Kallyphornya

I'm too dense even to figure out what the issue is, but I love the fact that Gawker collects the opinions of so many others who can school me on this.

Even if it's all just in the name of page-views. Which I am also not against.

skahammer

jackvinyl

heartbreakturnip

Oh, and by "we", I mean you.

Niko Bellic

But really it's the first rule of seduction. Never go right for the c*ck.

That said, sigh. Balk.

cassandra

freewrite

heartbreakturnip

Ha Ha Sound

TerseNursePornstein

[alexbalk.tumblr.com]

Did he post anything on his blog about my NYT Mag cover featuring "my c*ck"? No--o-o-o. But to you, he apologizes for being selfish!

MisterHippity

The tear-down impulse is very real, and I agree that it exists. That said, I think that's more a function of sloppy writing and research than bad commentary. Keep in mind that the internet has created more amateur writers than any other event in human history, many of which tell lies, do poor research, or aggrandize/distort events. This skepticism is healthy, and ensures that information passes a rather strict bs test before being accepted.

Aggressive skepticism an excellent substitute for citation, which I would argue was never effective to begin with.

ADismalScience

BrianVan

@Zorica: As with us all.

belltolls

@cassandra:
I agree that something has changed with these new generations and that unfortunately, we are stuck with this level of narcissism until the whole thing blows. Or crashes.

But i also think that there will still be those of Emily's age bracket not working for fame, repulsed by the whole enterprise, and i am greatly looking forward to this backlash, even if it is only temporary.

@powerblonde:
Gould = Bradshaw 100%. Perhaps this is why JA glommed on to her in the first place. Emily actually is what Julia wants to be. But JA will always be Scrunchy to us.

Mackintosh-Typos

Zorica

powerblonde

@ADismalScience: Well-written, sir. I see what you're saying. Re: Emily, I would only argue that she is still in the stage where her raw talent really promises something bigger in the future. But we keep expecting her to advance slowly and quietly, and I think it's time to accept that our culture has changed forever, and that the author-as-personality is a permanent change. Emily's generation has some bizarre lack of filter and needs to be looked at. In another generation, she might have labored in obscurity, but that's impossible now. We've always celebrated young, attractive, self-obsessed writers. ALWAYS. But also, it's going to be like this, forever, because these are the people who are writing now. They are Gessens and Goulds and people who want to be famous.

As for commenter culture, I understand what you're saying about the marketplace of ideas, and I used to believe it, but I don't now. Beyond funny comments -- which there are plenty of here -- there is a rush to polarization on commenting boards that often has little relation in scale or impact with the actual subject at hand. People get crazy when they get on the Internet. There's an immense tear-down impulse that I think has gotten out of hand. It's like people want to differentiate themselves by what they hate. And so they have to hate more things.

cassandra

Hez

Don't you have to be an undergrad to still refer to your "sleeping partner" as a "boy?"

raincoaster

[gawker.com]

Oh, and the Earl Grey just popped-in above. This is a weird nite.

jackvinyl

Masspoliticsgirl

belltolls

But what I really care about are the samplers. I'm afraid I'm going to have skimpy attendance this weekend (my presence is required at, of all places, the Mandarin Oriental in DC. Look for me at the bar in my little black dress, trying not to look too shocked at being invited and having loud opinions, thus embarrassing my host) and I'm bummed because I wanted to get started on a fish pillow inspired by the one I saw in Richard's video, only bigger and with bedazzled scales.

Oh, and sometimes I ask for forgiveness, but I never beg. There's only one thing for which I beg, and that's because it's really good.

Zorica

the earl grey

Koreanish

Attractive women bloggers are nothing new for the NYT Mag:

[www.nytimes.com]

Seeräuber Jenny

years later, she lives with her cats

if_i_only_had_a_heart

belltolls

I really disagree with a big portion of your first bit, and I'm going to quote it because I disagree so strongly. I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a writer or a journalist and no expert on these matters.

Where our generosity went, and our willingness to see things from a different point of view. I wonder this about Gawker all the time -- like, as we commenters criticize every bit of behavior and decisions that others make in their lives, how much of it is a weird way of putting pressure on others to conform and be just like us?

It's not that at all!

