Literary Clusterfucks 2013

dessen wasn't aware that this would generate negative PR for herself. and she is deeply sorry. in the future, she will make sure to tweet stuff that will make people like her more.

Eh, she apologized. Seems okay enough to me.

many people are bad at apologies. they seem incapable of understanding why their apologies are bad, so they never learn. because contrition requires feeling bad and people resist feeling bad.

I'm sure dessen did not intend to cause this clusterfuck and feels remorse, I just enjoy the non-apology apology genre

I think she absolutely did intend the initial consequence of her tweet, obv she did not intend the backlash lol

Even if the apology showed real self-reflection (it doesn’t) there would still be a healthy scepticism that someone petty & unhinged enough to namesearch & go after a rando who said something innocuous and true 3 years ago would suddenly develop a true emotional maturity two days later

many people are bad at apologies. they seem incapable of understanding why their apologies are bad, so they never learn.

yes. And I think it's good that you are generalizing this here as "people" as opposed to what seems to be a tendency here on ilx to somehow revoke the "personhood" of artists, musicians, writers, etc. because they are "professionals" or "celebrities" like they should totally separate their work from themselves.

Also this focus on "professional responsibility" or something like that, w/r/t fans or social media followers -- it's not like fans are the equivalent of the weird deformed rage children from Cronenberg's "The Brood" that go out and murder people their parent is mad at. These fans and followers, for the most part, are mentally competent adults who are responsible for their own actions.

apology fetishism is a weird one but v interesting to me

These fans and followers, for the most part, are mentally competent adults who are responsible for their own actions.

this account one of Jennifer Warner's books makes it sound deranged (apparently it's about an evil book reviewer who gets her deserved comeuppance because she only likes literary fiction and not the kind of stuff Jennifer Warner writes)

https://sittinginthedinosaur.home.blog/2019/11/16/on-jennifer-weiner-criticism-and-what-makes-a-woman/

my god, who on earth is that goon anyway

roald dahl wd never

seriously though -- the people that participate in pile ons like this with no personal stake are an aspect of humanity that scares the shit out of me. I don't really want to invoke Arendt's "banality of evil" but I feel like there are similarities

apology fetishism

I am unfamiliar with this term, deems. What kind of thoughts or behavior does is it meant to describe?

I just wanna say I admire the pessimism of this thread title which seemed to conjecture there would be so many literary clusterfucks we'd need a new thread every year.

I would argue that it is optimism -- that we would be so on top of all the literary clusterfucks and have high-minded, thoughtful things to say about them, and also the optimism that national politics would not totally eclipse the literary in clusterfuckery

We did spend much of the first week of impeachment hearings complaining about some YA authors though. Hope for the world after all.

*hi-fives ilx*

xp aimless oh yknow, when ppl hear of an apology theyve been clamoring for and start apology lawyering it as if it was genuine or as if there was a standard that could ever have been met that wouldve placated them, neither of which ever seem to be the case

apologies should be delivered but never opened, the sum of the parts never total the whole, the apology that the villagers cut the goose open for turned out not to have been the source of infinite golden eggs

look i think ive been clear on this, and if not, im sorry if you feel that way

public apologies are a fake idea anyway

public anything

the only people who should be concerned about an apology are the apologizer and apologized to. Onlookers have bugger all to do with it and may be safely ignored as irrelevant to the process.

No, sometimes a public apology is valuable to and appreciated by the wronged party.

Especially if the initial injury was a public one.

Of course a public apology in lieu of a private one is probably insincere.

I''d have said that if you publicly set the hounds on someone, you have to publicly call them off.

I’m sorry you feel that way darragh

that analogy works more accurately applied to the opposite parties in the new dynamic

xp lol im sorry youre sorry if you feel that way

I’m sorry you had to see that

having spoken to my wife and sponsors, i can now see the error of my ways and i promise to do better

Every apology is self-interested therefore true altruism is to not apologize at all.

yes

Speaking of YA fiction:

http://epicstream.com/news/JakeVyper/Magic-The-Gathering-Fans-Are-Not-Pleased-With-The-New-War-of-The-Spark-Forsaken-Novel

by that reasoning, true altruism is killing yourself quietly in the grave you thoughtfully dug for yourself ahead of time.

How dare this written-for-hire sequel to a sequel to a sequel of a novelisation of a card game be badly written?

This is what gamer gate was about I guess

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/very-online-sarah-dessen-social-media-controversy

'“Many authors consider their writing to be political and use social media to discuss their views and opinions,” cultural critic and digital strategist Ella Dawson says.'

lol pwned by a digital strategist

The author is just asking to be put to death again.

another case of "people don't really need to have this explained to them, do they?" vs. "so many people are super fucking stupid."

https://www.themarysue.com/romance-writers-author-courtney-milan-rwa-ruling/

Sometimes I like to think about how Nathaniel Hawthorne lived next door to Louisa May Alcott and was a petty whiny little bitch about her success until the end

— rachel syme (@rachsyme) January 2, 2020

i hate twitter

ya done goofed nathaniel my boy

Now wait a second...

nobody loves the scarlet letter my guy! You done goofed

— rachel syme (@rachsyme) January 2, 2020

Young Incel Brown

its about time someone was brave enough to take him down a few pegs. i'm sick of the army of all these House of the Seven Gables fanboys clogging up my TL all day every day

Finally, a voice of sanity on the RWA clusterfuck

enjoy new no sex tingler NOT POUNDED BY ROMANCE WRANGLERS OF AMERICA BECAUSE THEIR NEW LEADERSHIP IS FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE ENDLESS COSMIC VOID out now https://t.co/rT0bh3B6K6 pic.twitter.com/EPDAQX9Agn

— Chuck Tingle (@ChuckTingle) January 3, 2020

waht is going on here

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Romance-publishing-industry-in-chaos-top-awards-14958581.php

I think I'm would-be-woke-American-genre-fiction-debacle'd out.

"This is akin to putting a neo-Nazi in charge of a UN human rights committee," she wrote

lmao astonishing