The summer of 2008. A summer drowning in recession, debt, ridiculous gas prices, and boring, trashy television (I mean, Greatest American Dog??). Lots of things seem to be going wrong…or at least…discussed to the point of having us all believe they’re going wrong…and many teens and twenty-somethings are turning to the web to air their grievances.

Because 2008 isn’t just the summer of expensive corn and Obama-rama, it’s also the summer of TMI. Over-sharing has become a form of communication for our generation; from blogging about bad dates, to blogging about our self-indulgent issues, to blogging purely to become famous. No matter who we are, we can become stars overnight by uploading naked photos, name-dropping about a wild party, or simply having an ounce of literary ability and a snarky way with words.

By late July, 2008, the percent of people in the US who haven’t seen a celebrity vajayjay flash or heard someone say, “dude, I’m gonna blog about this!” is monumentally small, and it seems like every day a new gossip or 24 hour news site pops up. However, amidst the clattering of fingers on keyboards and snapping of flashbulbs, I can’t help but wonder if this constant need to be seen and heard is actually doing us any good. Read More »

So, have you heard about Josh Stein and Emily Gould?

Don’t worry. You will. And soon.

The New York Times Magazine is running a cover piece by Gould this Sunday. It’s ostensibly about “the dangers of oversharing on the Internet,” and is actually the culmination of a breakup sadder and less significant than anyone could possibly imagine. The story goes like this:

Josh blogged. Emily blogged. They blogged together on Gawker. They screwed. She blogged about them screwing. He read her blog about them screwing. He wrote an article about her blogging about them screwing. She wrote an article about his article about her blogging about them screwing. Gawker blogged about her article about his article about her blogging about them screwing, and so the whole universe devoured

itself, as in the end of Southland Tales when the two Seann William Scotts finally meet, thereby creating a rift in the time/space continuum.

This, by the way, is why my boyfriend is not allowed to read CollegeCandy. Read More »

Keith Gessen’s novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men, was recently published. As a result, it stirred up scathing critiques as well as praiseworthy remarks. From the host of reviews I’ve found (both on the internet and elsewhere), no one has responded in a purely lukewarm manner. Nope. Mr. Gessen is either adored or reviled, and that’s where the critiques about his book stand too – all the contributing voices are absolutely opposed to one another.

So who is this Mr. Gessen anyway? Who cares? Mr. Gessen is a M.F.A. drop out from Syracuse University, and the editor for N + 1. As a literary magazine N + 1 exposes all the hackneyed writers of the world. Yippee. Gawker.com mockingly describes it as the “most important literary magazine of our time.” N + 1 sees itself as such, i.e. “mind blowingly intellectual,” and Gawker simply can’t help but invert such a problematic claim. Gessen’s personality, as well as this literary magazine, is throwing a wrench into my earlier comments that relate to Mr. Neyfakh’s article about Ms. Crosley’s supposedly fresh presence in the New York literary scene. Read More »