Commenting is a public, identity-driven feedback mechanism. It is a process whereby we establish personal brands in the course of analyzing the material - or, as threads progress, other comments. It is built not on conformity, but on conflict; typically it's the fastest way for people to disagree and find each other. In the course of this process, you often find groups forming together to shout down an opinion, but that's value-added; strong ideas achieve buy-in from the body politic. It's an expression of processes that used to be wrapped in circulation figures or sales, and it moves lightning-quick toward consensus. This could be mistaken for conformity, but it's really just a rapid information exchange.

Furthermore, the debate isn't about what we're doing to Emily. It's about what Emily provides us. She doesn't present a sports event, market movement, or important event for us to analyze; she presents us with her own life and attempts to establish its events as indicative of the world at large. There is a value in such things, but I'm afraid that all she's shown me so far is a stark desperation for material and cultural success, a modicum of writing talent, and a shameless disregard for other people's reputations.

Where do I see that ending? Psuedo-celebrity. Minor financial success. A body of inconsequential low-culture pieces about the froth of young men and women in a Machiavellian world of abuse and distrust. She furthers every aspect of what I find disdainful about internet culture toward no noble end whatsoever.

And none of this is as bad as the fact that her writing, initially, seemed genuine, raw, and destined for something larger. Instead, she's already hooker her perpetual media motion device meager dark energy of her "persona" and doesn't seem to be concerned that, absent intervention, the height of her journalism career might be the time she dueled her ex-boyfriend's article with her own. How sad.

ADismalScience

@cassandra: You are basically saying that you like Emily's writing because she reminds you of you. Put another way, you are saying that she is not a narcissist because her writing reminds you of you. Which might mean she is not a narcissist, but it might also mean that you are one. PSYCH!

triplethreat

"I don't think she's media-whoring, because (sigh) she has an actual interest in these things"

What things? Herself and her relationships? Her friend Julia Allison? What she looks like in a bathing suit? The many feelings and thinky thoughts she has about herself and her relationships, her friend Julia Allison, what she looks like in a bathing suit, her job at Gawker and the huge social import of all of these things?

You might think she is a decent writer--I'd say she is a decent crafter of sentences, but has so little to say that it doesn't amount to much. I'd put her feminism in the same category. And her current project of watching herself watching Sex and the City over on Jezebel is so fucking convolutedly self-absorbed and self-promotional it almost makes the Times piece pale in comparison.

triplethreat

I disagree that Emily was like the mean girl on the playground. I read those comments, and know it was a popular point of view, but I don't think that was the case....at least, not always. I think Emily had an honest-to-God identity crisis at Gawker. Imagine you come in every day and you have hundreds of snarling wolves in your comment section waiting for you to fuck up, or some just won't like you, ever, and all are critical. That takes a toll on a person, as a human. From what she wrote, about herself, I suspect Emily felt she had to keep up with Gawker's meanness and that it was not easy for her and eventually made her hate herself and the job. And then the cracks started to show and her stuff became unreadable.

I maintain that Emily's work is not about Emily. For two reasons: Emily's theme of "what the fuck am I doing with my life" applies to us all. And when you read her writing,you think of your problems. When you read Balk, you just think Balk is smart or funny. You don't think about you.

cassandra

Zorica

jackvinyl

Then again, we could always watch the episode on the Internet.

thecomicscomic

That's a tough argument to make. I mean, yes, maybe James Joyce could argue that if he "could understand Dublin he'd understand the world" or whatever the quote is, but I don't think the world exists in Emily's navel.

For the record, I did like Emily. I thought she brought some spark and individualism to the site. Ironically, my least favorite posts of hers were scrutinizing other people, not herself. That whole back and forth with that Robert Butler writer was just unreadable and sad. The same with the John Fitzgerald Page exchange to an extent. Emily sometimes seemed like the mean girl on the playground.

But then she posed in a bikini giving the middle finger, and I was all "you go, girl!" So I'm torn.

Steverino Begins

BeRightBack

I took time off and watched Speed Racer tonight, enjoying it much more than I thought I would, sitting there almost alone in a theatre on cheap ticket Tuesday. Which probably discredits my every opinion, but it put a spring in my step on the way home, even though I could never figure out why one character had a Korean name while his sister had a Japanese one. But it's corniness soothed me, as did Emile Hirsch's white-panted haunches in the opening scene. So: bons rêves!

