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It Didn’t Happen To Me: The First Person Industrial Complex

Even Jonathan Ames doesn’t want to write about himself anymore. He said that when he was recently interviewed on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. As much as I love to blog and express myself, I have always found the genre of online personal essays to be somewhat problematic. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good memoir. The thing about a memoir is that there’s usually some distance between the events that happened and when you write about them. It could be a troubled childhood or adolescence or experiences in a band or working in New York City. A memoir is not normally a “hot take”, but a personal essay typically is.

XO Jane’s personal essays are under the vertical, “It Happened To Me”. I hate the name since it connotes that the essayists have no agency in their own lives. Though Catalog has been remarkable for cataloging all the angst of the twenty-something millennials living in Brooklyn. If these essays are oversharing, then it is just a result of our current pop culture.

I have been living in Savannah for less than four months and when I tell people I am a writer, the reaction has been interesting.  I have been asked how to get a book published and how to document a family history.  No one asks for my opinion or hot take, but if they wanted one, just give me a day and I could probably whip up something.

 

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