Verena Says

Procrastination

So. Moe is leaving Jezebel to go to Radar. I saw this last night but was busy doing a million other things all of which I am excited about so I did not post it then.

I also did not weigh in on the Jezebel / Shoot the Messenger fiasco because I was a) lazy and b) did not feel qualified, which is to say that I have no business at this point in my life weighing in on what is or isn’t feminist, though I plan on rectifying that in the future. Also, I thought the whole thing was one big fiasco, not just a Jezebel fiasco and also pointing fingers is so not my game.

Anyway, I thought for sure that this was going to be Moe’s goodbye post which I have been looking forward to all day, not because I want her to leave but because I was curious to see exactly how and in how many layers she was going to say it and frame it.

Which brings me to the real point which is that while I have to slow down my normal reading rate to about 25% and amp up my normal re-reading rate to about 150% in order to read and comprehend some aspect of whatever Moe is usually trying to say - I love her posts. I love them because while, like I said, I don’t always understand exactly what is going on in them (perhaps it was a goodbye post?) because of God-knows-how-many clauses and a veritable dearth of periods, I can recognize and understand the desperation or the feeling or the need or the all-encompassing desire to say oh-so-much in one small post.

Which is to say, this is my favorite part:

Tempered by the hangover’s throbbing realism and the imperative to conclude this thing with some grand proclamation on — Jesus Christ, what was this post about? oh wait, the wage gap, seriously? — I should first state that, of course, there are a lot of truly “Christian” men and women out there, I met a lot of them visiting halfway houses and rehab centers and also, working phone sex, and while I don’t really personally care to speculate as to whether the source of their kindness and compassion and humility was the same Higher Power that left the track marks or a few rogue but well-meaning neurotransmitters, I could maybe use that giant endless tangent to venture that people like to be interdependent with other people, in fact they need it, and they need to be needed, and when people suddenly cannot figure out how they are needed or who they can trust long enough to learn to need or what about their lives even really seems necessary, they sometimes do fucked-up shit like go on benders or quit their jobs and leave the workforce altogether. And when whole big swaths of the population are suddenly awarded the privilege to want things as well, as has been the general trend over the last century or so, there are going to be hiccups as everyone shuffles around and figures out for themselves that they have needs.

Also:

I know it's hard for you to believe it, sweetheart, but the media industry actually is bigger than Nick Denton's head.

soupsoup:

caro:

I finally got around to reading this awkward little piece by a bright but naive blogger who seems to believe that in order to be part of “New York media” you have to socialize with an abhorrent set of people who will fawn over Keith Gessen and Emily Gould in person and then go right back to their keyboards and start tapping out hatespeech, fan themselves from the summer humidity with their Ivy League degrees while prancing about in their American Apparel underpants to “Oxford Comma,” and hang out exclusively at OMG BROOKLYN HIPSTER PARTIES AT BROWNSTONES OWNED BY CLUELESS PARENTS!!! AND THE COCAINE FLIES LIKE CONFETTI!!!! If you do not subject yourself to the aforementioned, you clearly cannot be a writer in New York and you will never, ever, ever make it on this cruel IFC reality show of an island.

(Hey, I hear Houston is great this time of year.)

As someone actually employed as a writer, albeit not the sort of cranky navel-gazing social looker-on that Miss Bangs-and-Eyeliner seems to have once dreamed of being, I can tell you that the same thing applies to the media industry that applies to all niches of New York life. This city is what you make of it, and I can’t stress that enough. If you find their writing mean, don’t read it. If you find them intolerable, don’t go to their parties. If you’re convinced that you’ll never ever ever ever be famous unless you manage to strike up a conversation with Keith Gessen at a loft party and dazzle him with your repartée, put things into perspective and keep in mind that nobody who doesn’t read Gawker religiously has any clue who he is anyway. There are plenty of interesting and successful (well, relatively speaking) writers in New York who aren’t among the irritating ranks detailed in this heavily-quoted-and-reblogged post.

I’m sure that the semester abroad in Paris was on the books long before this girl declared her public disillusionment with “The Scene,” but really, it’s not going to do her any good to frame it like a response. Talk about melodrama.

If she’s going to be that narrow-minded, I’m hardly sad to see her go. The fact that she ever “idolized” this crowd seems to make me think her priorities may have been a little skewed to begin with.

Oh, callow youth.

Well. Fucking. Said.

Dear Universe Gods,

Please make today better. Because if you don’t, I’m geniunely worried about the amount of wine I’m going to have to consume in order to make the memory of this day disappear. It’s in both of our best interests.

Thank you,

Verena