The Personal-Essay Boom Is Over
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
The author's failure to acknowledge the topic of the personal essay boom may stem from her own employment at Jezebel, a publication largely devoted to first world feminist problems.
Personally, I welcome this change. I've been very disheartened by what has been an obvious attempt at the Western upper classes to redirect money attention away from the needy and towards themselves. Sadly, I've seen a fair share of this on HN as well.
The shitty thing about it is that you really don't know when it figures in. All you see is your white male coworkers advancing in their careers while you're left to wonder "Was he promoted because he goes fishing with the boss? Or is he doing something I'm not?" Never mind that the boss doesn't invite you fishing because you're female and his wife won't allow it.
It's that constant, nagging "What if?" that bothers us. It's not that I don't care about the problems of other people in the world; it's that I'm constantly reminded how little little power I have within my immediate sphere of influence that I don't feel I have anything to contribute outside of it. There is a small but influential political base in this country that actually believes women are second-class citizens (watch how many people the Daily Show was able to get to un-ironically admit that they thought Trump was a better option than Clinton because he was a man -- even other women).
But at the same time, this has caused a backlash against "political correctness" that we first world feminists have to defend against that have very real consequences (abortion rights, family leave, etc). So yeah, the narcissistic essays are gone, but there are still problems to address -- both at home and elsewhere (ignoring the entirely patronizing idea that the world outside western democracies need our help...)
I think the issue here is simple. Some women make complaints about events in their daily lives, and connect it to a wider conflict/issue about the rights and status of women. Let's call these women group A.
On the other hand, it seems rare for men to complain in the same way.
I've seen men complaining about group A merely having discussions.
I've seen men complaining about the treatment of men whom they are not connected to (e.g. coal miners, kindergarden teachers, nurses).
However, I rarely see personal gripes.
I'd invite you to actually make a personal gripe, because it will be more topical than dragging up an age-old trope.
That said, I think I should clarify my comment was about online discussion. In real life, there's no shortage of people griping from all walks of life, but online (or perhaps, I should say on the tech circuit online) most of the articles, blogs, and comments don't seem, representative of men's' personal struggles, but rather complaints about women discussing their lives, or complaints that some sub-fraction of men whom they can't claim membership with is having issues.
Probably an unhealthy situation, but my understanding is that a man talking about his problems is seems as undesireable/unattractive/not-manly by both men and women.
(This post is not meant to any claim of "which gender has it worse" or anything of that nature, as I find the whole "my suffering is worse than your suffering" line to be counterproductive)
I've found that men are OK with talking about more serious feelings directly, for example if someone close to you died. This would largely depend on your friends though.
The worst example I know is this article that invalidates a vulnerable and personal story by reading it in the most uncharitable and mean-spirited way, such that no empathy with the man is possible.
http://www.rawstory.com/2014/12/mit-professor-explains-the-r...
Similar to the "code of blue" when it comes to police misconduct, no one seems willing to criticize fellow women when stuff like this comes out and say "that's uncalled for" or "that's not what feminism is about."
I won't tell my personal story here, but it has similarities to Scott's.
However, I rarely see personal gripes.
I'd invite you to actually make a personal gripe, because it will be more topical than dragging up an age-old trope.
They tried to destroy his life.
This surprised no-one.
Maybe that's why more people don't do it?
https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-for-you-to-be-widely-...
"destroy his life" is comical hyberbole, and shows the same absurd provincialism that Aaronson initially showed when he claimed that "nerdy men are in fact among the least privileged men out there", blissfully ignorant of the people who weren't raised in upper-middle-class households or get invited to special schools for the gifted.
This is why I usually don't post in threads like these. Grandparent asked for an example of men griping. I gave one. When people tell me about their problems, I try to sincerely listen, not tell them that their problems aren't so bad because some other area of their life is okay. I'd like to ask for the same courtesy.
I doubt that grandparent would use the words "comical hyberbole" if exactly the same treatment had been doled out to someone because they were female, gay, trans, etc. In my opinion, such people have forgotten the concept of justice being blind.
