Portrait of the Artist as a Young Narcissist

Before Hamilton Nolan's Gawker piece  about the memoirization of journalism went viral last week, I would have easily agreed: journalism isn't about you. I took a handful journalism classes back in the days before blogs, Facebook, and YouTube, and the understanding was to be as objective as possible; the writer should be transparent. What he is forgetting is that in today's self-obsessed world not all voices have the luxury of being heard.

Roxane Gay wrote a great post in response to the Gawker piece. She adds:

"While it may be that first person writing is the way for certain writers to succeed, the fact remains that said certain writer generally fits a profile. The real problem isn’t that we’re inundated by first person narratives. Rather, it’s the kind of first person narratives inundating us. The world is, as Hamilton Nolan notes, full of interesting people but how often are those interesting people allowed to tell their own stories?"

The impetus for all this was writer Susan Shapiro's NY Time's piece, "Make Me Worry That You're Not O.K."   It worries me that in order to be a good writer, one must convince the reader they're not okay, and overwhelmingly it's women who are expected to spill their own blood on the page. There's something inherently wrong with a woman who refuses to be vulnerable. But getting back to the point that only certain voices are being heard, it's often women who are privileged on quite a few axes who get to be the elegant fuck-ups whose memoirs make the best sellers lists; whose blogs are turned into books.

Another caveat: good writing is good writing, whatever form it takes. It's not that I think we're necessarily raising a generation of writers to think that the key to success is showing one's scars, but that we're teaching them that it's the only key to success.