[Peter Suderman]
As Ross and Sonny note, narcissism is indeed at the heart of Emily Gould's cover story in this week's New York Times Magazine. Gould's tenure at Gawker fed her self-obsession; every page view helped further her transformation from jaded Brooklyn resident into unhinged, egotistic snark beast. Gawker both expanded her horizons and terribly limited them; from the perch of her overflowing inbox, she could see everything in the world (or at least Manhattan). Yet quickly enough she became the only thing she cared about within it. The entire city of New York mattered only insofar as it was a reflection of Emily.
Yet, in some form, this worldview has always fueled the blogosphere, even in the political realm. And it is not always pernicious. Many of the successful early pioneers made a point of sharing personal details. Jonah Goldberg wrote about his wife, his dog, his favorite television shows; Andrew Sullivan wrote about his sleep apnea; Glenn Reynolds posted about his interest in digital cameras and science fiction. Matt Yglesias writes about basketball, indie rock, and living near U Street.
The professionalization of the blogosphere has reduced this to some extent, yet it's still evident on numerous popular blogs. Bloggers write about their lives, their interests, their cities, their friends. On many blogs, the author's life becomes part of the story -- you read these bloggers as much for who they are as for what they have to say. This is what accounts for the sense one sometimes gets that one "knows" the blogger. Blogs serve as running commentary on the world at large (or some part of it), yes, but also as extensions of the lives of their authors. To become a regular reader is to share and take part in that life, and that's a large part of the blogosphere's appeal. It's also a function of both the frantic pace and pressure of the professional blogosphere: The easiest content to produce is that which is inspired by what's nearest to you.
The combined lure of easy content and personal attention is tough to resist; Gould didn't, and the distinction between her online life and everything essentially disappeared. The author and the subject became one. Does Gould deserve criticism for this? Perhaps. But it's also a function of the medium -- its pace, its content demands, and even its readers, who encourage personal revelation. The blogosphere always pulls this way. It's magnetized toward self-obsession.
I think Cyrano's words elegantly portray the occupational hazard of blogging:
Have you not seen great gaudy hothouse flowers,
Barren, without fragrance?--Souls are like that:
Forced to show all, they soon become all show--
The means to Nature's end ends meaningless!
In my RSS reader, the post is 4 paragraphs long. But on the website itself, it's only 1 paragraph.
Odd. IE was rendering it wrong. Played with the code for a bit; seems to be fixed now.
As I sat there staring into the screen at the reflection of Henry standing behind me, I burst into tears. And then we were pacing, screaming at each other, through every room of our apartment, facing off with wild eyes and clenched jaws.
That's as far as I got...YEESH.
That's one of those articles that nobody in the real world will really care about. But since it is about a blogger, the NY Times is guaranteed a certain amount of attention as people comment and link to the article. A piss worth of attention in a sea of more important new roiling the world.
Ms. Gould deserves no sympathy. She chose to point the camera inward instead of outward. When you ask people to smell your navel, don't be surprised when people tell you it's stinky.
But she's so cute in that Jimmy Kimmel interview! And she's so right about the disappearance of the distinction between the public and the private. It's not just blogs. It's talking on cell phones in public. It's wearing clothes that look like pyjamas in public. It's guys wearing headgear indoors. It's swearing anytime, anywhere. It's appallingly crude jokes by shameless Jimmy Kimmel available on YouTube. It's the end of sexual modesty and any sense of propriety. It's the end of patriarchy that kept it all repressed. It's the end of civilization. It's McLuhan's global village and Emily Gould is a citizen in good standing. We have met the enemy and she is us. I nominate her as Person of the Year.
She will continue to get tons of hype as long as the media keeps talking about it. Note the article in the Calendar section of the LA Times today. My humble opinion, is she a good writer? Sure. In the Myra Hornbacher-make fun of myself-way. Did she cure cancer? Uh, no. She's just a blogger.