Late/Never: Emily Gould.
Everyone has been hating on Emily Gould’s essay in last week’s Times Magazine: Gawker, Poynter, Philadelphia Weekly, my friend J. It’s pretty easy. She can, at times, sound like a navel-gazing, self-loving, “enterprising opportunist careerist” who may or may not be having a public breakdown. And. The pictures are ridiculous. Really? Posing with her laptop? Really?
But Kerry Howley is right: This piece is really a personal essay—even if it is way too long and formulaic. Gould’s not really doing anything Elizabeth Wurtzel hasn’t done. Of course, she’s not really doing anything that Joan Didion or Jo Ann Beard have done either.
Usually an essay is supposed to focus the lens on the first person and then expand to the cultural experience of the greater whole. Gould forgets to do the latter part. But I do think she has, even if coming at it tedioualy, hit on a relevant topic. My friend and I were having dinner at the Darlington House last week, talking about our own blogs. This friend, who works for NPR and writes smartly about her love life (and cooking), tells few people about her blog. “I don’t really think of myself as being on the internet,” she tells me as we exchange blog URLs.
I have another friend, who used to love a good personal rant, who hasn’t given out his new blog URL for months now. Are we possibly coming into a culture that’s more guarded with online footprints? I feel like we used to let it it all hang out (like Gould).
Maybe I’m just trying to defend Gould, because I tried to write a similar piece about a friend who was beaten up on Wonkette (I didn’t get $3 a word for it).
Maybe I’m trying to defend Gould because I secretly have a perverse love of oversharing.
Or maybe I’m trying to defend Gould because I read the piece after my thesis advisor sent me a link and said, “This reminded me of you.”
Either way, don’t harass her for writing about herself. Harass her for being boring.
