Gawker
The offer at right (click to enlarge) recently went out to lifetime subscribers of Dave Eggers' whimsical quarterly McSweeney's. Written in that publication's oh-so-precious house style (which was funny seven years ago but now just makes you want to punch someone) the note starts off as a standard change of address form. But wait, there's more! They want to renege on that whole "lifetime subscriber" thing.
We know that many years ago, you lifetimers gave us $100 for an everlasting subscription and helped us through our infancy. We can't tell you how much we appreciated that. Now that we've somehow kept this thing going for twenty-two issues, we thought that we'd check in with you and see if we could maybe, you know, move on.The 'sweensters promise that this is totally optional, but to entice you to give up your right to receive what you paid for long ago, they're offering a year's subscription to the publication, a "CERTIFICATE of LIFELONG GRATITUDE" (please stop with this fucking cuteness already, you're killing us), a Marcel Dzama card game, and a signed copy of Eggers' What Is the What, which, clearly, they cannot give away.
Now, far be it from us to suggest that there's something untoward about the whole thing, but think about it: You pony up a hundred bucks that you probably really needed back then to support a magazine that (given the history of Might) was probably going to fold after a few issues. Now that the magazine has made it, spawned a couple of other publications, and foisted Neal Pollack on the world, they'd like to renegotiate. Dave Eggers is like a character in a bad comedy who thinks that he has six months to live and makes all sort of wacky promises, only to survive and be forced to carry them out. Actually, that might make a great subject for his next novel!
Comments
Why doesn't Eggers just crank out another annoying book for the unwashed masses?
A heartbreaking act of staggering doucheness.
Inasmuch as the term "welsh" is a slander against the many honorable citizens of Wales, perhaps "Eggers" could be the new word meaning to renege on a promise. Does not solve the "paddy wagon" problem, but it's a start.
A Shiteating Ploy of Shameless Arrogance.
McSweeney's: Little Puppy Gets Fat, Pees On Your Toothbrush.
Sorry, Ray. That was your catch.
That twee motherfuckery is just evil. Death unto Eggers and his lot.
Nah...I liked yours better I think.
The option money must have finally run out.
I got a lifetime rolling stone subscription when i was about 13, and now it's up in 2050. but no cutesy letter. just the regular cutesy covers and generally soul-sucking, back-patting music "coverage".
@Ray Gunn: I'm nominating Ray for Gold Star this week.
Is there any way we could guarantee that the next Dave Eggers news isn't met with a "A [Something] [Something] of Staggering [Something]" quip.
Because really, it's about as played out as Drew Barrymore's vagina. Or, to frame it another way: "The Beating of a Joke to Staggering Un-funniness".
@Zombie G. Zomborgo:
Should specify, that was sort of for the Hoi Polloi commenters. No Gold Star here, folks. Keep panning the river.
Or you could go to the Barnes & Noble on East 86th where there's a ton of McSweeny's on clearance. (My reason for being in that neighborhood will be clear tomorrow.)
Fuck all of you. You're just jealous.
Long live Might mag. I loved that thing.
And speaking of "unwashed masses," check out this comment board.
Don't like those guys. Never did. Not sure why. Don't care to analyze, be it jealousy, insufficient intellect, disorientation, or what have you.
In conclusion, I invite them to consider making a new payment for my lifetime invitation to Mclick my balls.
I don't know... I think he rocks pretty hard.
But if you guys ever want to criticize his hair, I am all down for that. I'll skip lunch if I have to.
i can't read that shit. everything looks like a dispatch from the fucking boston tea party.
@Zombie: Who made you the arbiter of funny? Do you have anything more to offer than a commentary on the comments?
Pffft. I don't give a rat's about gold stars (thanks, tho, Sally), but shouldn't Canadians have to apply for a work permit to comment here?
@ellagood: Yeah, I hear that. I've never been able to get past the first sentence of anything on this site... I always feel like I'm reading a humor magazine from my college (you know, the one that didn't get any campus funding).
We should all run over vigilante style to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, grab Eggers, and strap him up to a bugaboo as a makeshift bumper for the ADD children he is attempting to brainwash.
@KarenUhOh: So awesome -- your catch!
Is it just me or does What is the What? sound like the title of a Ludicris song?
Don't blame Eggers. Blame the suckers who take him up on the offer.
that all this could be yours package sounds about as much fun as a food and wine tour through Italy w/ a bunch of fucking vegans straight outta AA.
My friend, a writer, tried to volunteer to tutor kids at 826 NYC when it first opened and was REJECTED because she wasn't in the special mcsweeney's clique. I've hated them ever since. I'm a lifetime subscriber who will reject this offer simply out of spite.
