer.
As discussed in my previous comment, Project Mayhem is formed almost exclusively from those who have been convinced that they are unable to attain a meaningful existence and through Tyler Durden's rhetoric they are convinced that they can reclaim their masculinity and thus meaning through violence and conformity to the goals of Project Mayhem, but ultimately Project Mayhem only serves to destroy them, the one meaning they find in life is but to die as martyrs.