too funny or sad - not sure which -

Professor Kim Pearson and I have been going back and forth on this - we are NOT happy campers:

Here's Kims post

Here's mine.

I'll add yours to mine too. 

We have the WaPo complaining that they don't have enough women to fill the oped pages but there's the NYT paying Gould $15,000 for what? 

Sorry - I am very sorry - I just had to write it.  I know - bad me. My bad. Whatever.  I'm not happy. :)

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

I've had an electronic journal of some form or another since just before 9/11. During that time, I've generally posted a minimum of five days a week.

When my ex departed our marriage after eight years, my urge to blog it was no less than when things were going well in my life. I blog because it's a part of me. It's one of the ways I process my life. It's how I find the bright side of things. It's where I seek commiseration. It's a record of my life.

All that said, I think you have to accept that there are risks inherent in blogging. Being famous. Not being famous. Being ripped into. Being ignored. All depends on what you hope to get out of it, and if you're doing it hoping to get something external out of it.  

(FINALLY!) In response to this. I think it's absurd to bemoan the exposure of your private life when you make the choice to publish it. Clearly, it's no longer private. You've made it a matter of public record. You chose it. Not just once, but for most of us, at least a few times a week. If you get sick of it, you stop. You don't start publically complaining about it, you know?

This is quite different than the stalkerazzi phenomenon for stars, I think. While they take on the career knowing it's inherent risks, I don't think that means they've volunteered to be completely public figures. When you blog about your life, you are de facto volunteering the information yourself.

Thing is, I think there are simple principles to follow. If you don't want to share it with the world, don't put it out there. And if you're going to talk about things that are personal in a public forum, be prepared for any and all possible backlash.

If it's not something you would say to someone's face (if you're talking about others), then don't put it out there.

Seems simple enough.

...was Gould's ex, Henry. I felt so badly for him. He never asked for this life, and seemed to want privacy, but his mere association with Gould made him the poor wretch who got cheated on AND exposed. 

Out of curiousity I checked out the Larry King episode Gold references and felt badly for her, despite the right comeuppance. Once I was a young 25-year-old writer in NYC and could see how you think you are being the good little soldier and being snarky on cue, then you get trampled by the big guys. She seemed set up by Jimmy Kimmel, who had clearly rehearsed his ass kicking in advance.

 But I'm getting away from the topic at hand here...

Jory Des Jardins
BlogHer
Personal Blog Pause

I agree with Jory and wrote a post yesterday about this very thing.

On one hand, I feel sorry for Emily after viewing the Larry King video.  It's obvious she is young, naive and was thrown into a situation without  preparation by her bosses. 

On the other, throughout the entire 8,000 word article (what was NYT thinking?!), there is little to no remorse about how she not only overshared her life, but the lives of her unwilling boyfriends as well.

Her muddled and conflicting explanations and rationalizations illustrate just how much of a kid she really is and how she got into this mess.

THe saddest thing about it is I don't think she's learned anything from her mistakes.

merlotmom

www.merlotmom.blogspot.com 

Great comments, everyone. To me, it's the Times that is more of the villan here--she was a kid trying to act like a grown up and she got caught out in public and now looks foolish. But she will recover.  But there seems something cheap and sensationalistic about how they treated this story...the photo, the long article....makes me very annoyed.

Susan Mernit, Susan Mernit's Blog

follow me on twitter: twitter/susanmernit

friendfeed: friendfeed.com/smernit

I agree with both of you!  I'm over the whole thing.

merlotmom

The Times wants to attract readers. Despite it's high brow appearance, even they know that sex and lurid expose's sell. I also feel the true victim is Emily's ex Henry. The poor man deserved better.

 Wedding Tips Blog

When I was in high school I read the piece that Gloria Steinem wrote about going underground as a Playboy Bunny and ranted to my mom that she was a big showoff (or some other mature designation.) My mother responded "You're just jealous." (I was always going to be "a writer.") She was right.

So when this piece appeared I thought hard about whether there was anything in my hostile reaction besides honest disgust. Couldn't find anything. Just anger and sadness.

In my view this isn't just about stereotyping women or beautiful young women, this is a craven story of one women and a universe that is NOT what we all treasure about our blogging lives. GAWKER was going to be that kind of experience; no way it couldn't be. In my former life as a news producer it would have been like going to work, not even for Entertainment Tonight but for David Spade's old show. There was nothing to expect except shallow nastiness - she was being paid to deliver it.

Young people do not always know what they are getting into. It can end like it did in The Devil Wears Prada or it can end like this. But where the blog-specific issues are concerned - the exposure - she had real warning of the consequences - through Henry and others who responded with such dismay.

