Letters to the Editor
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Dissent against self-inflicted snobbery is lame.
If Megan bothered to look, there's thousands of online self-help blogs and networks. Hell, did she not notice the huge audience for Cary Tennis on this site? I guess such things don't count as they would spoil her thesis of people shamed into hiding their opinions.
Megan Hustad commits the common sin of confusing personal gripes with the zeitgeist.
She can't read a book from an opposing viewpoint without worrying someone will assume she agrees with it. This is goofy self-hating snobbery depends on other people knowing what you read. Hint to Megan - nothing forces you to display your choices.
Self-flattering self-disclosure is the norm in life, especially online. This isn't sinister or snobbish, but normal.
Does Megan really believe otherwise? Or is she projecting her own anxieties into social analysis?
"He was saying that if I'd decided a book had nothing to offer me before I'd read a single word, then perhaps I wasn't as cosmopolitan as I liked to imagine I was." True, but that's your problem Megan. "When I started asking around, I found that quite a few people were consuming "off-message" books, but only in the privacy of their own homes." Yes, because many people, even young ones, don't feel the need to reveal everything. Self-help often deals with personal territory is something people might hesitate to share.
What's really going on in the article is not Megan's fear of being judged but her need to judge everyone else.
Thus she redefines other people's list making as having dishonest, sinister or corrupt motives. Megan's discomfort can't possiby her own problem - it's those others deluded by online memes which she has no obligation to read.
I'll admit I buy into ideas of cultural contamination at times, but this one is particularly reactionary and self-serving.
Her defense of Grover Norquist assumes those hissing him are unfamiliar with his ideas or words - perhaps they understand him so easily they've lost patience with his B.S.
Honestly Megan, grow up. Notice people other than yourself and maybe you'd see what you consider outre is the norm.
It's not surprising Salon has an essay which is unable to distinguish real dissent and ostracism from the faux anxiety of someone who considers certain books beneath them.
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Thank you
Megan Hustad for that timely and funny piece.
It's the Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss) factor: most people will refuse something without even giving it a chance.
The Amazon sales tactic of "If you like X then you might like Y" doesn't help matters.
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having interests versus advertising them
I would like to point out that people are constantly constructing personas for themselves, and the "interest list" is just as valid a technique as any other.
Also, those people who seem most in need of this "advice" will likely ignore it, while the true enthusiast will not even understand what you're talking about.
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hm
People who are out of touch with reality may not understand this article. But its core message speaks to more than just the myspace/facebook generation. In our culture, branding is everything. People don't just wear J.Crew or Express because they like the clothes, but they want to come off a certain way. And those same people would not be caught dead in an Abercrombie or American Eagle outfit, even if the clothing was nearly identical. I have an Abercrombie jacket that I got second-hand and I am even sometimes embarrassed to wear it. The same goes for every different brand and product you can imagine. I see scores of hip people walking around with Starbucks coffee in their hands, who wouldn't be caught dead with a cup of $.89 gas station joe. People who use Macs don't hesitate to proclaim how cool and hip their computers are, which is then a reflection of them. All sorts of college kids my age who know all the lyrics to *NSync nnd Britney Spears and jam to the music when they happen to hear it nevertheless make sure that the only musicians you know they like are Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, and Alanis Morissette.
People laugh at me for owning the ABBA: Gold CD. I have to defend myself when people see The Alien Chronicles trilogy on my book shelf... heaven forfend that a cheesy-looking sci-fi book might actually be good despite its unimaginative title.
And my facebook profile proudly proclaims my interests, which range from early English literature to Dostoevsky to Mahler symphonies the theology of neoorthodoxy, but omits my love of the Star Wars wiki, online role-playing games, running around in the mountains and pretending to be a Viking, and other things that I enjoy immensely but wouldn't reflect well on me and the hip intellectual image I feel compelled to project.
So as of tonight, I have deleted all that from my facebook and replaced it with the simple sentence: "If you want to get to know me, please ask. A facebook profile does not a human being contain."
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Contrived article
I completely agree with softdog, and would like to add that perhaps this author was at a loss for a column and so contrived this one.
Additionally, I would hardly characterize a list of valued books as merely consumer items. Reading a book, or even watching a movie, isn't like buying a new fashionable shirt, or the newest fake food product.
I thought this article was kind of dumb.
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Inane and incoherent
I haven't read anything else by Ms. Hustad, so maybe this column is an aberration. I certainly hope so.
A collection of inarticulate, tangentially-related spoutings-off is not an essay.
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And the Nobel Prize for Inverted Reverse Snobbery goes to...
Not to name any names here, but I think some people are going out of their way to completely miss the point of Ms. Hustad's essay. Are we to seriously believe that anyone born in the last millennium is not familiar with this form of self-deprecating confessional humor essay? My God people, Dave Barry won a Pulitzer for using this kind of subject matter!
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The beauty of middle age
Rosenkavalier, I think all you say about branding and appearances is true, but mostly for younger people.
I know it's cliche, but it really is true: When you become a staid middle ager like me, it's just not that important whether you're drinking BP joe or Starbucks. It's all about the location and the coupons.
I mean no disrespect whatsoever. I think what you say is precisely true, just not so much for me anymore. You should see what I wear around town. I suppose I embarrass my kids to death...