My theory is that Silicon Valley (aka "white men" in the most air-quotes way possible) have moved on to solving the problems of the whole world (whether the world wants them to or not) because they don't have acute social obstacles they have to deal with.
The rest of us have things that bother us every day: we work on fixing those. There's no app for that: it takes the hard work of millions of women and people of color every day. Hard work that is assumed as a "given" by most companies.
And this is in no way a critique of white men for not working on these problems: they're not your problems to solve. Just please don't tear us down when all we're trying to to is claw our way up to your level. A little support (even purely verbal) goes a long way.
Here's an honest question so I understand your perspective: what is an example of verbal support that someone could say to, e.g. you, that you believe you would appreciate in the moment and not interpret as patronizing or condescending?
My personal experience (and that of others I know who fall into what you'd colloquially call "privileged" groups) is that it feels safer to not remark on an individual's race or gender at all unless you know them really well, even in a positive and supportive way, for fear of it backfiring and being interpreted as bigoted.
Maybe you can't come up with an example because it's highly context specific, in which case that's fine, I'm just wondering if you have a comment on delivery in social contexts.
I think it's a mistake to assume that anybody who isn't complaining about something doesn't have anything to complain about. Look at somebody like Robin Williams. Who expected him to kill himself? Nobody.
In general, men are discouraged from complaining about their problems in public. It's unseemly and unmasculine. So to be fair to everyone, we should not assume that the volume of complaints is any reflection on how hard people's lives are.
It's really hard to imagine that this is an instance of sexism, or that men aren't sometimes treated similalrly. Yes , we don't see equivalent "I (male)" statements, but maybe because men generally don't want to complain, or think that it is a personal issue and they don't generalize it to a gender issue
Your theory doesn't account why certain classes of immigrants(specifically Indian and Chinese), often marginalized in society, seem to do so well in silicon valley. Do they get lumped in with "white men" too?
You know what's worse? Being a poor black person.
Wanna know how you can tell? Go ask those coal miners, if they could swap their skin color, would they?
Well that's presumptuous.
Edit: I see I'm getting downvoted for this. I stand by it because this is the exact same type of presumption that is made of women ("Oh, she's 30 -- we shouldn't hire her because she's probably going to get pregnant soon") all the damn time.
Hm...I find this particular rhetorical technique to be rather lacking in substance. It's unnecessarily adversarial, and it continues an attempt at persuasion by remarking on the individual's identity rather than the statements.
To answer it directly: no, I don't feel defensive about the part of your first comment that I singled out; instead, I think it significantly undermines your (fairly strong, in my opinion) argument.
Opening with a comment that assumes the other party's race or gender based on their perspective, then immediately patronizes them for it ("I don't mean this as an insult in any way; since that's most likely your entire life experience.") detracts from what would otherwise be a well-delivered point.
I don't want to make this a game of suffering-competition, but here's a thought experiment: would you explicitly mention your assumption about someone's race if you figured they're a minority, then go on to use the sentence, I don't mean this as an insult in any way; since that's most likely your entire life experience. to describe their perspective?
Edit to your edit: I understand this is an emotionally charged topic, but even if you are correct that women have to routinely deal with the sort of comment you made towards briholt (and I believe they do), you doing the same to convince others is a poor method of bridging communication and empathy.
I have just been fired by my boss for pretty much no reason other than cost cutting and "I wasn't one of the guys"
I brought in plenty of revenue and profit for 3 years.
But since I didn't play golf with my boss, they downsized me and gave my responsibilities to someone much less competent but more politically alligned than I.
They probably mostly don't tie it into gender relations, because the people who benefit from privilege don't think about their privilege; it's one of the inherent perks in privilege.
Men generally don't hang out on sites to talk about their burrito shits, they don't bond over their gender, lacking a mechanism for in group preference based on it. They bond over shared interests and hobbies. Unlike women, for whom "X For Women" is inevitably created as an end in itself.
If you want to talk about privilege, the fact that your gender has a political movement, media sector and academic faculty dedicated to it is probably relevant. As does the general ability to damsel, act childlike, and shy away from conflict without paying a price in respect.
