Study Hall Digest 1/21/2020

By Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs (@allegraehobbs)

Oyler on Tolentino Broke Media Twitter

Following the release of her debut essay collection Trick Mirror in August, Jia Tolentino enjoyed roughly half a year of mostly positive reviews. She was the voice of a generation; she was the heir apparent to Joan Didion. I found myself hoping for a rigorous, critical review of the book — not because I didn’t like it, but because the effusive book tour coverage that cast Tolentino as a preternaturally gifted cool girl who never missed a deadline was getting to be a bit much.

This past week, Lauren Oyler dropped a review in the London Review of Books that criticized Tolentino for a brand of feelings-based, self-centered criticism that uses personal anecdotes and intuition to substantiate claims — something Oyler argues is not limited to Tolentino but is pervasive in contemporary writing. The review is sharp and scathing, the kind I would have nightmares about receiving if I wrote a book. It is also, at times, exhilarating to read, though this may be in part due to a guilty delight at seeing a presumably untouchable thing, armored by clout, dismantled with skill.

The review is also deeply personal, to a degree that I found distracting. Oyler snipes at Tolentino for having a lot of friends, enjoying drugs, going to music festivals, and getting a lot of wedding invitations. Understanding that Tolentino is crafting a public image, I couldn’t help but feel that if she had instead chosen to play the antisocial, depressive shut-in writer stereotype, details about her personal life wouldn’t be picked apart in book reviews with such scorn. In a particularly harsh passage, Oyler questions Tolentino’s decision to expound on her ecstasy use but not on her traumatic experiences of being drugged at a party or forcibly kissed by her host while in the Peace Corps. (The obvious answer is that, despite the imperative that women writers capitalize on their trauma, Tolentino is still entitled to privacy.)

This raises the question of what entails fair criticism. It would be wrong to say Tolentino’s personal life is off-limits in a review of a book full of analysis drawn from personal experience. On the persona-based internet and in persona-based writing, considering a writer’s self-image in reviewing their work is fair game. I just don’t think it always serves to strengthen the critic’s argument. In this instance, it creates the impression that Oyler is personally rankled by the type of person she thinks Tolentino to be, which is interesting but not especially germane to criticism of the book.

When the review hit Twitter, it was like a dam had been broken — reactions were very mixed, but there were many and they were impassioned. There were a lot of Tweets of the “Lauren Oyler run me over with a truck” variety, which made me wonder about Oyler’s own personal brand as a brutal, fearsome presence lurking around every book launch (made more fearsome by her absence from social media).

NYT: “Women Are the Jellicle Choice”

After unironically turning their process of choosing who to endorse in the primary into a made-for-TV spectacle à la The Apprentice, The New York Times editorial board has picked “women” as their choice for the 2020 Democratic primary: Elizabeth Warren, and in a deliciously bad twist… Amy Klobuchar. Who knew that you could be one of the most famous newspapers in the world and also have the same chaotic energy as the Cats movie? This was the equivalent of picking Grizabella and Rum Tum Tugger as the Jellicle choice.

The balancing act of appealing to your “middle class” readership with the candidate leading the liberal, college-educated crowd and giving everyone who hates the Times material to froth at the mouth on Twitter over is a tough job, but the Times delivered. In the final editorial released on Sunday, they also compare Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump (“we see little advantage to exchanging one over-promising, divisive figure in Washington for another”) and throw in a casual bit of racism at the end, stating that “basket-case governments in several nations south of the Rio Grande have sent a historic flood of migrants to our southern border.”

At least the choice of Elizabeth Warren was expected. She’s the less radical and more palatable option for liberal Democrats afraid that Sanders’ “burn it to the ground” revolution could alienate voters, has the Big Professor Energy that NYT readers love, and is, according to their final decision, “a gifted storyteller” with the “power and conviction and credibility to make the case” to America that she should be president — especially because she used to be Republican before having a change of faith.