BeRightBack

cassandra

Are you making a nihilistic "print is dead" argument or one about the mutually assured destruction of print, online, Josh and Emily all?

I was actually joking. I just meant, if E gets to tell her story to 2 million people about how her boyfriend was an asshole, and he only got to tell 400,000 that she was an asshole, then that is the ultimate test of relationship power.

cassandra

In terms of old world "prestige" the ranking still stands. But in terms of hearts and minds, I don't think it holds true. For me, hearts and minds are more important.

And legs. Also legs. I really, really like long, lean legs. On girls. As for guys . . . yeah, let's stick with hearts and minds. (And! and and and! nope, Zorica, leave it! Good dog.)

Zorica

ian spiegelman

ian spiegelman

cassandra

Steverino Begins

jackvinyl

This Emily/Josh thing, if it even is a thing at all, seems very much in progress. This is the bell sounding for the next round.

We can't go by the old hierarchies, but that doesn't mean there isn't order.

Then again, winning is always subjective. Karen Allen's Berkshire heaven sounds like a win to me, but there are people who will only see that as a capitulation.

Zorica

Gould's essay doesn't matter much, but neither does anything else that's been written lately. It just doesn't. But this stage will be wiped out by another stage, and a few of us will be remembered when the net reloads. Gessen won't. But Emily will.

ian spiegelman

cassandra

Josh vs. Emily is so blah blah blah. Doesn't anybody realize that we haven't even figured out important things yet, like Little Debbie vs. Hostess?

srsly tho, I'm liking the blogs vs. print angle.

SnootchBucket

Zorica

It's just that seeing all these heated opinions about Emily makes me just want to put a cold cloth on my forehead. We've heard it before, and it's senseless. I've had my share of frustrations with Emily's overshare too, but when I see comments criticizing Emily for media-whoring, I just have to wonder if anyone was paying any attention at all. It's like Lit Crit 101 -- examine the author's work. Emily didn't engage in anything as a cynical exercise. She really cares about this stuff, about relationships and life and making sense of them as she finds her way in the world. She seems to really believe that other people must share her concern about the "HOW" of life -- how to live right? How to handle relationships?

Like yea, I got kind of annoyed when her posts seemed to just be lazy and navel-gazing and thoroughly checked out. But you know, then we have to look at why our reaction is so strong and out of proportion to her crimes. Why you, me, we, the creative underclass or whatever, can't give this 26-year-old girl room to just develop and make mistakes and find her voice. Where our generosity went, and our willingness to see things from a different point of view. I wonder this about Gawker all the time -- like, as we commenters criticize every bit of behavior and decisions that others make in their lives, how much of it is a weird way of putting pressure on others to conform and be just like us? To excise anything that makes them individual and interesting and themselves? And why are we threatened by that?

Emily put herself out there, but God bless her delusion, it's because she thinks she's contributing some perspective to how young people think and manage relationships, and these things that haven't been figured out. And you know, she has a point-- have you figured it out? I haven't. So maybe we shut up and listen a bit and evaluate her argument and debate it and realize that even though Emily's writing is all about Emily, it's actually paradoxically also not about Emily at all.

So I don't know. The way Emily looks at the world, and picks it up, and examines it, and agonizes about it, seems to hint more at the natural instincts of a novelist than any of the pretentious fools she seems to like to date. I would say her only mistake is in taking second-billing to her boyfriends all the time. It's an identity issue. Her writing style is not elegant; it needs to be developed. But how's about we all maybe stand back, see her as a fellow traveler in our own struggles, and cut the bullshit in which we pretend we're better than her? (Denton)

Plus she is a feminist and there are a lot of misogynistic mofos all up in here.

cassandra

I was thinking of it more in the terms of "can you really be a good (insert craft here: writer, etc) and also expend energy cultivating, and more importantly selling, a personality?" Presentation is always important, but so many times I see people who are well-presented but that seems to have left them precious little time/energy to really develop what they are presenting.

It borders on being a catch-22, because in order to get this kind of exposure you have to either be extremely lucky, or else work your butt off (and usually both). But if you've worked so hard on that part of it, that doesn't leave a lot of chance to really get in-depth with your supposed main focus. I'm not a writer, but I imagine it's like other projects. It needs lots of days with consecutive large blocks of uninterrupted time. Hard to do that and market a personality also.

