The New Journalism Fails at Life

I like to behave as though I am an expert on journalism because my father was  a newspaper and magazine writer/editor for the better part of his life. During my senior year of High school, he started a rival town newspaper after being fired from the original rag for exposing an actual scandal in the Board of Town Selectmen where some of them were (GAsp) taking bribes.
Finally, my father had somewhere else to channel his atrophying editorial skills which for the ten years he took off from journalism to write books, he used to tear strips off of my confidence by reading my school papers over my shoulder while I tapped at the family computer--Ah the 90's, a time when you had to wait your turn on the family word processor rather than hole up in your bedroom and never emerge or speak to anyone and lick a screen to death with your eyeballs until falling unconscious with the instagram last witnessed burned into your retinas--
Where was I?

During my first summer back from college, I worked as the secretary for the paper a couple of days a week and Dad even let me write an article or two, which he editorially (not literally) ripped apart with his characteristic acerbic wit, and the next year I got a gig working at a bakery and said deuces to the family business.

With that being said, I am now a Writing Instructor at a pretty prestigious Boston institution. I have just earned my Master's in Creative Writing, and I am working on several projects for publication.

Now, that's a really verbose introduction, isn't it?
It's probably unnecessary, and my dad would definitely have cut it, but we live in a blogger society now and readers like a little personality with their opinion pieces.
In fact, the number of people publishing memoirs under the age of 30 is skyrocketing. Just go to amazon and search nonfiction and you'll be barraged with the life stories of 25 year old Beauty Gurus, Thirty Something Lifestyle bloggers, Self Proclaimed Foodies, Crafters, Entrepreneurs, Body Love Advocates, and Cat Enthusiasts.
If you have even a moderately successful Snapchat account apparently it's enough to warrant you a book deal these days. Which is great because I obviously need to know more about Grumpy Cat's Owner.
Look at Lena Dunham, one of the most unoriginal navel gazers of her generation. Girl is in her late twenties, and she's just released her SECOND MEMOIR. Albeit it's a collection of excerpts from her journal, and it's a limited release for a charity, BUT she wrote Not That Kind of Girl, her first Memoir at the age of 25.
Seriously?
What the hell could anyone of that age possibly have to reflect on? I'm sure there are many exceptions to the rule...
Malala Yousafzai for instance, but people who live through horror, war, and torture tend to grow up quick and have a good deal more hindsight to apply to the lessons they've learned, rather than your average, white, affluent, city/suburban kid who just thinks their coming of age stories are better than yours.
Was that harsh?
I'm just getting started.


Take for example the thing that started me writing about this to begin with.
This article on the site Ravishly.com


http://www.ravishly.com/people-we-love/lindy-west-her-new-book-shrill-and-hi-shes-amazing-writer

It was suggested to me by facebook because of my interest in Jes Baker, another late 20's blogger who just released a Memoir called Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls.
Guess what?
I totally want to read that book.
I want to read it because Jes used to work in Mental Health. She has a history of her own mental Health issues including self harm and depression.
I want to read it because I have struggled with those things, and even though I'm a good six or seven years older than Jes (we do share a rad name), unlike me, she has experience in the industry designed to "help" women conquer their demons, and she has spoken a great deal about how broken that industry is.

See?

Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, never figures out why, doesn't do anything for anyone else struggling with same issues = not productive and self indulgent Read: for profit only.

Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, endures bullying, abuse, or other trauma, but conquers all and seeks justice and works to prevent same happening to peers and less fortunate = Inspiring, justified, and hey, if the author makes a few shekels while she/he's at it, FAN_BLOODY_TASTIC.

Anyway,
So we live in a culture where the conversational tone trumps almost any other kind of narrative voice.
People like their journalism to be accessible, personable, and friendly. They want to feel as though they are sitting down with a good friend over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and being gossiped with. Perhaps, especially if we are talking about the aforementioned wonderful Memoir, that glass of coffee gets cold or the wine bottle empties, and we linger with this friend getting deeper and deeper until finally, tearfully, we clasp hands and say,
"Never again! Never again!"

I am down.
Believe me.
As a feminist, writer, new mother, etc, I am so all for the new journalism, but I have a big problem with the article I read in Ravishly, and let me tell you why.

Not only did it contain a few glaring typos, but it was almost illiterate.
Perhaps that language is a bit strong.
What I mean to say is the writing was so forcibly colloquial and conversational, that it not only skipped certain grammatical and linguistic rules, but the very TITLE OF THE INTERVIEW IS SO CONFUSING I HAD TO READ IT THREE TIMES BEFORE I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE HELL THE AUTHOR WAS TALKING ABOUT!

Lindy West: Her New Book Shrill — And Hi, She's An Amazing Writer.

I mean, what are you saying?
How are you using that dash? Not correctly that's for sure. 

And what the flying fuck is "HI, she's an amazing writer"? That's not a phrase. 

Lindy West sounds like a cool chick. Her responses to the interviewer are well thought out and poised, but the writer of the article sounds like a thirteen year old trying her first shot at writing for the school paper. 

This paragraph for instance:

"There are so many amazing feminist writers writing amazing memoirs, I feel like it's changing the landscape of the bookstore (or Amazon, as it were). I realize they have always been there, and I was just up to my neck in diapers or something, but this is an exciting time. We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have, in a way that will change conversations forever. And Lindy is on the front line."

At first, I thought, yes! There are a lot of feminists writing memoirs, and it is cool, though with my earlier caveats. It is changing the genre, which is a good and bad thing. Yes.






But when she goes on to say "They have always been there" she is going back on what she just said, and then she goes on to say "I was up to my neck in diapers or something" and I got so confused as to be angry. Do you mean you were wearing diapers up to your neck? Were you buried in diapers? How is your being a mother relevant in this sentence? From here the paragraph just disintegrates, the moment I gave up trying to like the article was when I read "We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have," and I thought,


Wait...that's not english.

It is a really sad thing for Lindy West's new book to be treated to such poorly manufactured praise.


I really want to be excited about the new direction of journalism, it could double as extremely therapeutic, or even work as the only way to get an increasingly narcissistic and self absorbed society to empathize with one another like humans again.






I do, however, think there are limits, and as writers, especially writers espousing the goods of other, intelligent, wonderful women and feminists (because the two aren't mutually exclusive), we owe it to our future selves, and future writers of these and other developing genres to at the very least, adhere to basic grammatical structure, so that our words, if not resonant, are at least clear.