The real “come on season 6. Let’s get sickening!” twist of it all came after the Times admitted there is no single, powerful moderate voice in the Democratic Party. The choice for that crowd is, apparently, the binder-throwing staff abuser Senator Amy Klobuchar. For a newspaper that has developed a reputation for never taking a stand on issues, sitting through this drawn-out process and ending it with the least decisive choice of all time feels like the most on-brand thing they’ve done in years. — Chris Erik Thomas

Should Medical Professionals Stay Off TikTok?

If you’ve been on TikTok or read Business Insider recently, you may have seen some horrible videos posted by medical professionals. One nurse posted a truly grating video advising people to eschew sex before marriage in order to avoid STIs; another mocked a young person complaining of chest pains, assuming drug use; another showed a nurse gleefully mocking a hyperventilating patient presumed to be faking. Not great! The internet-famous Doctor Mike reacted to the controversy, noting that some critics have argued doctors should stay off social media altogether.

The thing about the internet is, anyone can use it. Anyone can post, and anyone can find those posts if they’re public (and sometimes even if they are not). It seems painfully obvious, but I actually think a lot of people don’t think in those terms when they’re creating content — you can fire off a tweet intended for a particular, insular audience, only to watch it blow up beyond its original context. Medical professionals might think they’re blowing off steam for one another’s amusement, but because the internet is the internet and discrimination in medical settings is a real thing that prevents patients (especially marginalized groups) from getting the care they need, a video suggesting a patient in distress is faking symptoms for drugs is really harmful! Frankly, I believe everyone, medical professionals included, has the right to bitch about their jobs — yes, even in ways that patients would find uncomfortable. Which is why bitching should be done behind closed doors and not on a social media app for teens, over the smooth beat of “Did Too Much” by LLusion.

Longread of the Week: Dayna Tortorici at n+1 wrote about embracing Instagram as a non-toxic alternative to Twitter only to find the image-driven platform comes with its own problems. Most striking is her description of an agoraphobic Instagram artist who takes photos from Google street view: “I found it pernicious and thought about it for days. The message was benign  —  technology connects you to the world  —  but I couldn’t shake the subtext: that if Google and Instagram had an ideal user, it might be a creative person who could not, would not, leave her home.”

Everything Else

— Spotify is in talks to buy The Ringer, signaling a significant push into digital media for the music streaming service. Spotify has been aggressively expanding into podcasting territory — it dropped $400 million last year to swipe up three podcast companies, including Gimlet Media — and the latest move seems to be propelled by ambitions to dominate the space. The Ringer produces more than 30 podcasts that altogether draw more than 100 million downloads a month.

— Ever since editorial director Paul Maidment left G/O Media after a short-lived stint as a blogger, the company has struggled to hire a replacement, possibly because folks are wary about working for a company that is being driven into the ground by its owners. In a wildly unprofessional move, G/O’s head of human resources told staffers in an email that top editorial staffer Joyce Tang had turned down the position because the company wouldn’t match Maidment’s salary and asked other staffers if they wanted to apply. G/O is now courting Jim Brady, a former ESPN public editor who has said he doesn’t respect Deadspin, so he certainly has a lot in common with the G/O higher-ups!

— In other good news for G/O bosses, the GMG Union has said that 97% of its editorial bargaining unit have cast a vote of no confidence in CEO Jim Spanfeller.

— Should writers expect their significant others to read their work? Morgan Jerkins certainly thinks so — she went so far as to direct writers to “not date or invest any significant amount of energy” in anyone who does not. Unsurprisingly, media Twitter erupted in some light mockery. The only correct take, in my opinion, is that no one should date writers!

— High Times’ new CEO wants to expand into dispensaries, a questionable (and likely expensive) move given that parent company Hightimes Holding is currently $105.2 million in debt after acquiring a handful of other cannabis publications. Roughly 70% of the company’s revenue already comes from events, though, and the new leadership is likely hoping the dispensary business will prove similarly lucrative.