With Capote I get the sense that he cultivated the personality on the side, but I don't think what he was up to would result in NYTMag covers in today's world. Or would it? Aside from being very present socially, I don't know what else he was up to.

Zorica

belltolls

kielbasasausage

Ohhh that Alma Mater!

Streeter

Streeter

(Disclosure: I do think Gawker will be written about in 5 to 10 years, positively, and about its influence.)

Coen, Balk, Oxfeld, Spiers -- and a number of others -- will all be at the top.

But looking at the talent, and where these writers will be in that time, could make for an interesting story. Heck, it's an interesting story now.

ZiggyStardust

deliriousnyc

deliriousnyc

lawyergay

rosaluxembourgeoise

ian spiegelman

lawyergay

I've long speculated that you are Emily.

Am I right?

ADismalScience

Relationships between twentysomethings are insipid. The details are boring to everyone except the people in them.

No matter how talented of a writer you are (and I have enjoyed Emily Gould's writing about non-Emily-Gould-related subjects), and no matter how you try to draw in the vital issues of the day, tales of your relationship do not make for good reading. I direct you to I Lost My Love in Baghdad for further illustration.

The A-Bomb

Oh Emily, you power cord tease, you.

Steverino Begins

There are no winners anymore.

ian spiegelman

Step 2) Repeatedly dismiss blogs and online credibility.

Step 3) Lose all revenue streams.

Step 4) Cover blogs in print.

vulturesquadron

rosaluxembourgeoise

This is just so exhausting, people. The ones who are all "Emily's smart and pretty and I like her hair," and the ones who are all, "she's a whore! stone her!" There's nothing wrong in what Denton wrote -- nothing at all -- but it's all just so simplistic and pointless. This has all been done before. And Emily is probably realizing that, and noting that if other people do it, why shouldn't she, and get some face recognition and a career out of it? I don't think she's media-whoring, because (sigh) she has an actual interest in these things.

Besides, if Josh gets his story in Page Six, and Emily gets it in the NYT magazine, Emily wins.

cassandra

SheWalkedWithAZombie

ian spiegelman

Oh please please please let it be Robert Olen Butler!!

SheWalkedWithAZombie

jrhys

Apparently!

ADismalScience

thecomicscomic

Do you want to be a coaahp, or do you want to appeah to be a cooahp?

Phyllis Nefler

fleurdesel

He maybe wouldn't chose to be one (I dunno) but his name, face & bio were out there; he was out there, & a whole bunch of folks got to be out there through him and through his writing.

jackvinyl

it takes a lot to laugh

You don't see Toni Morrison exploiting her sexual history with me just for publicity.

vandusen

Chief Of The Fuzzers

Next up: Full frontal fiction.

Seeräuber Jenny

BScrivner

ian spiegelman

Truman Capote was never a role model though - he was just a great writer. The bon vivant part is what undid him. I paraphrase but Tru's reaction to the controversy was sort of "Well, what did they think? I'm a writer for God's sake."

Now - will there be a Black & White party at the Plaza?

NinaHagen

Seeräuber Jenny

As for some of the commenters' reactions, envy and dismay are not mutually exclusive emotions.

Seeräuber Jenny

BeRightBack

Pete the Chop

@Seeräuber Jenny: Which old times are you thinking of? Even in the 1920s most writers had a flattering portrait on their book jackets.

ian spiegelman

Just like Clarence.

Hey!

Clarence Rosario

The certainty that the line of bullshit I feed her in order that I might also feed her my golden delicious will immediately be spun back upon me and and used against me in order to humiliate me seems unfair.

I miss the old days when I could lie with impunity on the first 2-3 dates...and then stop answering my phone for a couple of weeks.

EddieTheDane

I had an argument with an older friend about the problem of promoting the writer's appearance over the book back when The New Yorker started doing it in their young writers issue. He kept insisting that in the good old days writers had dignity, they never compromised ... until exasperated, I blurted out:

How do you know what Saul Bellow would do to break into publishing today? He'd probably look good in a skimpy camisole!

I actually agree with my friend, but the times they are a' -- they have changed.

Seeräuber Jenny

Hez

Are they mutually exclusive?

