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Regina Cannot Explain It All

I'm Regina Small. I'm a writer and editor in NYC. I have a lot of opinions.

Interests include: sci-fi/fantasy, literature, summertime daydrinking, trying to be a better person, fancy manicures, philosophy, pictures for sad children, and the role of irony in the modern world. And fandom, of course.

I have another blog dedicated exclusively to science fiction/fantasy. Read it here.

Recent Tweets @reginasmall

Dudes — all of us supposedly smart people, in fact — should think about being a little more careful about this stuff. Like AJ’s unfortunate mustache in the above photo, it might be meant ironically, but eventually it just becomes your look.

thank you.

We all get that this is JUST FOR THE PAGEVIEWS and TONGUE-IN-CHEEK and IF YOU GET MAD YOU ARE JUST PLAYING INTO IT. Anger is engagement, blah blah blah. Anger at the columnist? Hatred for the publication? That’s just “how it’s done,” huh? Well, it is your ironic journalism career. You’ll have to live with it. I, for one, think it is pathetic.

(via meaghano)

The “an angry reader is an engaged reader” theory Ham Nolan was peddling just strikes me as really disingenuous. So…women get angry over this cheetah business. Mission accomplished! Except…wait, Spencer Morgan actually doesn’t care about cheetahs or cougars or pumas. So he’s intentionally pissing off readers to engage them on a topic he does not care about? That doesn’t seem very useful.

I can buy that the NYO article was satire (!) aimed at the obsession with “cougars.” It succeeds there. But that has, to me, a far less interesting purpose than simple reporting or commentary, because Spencer Morgan isn’t engaging his readers. He predicts (and hopes) they will be annoyed so he (and others who understand the piece) can point and laugh at the people WHO SO TOTALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND, OMG YOU GUYS.

I’ve tried to understand why this bothers me and I think it’s that these types of pieces are inevitably kind of directed back toward the author. About the AUTHOR’S intent, the AUTHOR’S cleverness. There are no ideas; there is only the authorial voice, announcing its superiority at every turn. And if your standard of success is whether your rhetoric-based prank pissed people off, then this would be a coup, no argument. But, for me, it’s hard to understand writing (in a professional capacity) when you have no point to make other than “Dumb People Will Think This is Serious; I, The Author, Will Laugh.” Rile people up, certainly, but can it be about shit that actually matters? Or even something that actually matters to you?

(Note: I would accept the argument: “But Regina, pissing people off = pageviews. Pageviews = money. Money = me, a writer, not living on the street (this month).” Because if I had to take sides between the abstract idea of professional integrity and real human life and day-to-day concerns about keeping a roof over one’s head and trying not to die, I would have to go with human beings.)