Through A Glass, Snarkly

I take a break from the exceptionally insightful and instructional posts I usually write, to blather about something in which no one is interested.

Remember the scene in You've Got Mail (after we pretend you haven't seen it or you don't know what I'm talking about because it was made before you were born, consider the question) when the bookstore assistant asks Steve Zahn if he's on line, and he says something like, 'I've found that the internet is just another way to be rejected by a woman.'?

Remember that?

Those were wise words.

Let me tell you. I recently read this article, linked on lovely Lisa Hoffman's blog, and while I found it self-indulgent, based upon faulty premises, and fairly dull, it did provide, as Lisa had suggested, food for thought.

As a bloggist, how much does one reveal? Because one can't just go careening around the web thinking nothing will be seen, noticed, remembered, or worst, used against her. These are the aughts! We're engulfed in 'reality' programming. Our children have already formulated how they would win Project Runway, Bachelorette, and even, American Idol. In short: 'Look out, Bwana! We're in lion country, now.'

Someone is going to reject you. The You that's out there among the web-surfers, YOU and your confessions and your concerns and your opinions, the YOU you begin to become more and more identified with, even though that You didn't even exist pre-1995, THAT You is going to be rejected, at one time or another, by one person or by many, and by 'virtual' strangers. It's inevitable. And for all its anonymity, the internet You can at the same time seem more enduring and real than any you that's been rejected at a party or beside the pool. Because what you put down here---doesn't go away. You can't say you were drunk, or you just spoke off the cuff. Bloggers have to be thick-skinned in many instances. (Ironically, I'm very thin-skinned, but my two readers are very nice people.)

Emily Gould's New York Times Magazine article resulted not only in commentaries too vast and numerous to be contained by their site, but in several 'reviews', among which are the ones at Gawker, the one by Rachel Sklar, and the one published today in the L.A. Times. The overarching perspective is... disdain for Emily Gould.

Basically, we're so innundated by the performances of narcissists that we claim to be bored by them. But on the way to that ultimate conclusion, I think Gould provided us with something to gnosh on.

If a person decides that what she has to say is of import, at least to the degree that it should be committed to the forever memory of the blogosphere, what kind of attitude should she take about it? Should she be aware of and prepared for the inevitable backlash, riding the wave of disapproval with equanimity and self-possession? Or, should we allow her to say what she wants to say and take responsibility for our own reactions to it? It's a safe assumption that Gould, no matter how much vitriole or ridicule is visited upon her, will not elect to end her internet existence. She'll be back, and by her own admission, she hasn't changed. And neither will her readers, the ones who claim to reject what she has to say and her attitude in saying it.

Entertainment, and I paint that with a broad brush to encompass literature, film, fine art, music, documentary, biography, and any creative endeaver put forth for someone else's consumption, has two sides. Like a conversation, the provider of the entertainment, and the receiver of the entertainment both have responsibility for the outcome of the exchange. I have read all of the above-referenced articles and most of the attendent comments with the awareness that I chose to do so, and that none of it was forced upon me. Ultimately, what we think of Gould, of Gawker, of New York Times Magazine, or of Rachel Sklar, is our own responsibility. It's really more important to us as receiver what we do with the entertainment which has been presented to us, than is what the initiator intended by it. I don't really care why Emily Gould wrote what she wrote, or whether I feel she 'should have'. The point is, I read it, I continued reading it, I followed the responses to it, and I am now writing about it. That says more about me than it does about her. (Specifically, that I'm way more fabulous.)

The internet and the blogosphere are no different from any other arena of human existence. The individual is ultimately responsible for his or her own response to the initial communication. But that doesn't mean that people won't continue to yell at other people for 'inflicting this on us'. I do it all the time. And when it's something this silly (although Gould's article did have its moments of insight), I find it very entertaining.

This doesn't mean it's not also disconcerting. I heard once again just two days ago, about how very young women are posting suggestive photos of themselves to Facebook and MySpace because all their friends are, and they are mad to define themselves through these venues. And, front-paging Gould's self-indulgent and ultimately inconsequential meanderings, with accompanying bedsy photo, fosters the conviction that this is how to Do It. How to get noticed, be defined, and embark upon a road of self-forgetfulness. Because I think this is the real sadness about this phenomenon; for all of her talk about social and intimate matters and waifish personal hygiene and comportment, young Gould, or the next girl, may wake up to find out she really has no idea what she thinks or feels about anything. Or, if indeed, she does.