Gould Plated Self-Awareness

As I read Emily Gould's article, "Exposed," the lead story on the Times homepage this morning, my breakfast began its esophagus-burning procession back up my throat. It was all so familiar: the extreme exposure, the vitreous attacks and the gut-eviscerating self-doubt (which I can only assume she is feeling).

When I was twenty and a student at the University of Kansas, I wrote a candid blog about myself hosted by Lawrence.com. It was called Powder Room Confessions. Every time I posted I was pummeled by a barrage of hate mail. After four short months, my fragile ego couldn't handle it and I quit. Much like Emily, I later wrote a feature about my experience, and about the nascent blogging industry in general, for the student magazine (not quite the NYT, but still).

After finishing the article and scanning the 400-some comments, my first reaction was pity. Perhaps that isn't so. My first reaction was jealousy, as it often is when I see someone my age published in the New York Times. But after that, pity. And then a creeping feeling of schadenfreude. Watching someone else get chided in much the same manner that I did years ago was shamefully cathartic. So cathartic, in fact, that I think I am going to buy up all the tissues in Brooklyn so she has to wipe her porcelain, tear-drenched cheeks with paper towels.

But the jealousy? Yeah, totally over it.