I'm being earnest, it's something that I have wondered about before, and haven't resolved.

Zorica

it takes a lot to laugh

Pope John Peeps II

ian spiegelman

janesays

Fathers Day is Sunday June 15th. I now have expectations.

Zorica

"She's just like Eminem as Rabbit in 8 Mile when he has the rap battle near the end with his nemesis played by Anthony Mackie, right?

And Rabbit goes back to his factory job and Emily goes on to win a Pulitzer.

I heart happy endings."

ian spiegelman

plasticene

That's exactly where I take issue. Cuz Emily Gould certainly is no fucking Rabbit. She's an obnoxious, pretentious, judgmental wannabee.

Just like Clarence.

chickenjungle

narnio

But I thought the lines I quoted--Rabbit talking about himself--were more fitting because of Emily's cover line: "Maybe it makes me feel safe to think that if I tell you all my secrets you won't have any ammo against me that I haven't given you."

ian spiegelman

The Maynard memoir contained bales of intimate details and J.D. Salinger came off as a creepy devourer of young virgins.

Seeräuber Jenny

Mike_Jahn

I'm just saying...Do you want to be a writer, or do you want to be a personality?

sing_michael_sing

And I noticed you (intentionally?) left out the rest of the lyrics, which, interestingly enough, are QUITE appropriate in Ms.Gould's case here, no? Namely:

"Don't never try to judge me dude

You don't know what the fuck I've been through

But I know some-thing a-bout you

You went to Cranbrook, that's a private school

What's the matter dawg, you embarrassed?

This guy's a gangster?-- his real name's Clarence

And Clarence lives at home with both parents

And Clarence's parents have a real good marriage

This guy don't wanna battle, he's shook

'Cause ain't no such things as HALF-WAY CROOKS

He's scared to death, he's scared to look

In his fucking yearbook. Fuck Cranbrook."

In other words: Pathetic, Ms.Gould. Really, truly, fucking pathetic. And laughable too.

SIGNED,
abbe diaz
PX This.

chickenjungle

@jackvinyl: You made me look at wikipedia! Lazy bastard.

ian spiegelman

kitkatsplash

I still love you also, Emily. Are they going to give you a blog at the Times? I think they should just give in. I think they want to.

Koreanish

@Hez: I've long assumed (since this article was hinted at during Josh's rehashing via print media) that all three were on-board with stretching the elastic in this gym sock as long as it would go... and happily, I'm along for the ride.

jackvinyl

(Is that correct usage, Tom? If it isn't, please fix me. You're the only one who can.)

Mike_Jahn

IamnotStarJones

Uh, the future is now.

ADismalScience

@krucoff: A Tintin-like "!" is all I can say.

T-Gawk

Let's Form Voltron

plasticene

But I sure loved me some Phil.

meerkat

Missed the Maynard reference in your and at least one other person's comment. Great minds -- or we all have the same mental encylopedia.

Seeräuber Jenny

[en.wikipedia.org]

ian spiegelman

Mike_Jahn

There is this: [gawker.com] if you're interested.

CherriSpryte

it takes a lot to laugh

And I'm not sure what the Maynard piece has to do with Emily's, at least until we read it.

But I do know what the real point of this item: Hundreds of guaranteed page views and comments. Nick, you are too clever for words.

sailor

ian spiegelman

And Christ, we've been through this years ago with the 24-hr webcam Jen, remember? The occassional blog item is a quaint gesture compared to that.

it takes a lot to laugh

Hez

jackvinyl

So play the chords of love, my friend

Dont, dont, dont, dont play the chords of fame

Mike_Jahn

And Rabbit goes back to his factory job and Emily goes on to win a Pulitzer.

I heart happy endings.

IamnotStarJones

Is there a tie-in "how to make sex toys from egg cartons" book, too?

BScrivner

[www.nytimes.com]

Seeräuber Jenny

ian spiegelman

belltolls

"He has the kind of torso that you see in photos and you just always unavoidably imagine your tongue tracing down from the navel and swerving to the side and cutting down over along one of the hipbones and then tugging down the waistband etc."

So, has Kate Lee sold the book yet?

BScrivner

Mike_Jahn

Those that do not learn are doomed to repeat, of course.

ADismalScience

ian spiegelman

Mike_Jahn