15th
post-mortem
So now that it’s more or less passed, some thoughts on what I’ve learned from the latest internet fracas occasioned by my response to the Awl’s criticism of Mark Greif’s piece on abortion and gay marriage in Issue 8.
Careful readers will recall that last year, after a similar series of online fracases with Gawker, I formulated several handy rules, such as: Only get involved in an online debate on your work if it’s a factual matter which only you can correct (i.e. the information is not publicly available—e.g. Gawker accuses you of drinking lattes, whereas you’ve never had a latte, but who else knows that but you?). Also, try not to argue with people who are just insulting you: If the New York Times calls you a jerk, will you write a letter to the Times saying you’re not a jerk? Probably not. So don’t write a letter to the internet. In a best-case scenario you’ll find yourself in an argument where you’re saying, “You shouldn’t have insulted us,” and the other person is saying, “Yes I should have.” That’s not a very interesting argument.
In this case, I maybe violated one or both of these rules, but in the process I came up with another: Don’t try to stand athwart an internet meme. In this case the meme was, “That essay sucked!!” There are many things to object to in the essay, and some of them are in fact extremely interesting (#1: what does it mean for a straight man to demand more radicalism from the gay rights movement?) and in the coming days we’re going to post some letters at nplusonemag pointing some of those things out (not too late to write a letter to the editor, if you’re so inclined: editors at nplusonemag.com), but that is not equivalent to suckiness. But since the non-suckiness of the essay is absolutely self-evident to me, I may not be the best person to argue about it. Also I’m clearly biased. I should have consulted with Bill Wasik, author of And Then There’s This, a book that deals at least partly with memes. I think he would have counseled waiting this one out.
All that said, I’d like to add this: Dear internet! Why are you so goddamn touchy? I have to listen to people saying n+1 is this and that, that Mark Greif—Mark Greif!!—is a “pussyhound,” although simultaneously he doesn’t know what sex is, wasn’t born in the 20th century, doesn’t know history, etc. etc.—and then I call the Awl a “news aggregator” and you go apeshit. Jesus Christ! Look. Despite the fact that the majority of the posts on the Awl are, in fact, news items with short, snappy commentary, a la Gawker (though with different emphases), I am aware that the Awl is a plucky new independent magazine that also posts reportage and essays and columns—for example, the witty and useful Social A’s column by Emily Gould, who happens to be my girlfriend, and who also happens to have once called the Awl an “aggregator” (without meaning it as a dig). That’s where I got the term, even though I did of course mean it as a dig. But left to my own devices I’d have called it something more obviously insulting—a “shit-mobile,” say.
But look, internet. You’ve made great strides over the years. Your traffic is up, your type-face has improved, Wall Street is still wowed despite the trauma you inflicted on it a decade ago, the lords of the mainstream media quake in their boots when they hear the very mention of your name—you bestride the world like a colossus, internet. So WILL YOU PLEASE GET OVER THIS GODDAMN INFERIORITY COMPLEX? It just makes it impossible to talk to you.
As ever,
Keith