It's a tough question. 
In my
own posts about this I have quoted Michael Chabon

" Literature, like magic, has always been about the
handling of secrets, about the pain, the destruction and the marvelous liberation
that can result when they are revealed.

Telling the truth, when the truth matters most, is almost always a
frightening prospect. If a writer doesn’t give away secrets, his own or those
of the people he loves; if she doesn’t court disapproval, reproach and general
wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits
his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on
it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.

If he's right, then it's all much more complicated. Art requires truth; that which is revealed is often what provides insight and compassion in the reader. I don't know where that leaves Henry, or many of my mommy blogging friends who worry about this, or any of the rest of us but it is certainly part of the equasion as we determine how to respond here.

In short, this piece offers a complicated set of lenses through which to view not only the life of a single blogger but also the conflicting values that greet all of us. That's why, I think, this piece has raised such a ruckus, and why Susan has done us such a service in raising it here.

Cynthia Samuels, Partner
Cobblestone Associates, LLP
Blog and Media Strategies and Content Development Online and on Television
http:dontgelyet.typepad.com/dontgeltoosoon

This may be the best piece you've ever written. Particularly this paragraph:

While much of the media criticism and the consumer comments have focused on Gould’s narcissism and opportunistic use of her beauty, sexuality and position, and the aggressive marketing of her subsequent prettily teared up regret, no one has talked much about the cold-blooded cynicism of the Times in assigning and publishing what is just the latest incarnation in an ongoing series of sensational stories by attractive young women who struggle.

For an organization that insists their news and information cannot be gendered, they are doing a terrific job in these pieces on Wurtzel, Gould and others in painting an appallingly one-side picture of young women using technology.

Such hypocrisy. Thank you for pointing it out.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

I read Emily's article - and pondered on it for hours - and I couldn't have captured my thoughts and opinions as succinctly as you have done. With the caveat that I haven't read everything you've ever written, I have to agree with Lisa, too.

Heh... I saw your story getting praised on Twitter the second i added my own story to the pile:

Why I Write About My Life on the Internet 

I don't doubt that Emily had some hard and scary experiences that carried lessons worth learning, but I do share your criticism of how NY Times positioned it.

And more importantly, i'm concerned about personal blogging becoming a scapegoat for mainstream media and public opinion.  It's not that sharing stories is bad.  It's that there's a lot of personal responsibility required in the process.

Dopp Juice.
http://www.doppjuice.com

Thanks for these ocmments, everyone.  Someone at another site just dismissed this piece by saying I was of a generation that sees all women as victims. I said this sounded like an efficient and fast way to dismiss me.

I think the discussion is more interesting than whose interpertation is most "right." 

Susan Mernit, Susan Mernit's Blog

follow me on twitter: twitter/susanmernit

friendfeed: friendfeed.com/smernit

Clearly that puts me in the minority and I probably *should* read it, but I just get so angry about anything that makes all blogging seem sordid because of the actions of one blogger. Putting people down for writing about their lives, like "who do you think you are?" Or worse, "Who told you you could have a voice and speak?"

I think I'm me, thanks. And I am and always have been driven to write personal commentary. Don't read it if you don't want to.

And I agree with your analysis of their choice of stories and how they run them. And I'm glad someone's pointing at that situation so clearly.

Finally, $15,000??? That's *a lot* of money to me - I'm not surprised she agreed to do the piece.

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess.

The damsel is only one variation of the NYT "fatal flaw" confessional.  Nannies, addicts, and damaged egos of all types fall for the bait and throw down so that we can play Greek chorus as they--and the Times for that matter--relive and repeat their obvious plotlines.   An offer to write a memoir piece for them should be viewed the same way you would a call from the Maury Povitch show--with extreme caution, as a red-flag of self-canabilsm, and as an alert to up your therapy appointment to at-least every other day.

Deb

www.debontherocks.com

when life throws you on the rocks, it's time to get your rocks off

I read the article online yesterday, sans photographs, so it didn't occur to me that Gould's looks were at all a factor in the salability of the piece.

 I read it as an opportunity for print media to tut-tut and say, "I told you not to play with those dirty blogs"

I couldn't see any other rationale for something so unremarkable being given so much column space.

 The Wurtzel comparison is a good one. Excellent commentary, susan..

Kyran, Notes to Self

Hey, Susan, thanks for inspiring today's post:  http://www.notestoself.us/2008/05/warning-playing-with-blogs-will-end-in.html

Kyran, Notes to Self

An interesting piece.  Don't agree 100% but she does make some good points. 

Jill
Writes Like She Talks