SubscribeComments at the NYT.
Comments at Gawker.
6:00 a.m. -- read as many comments at numerous blogs. "All about me!"
11:00 a.m. -- Wander around my neighborhood in Brooklyn, slowing down at outdoor cafés ("Look at me, I'm using a French word") to see if people recognize me.
12:00 noon -- Head over to Manhattan.
12:30 p.m. -- Stroll by brunch spots in the West Village. "Hey, it's me!"
1:30 p.m. -- Head over to Chelsea. "I bet the gays love me by now. Especially the catty queens!"
2:30 p.m. -- Sashay through Soho.
3:00 p.m. -- Hit Mid-town with a stop at Bryant Park. Pull out NYT's Magazine and hope others wandering by my table notice that it's ME! Take advantage of the park's WiFi "hot spot" to update my blog about the days adventures.
4:30 p.m. -- Stand at the crosswalk at the corner across from 'Strawberry Fields' in front of the Dakota. Hope that those who read the Times this morning recognize ME. Hope that the tourists who couldn't give a shit about ME think I live in the Dakota!!!
6:00 p.m. -- Head home to Brooklyn. Check obsessively online what others have said about me. Extra points if my meanderings have been noted at Gawker's Stalker Map!!! Send e-mail to Josh ("Hah! Fuck you, sucker. You made the Post. I made the goddamn fucking New York Times!!!)
Being on YouTube, having a blog, having an iPod, being on MySpace-- all of these things are self-validating, they allow that illusion that is so important to narcissists: that we are the main characters in a movie. Not that we're the best, or the good guys, but the main characters. That everyone around us is supporting cast; the funny friend, the crazy ex, the neurotic mother, the egotistical date, etc. That makes reminders of our insignificance even more infuriating.
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!
- a line from Cyrano de Bergerac
Number of words in "Exposed," by Emily Gould: 7,937
Number of those words that are the conjunction "and": 207
Number of those words that are the article "a": 225
Number of those words that are article "the": 344
Number of those words that are pronoun "I": 363
Number of those words that are the pronouns "I" or "me": 430
Amount Gould has earned, at a likely Times Mag rate of $2 per word, for self-referring pronouns: $860
“On a chilly evening in September, Gould and I went out for sushi. She traipsed down Prince Street in a tight electric-blue shirt, the same color as her fingernail polish, and white knee-high boots she had polished up for the fall season. She had just been at her shrink’s, where she says she spends all her time talking about Gawker—‘It’s just such a weird cross between being an artist and working in a sweatshop,’ she’d said earlier. She tucked her hair behind her ears and sighed. ‘Plus I have gotten so much flak over the past year, from everyone from random people who e-mail me that I’m a bitch and a cunt, to my family, to Jimmy Kimmel calling me the devil—to my boyfriend of six years, when we broke up and I was moving my dishes out of his apartment, asking, ‘Why did you write that post about that Stevie Nicks song? Now it’s obvious to everyone that you were having an affair with your co-worker.’ ’ She shot me a lopsided smile.
I asked her how she felt about the upcoming changes in comments and pay at Gawker. ‘I can’t have feelings about that kind of thing,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of like you’re in jail and you have feelings about the color they paint the walls.’ Gould published a book last spring, and wasn’t sure if she should write another. ‘At the end of the day, your ideas in a book have less impact than if you had summed them up in two paragraphs on the most widely read blog at the most-read time of the day, so why’d you spend two years on it?’ she said, delicately picking up a piece of toro. ‘But there’s other ways to get noticed than the Internet, right?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘There’s always TV.’
Recently, she’d bonded with Julia Allison—the two went to a psychic in Staten Island together, driving in a Mercedes convertible Allison had borrowed (though the guy who owned it didn’t really know she had borrowed it), booming the stereo and singing along to the lyrics of Prince’s ‘Pussy Control.’ The psychic told Allison that she had to be more ‘real’ and Gould that she was on the road to love—but then she was not, so that was all a waste of time. But at least she decided Allison was cool. ‘It’s not like Julia keeps her enemies close and her friends closer,’ said Gould. ‘She doesn’t even make a distinction between the two.’
In an insult culture, shamelessness is a crucial attribute, was part of the point. Last week at Gawker’s book party, Allison appeared in a particularly revealing top and told me, ‘I figure if people look at my cleavage they won’t listen to my words,’ then winked. She and Gould were both wearing polka-dots, not on purpose, and they cavorted in their outfits for a photographer, slinging their arms around Allison’s boyfriend, even though Gould was sure to overdramatically grimace in some of the pictures.
By Gawker’s rules, Allison seemed to be winning the game. Still, the question remained: Could you be successful in New York without becoming a—well, a douchebag? It was something that Gould would have to ponder.”
"I'm a writer! What did they think I was doing all that time at their parties? I was observing them, taking note - I'm a writer!"
“…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.”*
"But ever since then I've been with considerably smaller dicks!
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posted by NekulturnY at 7:18 AM on May 22