When you turn all this privilege theory back onto the originators, the result is loud and vicious protest, and the insistence that you just shut up and let women speak. Backed and enforced by sympathetic ears in the halls of power. It doesn't add up.
reddit.com would like a word with you. One of the most active websites in the world, especially social websites. And every thread that tangentially involves a woman (in OP or in comments) features highly upvoted crass discussion of her as a sexual being. Every thread. So women get tired of it and form their own spaces where they can not be drowned out by that garbage.
These gendered modes of behavior you're complaining about are symptoms of the patriarchy; they are some of the few easy ways to reclaim a bit of personal power. They are not, however, woman-specific. I've known men that act dumb on purpose for help, I've known men that have never grown up and I know conflict averse men. Conflict aversion rarely causes a person to pay a price, beyond a greater likely-hood of losing the conflict. The only woman-specific aspect to your complaint is the language you use to describe it.
It is sufficiently harmful to women that they are collectively motivated to form political groups to do something about it, despite a relatively high cost (compared to do nothing) for doing so.
I'm not sure which halls of power you're talking about. Certainly not political halls of power. I assume you're talking about cultural halls of power, like, say, Jezebel or the NYT? I think loudly defending certain strains of feminism is a class marker, but I don't think the defense translates into action that makes a difference beyond mildly offending people such as yourself.
It looks like what you would prefer is for women to gain equality by not talking about their problems, not organizing to solve their problems and not acting in ways that have feminine descriptors. I rather doubt that is possible.
Also, as far as I can tell none of the examples in that paragraph have anything to do with feminism.
IME the difference is usually that the dishwasher knows he's not all that smart, while the liberal arts degree holder has a very inflated sense of their own intelligence.
Don't ascribe motive. Everyone gets a voice, and everyone can use it however they want. Sometimes people have high-minded ideals and they write about them. Sometimes gross shit happens to them and they write about that too.
Besides, just because bad things are happening doesn't mean we can't talk about trivial things. If that were really the case we'd never be able to talk about anything.
The Personal-Essay Boom is just getting started, because now people are sharing more interesting things in more interesting ways in the past. Dishing on former employers. Describing personal journeys. Letting people experience a slice of life that they otherwise would not come across.
The only problem with Personal-Essays is that anybody without any training or practice can sit down and give it a try, which is why 95%+ will read like a Sophomoric diary entry based on literary merit (if lucky) or Ranting (overloaded with emotions), or just not as interesting as the Writer thinks.
So, to contrast the anecdotes and conclusion I disagree with in the article, I will happily cite that on my Medium.com page, where I have 70 publications, the highest viewed, most shared, and apparently most liked are Personal Essays. They are about interesting subjects - Film, Music, Writing - not, as the Writer uses as a comparison - some kind of nuveau-critique about life as told through the lens of a Tampon.
The signal to noise ratio has always been a problem. That's the role of Copy Editors (RIP, really they're seemingly extinct in the US outside of Top 1%) and Publications to get things into shape. Or, to re-frame the discussion in terms of guitar and me experience with it, "Anybody can pick up a guitar and make noise, but making beautiful music is going to take a lot of time and effort." Personal Essays also follow this axiom.
I don't enjoy being a passive consumer, I'd rather have the experience instead of reading about it. And yes, it takes a lot of work to get yourself in a position where you can have an interesting lifestyle, which is why most people would much rather passively dream of those experiences.
Reminds me of how every person on Instagram has to show the world how great of a time they're having, how amazing of a vacation they're on, and how much they've grown from the experience every day. Some of that is done to build an audience for later advertising revenues, sure. I however have no reason to look at any of it.
The way I see it, nobody with a fulfilling, busy, exciting and interesting life of their own will consume that kind of content. People are fundamentally selfish and self-centered, they don't care about other people's experience nearly as much as we think.
A less preposterous (and less self-congratulatory) idea might be that "people like different things".
That makes those essays the literary equivalent of Reality TV.
The personal essay largely to me seemed like posting a blog in the paper, I'm not sure why you'd want to, but sometimes they're interesting to read.