@titanica: Go you, and while you're at it, quit smoking and look both ways--see how long you can ride this thing!
i thought selling pewter mallard duck drawer knobs out of your store would have been part of a sound business plan. huh.
Not. Even. Surprised.
@Ray:
Don't get all uppity, yo. If you're at any point trying to make a joke at all, or laughing at a joke, or judging a joke to be funnier than another joke you're sort of a priori also declaring yourself an arbiter of funny. Which you did.
Allow me to quote from the Gawk post: "(which was funny seven years ago but now just makes you want to punch someone)".
Random, unrelated fact: A Heartbreaking Work was published seven years ago.
And is being Canadian the best you can bring against me? Seriously? My comments history is just filled with useless, retarded bullshit you could use against me.
You Shall Know Our Audacity!
Well, he did have another book.
Nothing about this seems unreasonable. Eggers is making an offer to "buy back" lifetime memberships, which could be welcomed by some people. For instance, perhaps some subscribers have grown weary of that "oh-so-precious house style"; rather than receive something they don't want anymore, they can cancel their subcription and get a nice little severance package out of the deal. (The fact that this is joined with a change-of-address/are-you-there? form strengthens the impression that this is meant for people who have lost interest--i.e. "if you don't want our magazine any more, just say so and we'll stop pestering you".)
Plus, the $100 lifetime membership probably was a bit of charity; people who were willing to support the magazine in its infancy might be willing to give even more support to keep it going. It's worth asking them, anyway.
When Eggers makes this mandatory and revokes all lifetime memberships, then this becomes a con like the many other cons we've seen on this site. For now, I don't see it. (Mind you, I don't know the man or the magazine.)
I hope someone tries to cash in that Certificate of Lifetime Gratitude for one of Dave Eggers's kidneys, or maybe uses it as leverage to get Neal Pollack to move a body for them.
I'm late to this party, but I just want to add that this shit wasn't funny seven years ago, either. It was actually never funny.
And Might magazine was awesome DESPITE Eggers, not because of him. It was only post- Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Mendacity that it got retconned into a Dave Eggers Joint.
Much like, you know, raising his little brother got retconned into a Dave Eggers Joint. Fortunately, none of the other Might editors committed suicide over having been written out of the picture like they'd pissed off Stalin or something.
Wayull, I think another Eggers title fits this situation best:
How We Are Hungry
Parts of which are funny
i thought this was manhattan media news, how blessed we are that you would take time out of your busy schedule to hate on sf
Wow. Considering that it's OPTIONAL, we might as well start hurling vitriol at our local PBS stations for holding pledge drives.
I'm with lihtox. This seems like a pretty reasonable reaction to the issue of lifetime subscriptions being bounced back; that shit costs money, and it's not like he kicking them out of the club. Listen, I'm no huge Eggers fan; I don't really care enough to hate on him. But I get the feeling there's this legion of people just waiting for him to get his comeuppance.
@Fesser: I always thought it was "welch"?
I know I'm making my mother very proud by always harping on the proper grammar thing, but, what?
"If you're still happily at the address this letter arrived..."
I understand the dilemma. Do you go with the correct yet stodgy "at which", or do you go with the incorrect but more approachable "arrived at"?
[b]inthenearfuture[/b], it's "welsh". And, yes, it's an ethnic slur. As in "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief..."
Crap, I was UBBing when I should have been HTMLing.
The only good thing that McSweeney's ever foisted on the world was John Hodgeman. Yay for carbfaced foureyes that look like me and get bank from Steve Jobs! Boo for all the other poncey dicks at McSweeney's.
"I hated McSweeney's way before it was cool to hate it!"
"I hated McSweeney's before that!"
"No, I hated it first!"
"Well, I personally started the McSweeney's backlash!"
"Oh yeah? I invented the word 'backlash!'"
@Shippy: did you work at Spy?
I preferred the headline "Eggers totally jews us on bet".
Other Eggers writings aside, "What is the What" is a stupendous book about a Sudanese refugee that I hate to see swept into the general hate here. Read it.
I understand Eggers wanted issue #22 to arrive telepathically, in the voice of James Earl Jones, but Jones told them to fuck off.
Eggers is a prick who used people to climb his way up. From Might Magazine days and before. He once gloated to me about taking advantage of a local printer when the magazine first printed, not knowing I was friends with the owner of said printer. Total cock.
This whole post is clearly just some backhanded way to get n+1ers to drop their pants, so that there can be some sort of negativity orgy to be shown on VH1.
Actually, I've always liked McSweeney's, but always been wary of the twee Eggersian whine. That unique kind of wistful GenXness is only tolerable in the absence of veniality, which is why this is so very, very loathesome.
Eggers obviously didn't think he'd make it this far. Why should you make his guilty self-doubt pay off for him?
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