“She’s confused attention with power and has let herself be used, sexually and now by other writers who are more savvy than herself (who profits here?). Her sexual exploits seem to be traumatizing experiences that she orchestrates to tantalize people who get off on the degradation of women (including herself). She has written repeatedly about how she is frigid, how sex is painful to her and how violence turns her on because she was a victim of rape. Just gross… and sad.” [male.]
“marie calloway is a lazy boring writer who I know through a friend to be histrionic, predictably ‘unpredictable’ and most likely autistic.” [sic] [female.]
I spent the entire day reading all that had been written about me. I incessantly ruminated over all of it to the point of mental exhaustion, working myself up to a panic attack which finally culminated in me hiding from my parent’s Christmas party in the guest bathroom. There, I curled up into the fetal position and hyperventilated. After an hour and a half, I got up and logged onto my computer and went onto Gchat. Jeremy Lin immediately messaged me.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Is it possible to pull my story off of Muumuu House?”
“I feel aversion to that but it’s up to you.”
“Yes. I don’t know. I guess I should not decide while I’m panicking.”
“I feel really good about all of this.”
“Why?” I asked.
He sent me a long email titled, “why I feel good about all of this,”
“Benefits for Marie
1. More people know about you and writing, which makes you and your writing more valuable, which ensures you a larger chance of financial security. Financial security means that you will feel less pressure to do things that you don’t want to do. Financial security also means that you will feel less pressure to compromise any of your views or art or writing or anything.
It also ensures you a larger number of people who know about you and view you as worthy of attention. This means you will have a wider range of people with which you can choose to talk to and be friends with. This means you will be less likely to ‘settle’ for someone in terms of friendship or romance; you have more of an ability to ‘choose’ who you like most. This is what I think when I get negative coverage or people say I’m an ‘attention whore.’ It’s to ensure financial security, not to gain something called ‘fame’ which is an abstraction and so is something I have no concept of. I can’t ‘get’ fame.
Benefits for People like Me
1. I’m excited about all this. I’m excited you exist. I feel less depressed because of this and your writing and you, in the same way I’m less depressed when I read any work of art that I like. This entire thing is so unlikely and exciting to me and in a way that is also positive, I feel, for society and everyone involved. As an ‘art project’ this is exciting to me. Something that I feel is morally good and artistically original/exciting is happening now and I feel less depressed or bored about life because of it.”
“I’m glad that you are glad that I exist.” I responded.
Jeremy Lin’s email opened a floodgate inside of me, and I told Jeremy Lin all about my worries about writing, my feelings of alienation, as well as the guilt, humiliation, and anger (“We didn’t talk about ‘feminism’ or ‘famewhoring’ or ‘revenge’ in the interview at all and I specifically asked the reporter not to focus on any gossip and she said she wouldn’t. I was so stupid to not have known that would happen. I feel completely ashamed.”) that I felt in a rapid fire stream-of-consciousness over Gchat. I concluded it with, “I feel like I will be embarrassed of this spill tomorrow. Please reassure me that you don’t mind or think less of me.”
“I enjoyed reading all that, thanks for sharing. There’s nothing that you can say or do at this point that will make me think less of you, I feel. To me, I view this as: I’m happy to know someone like you, I have an increased chance of financial security (via increased knowledge of me), and that I’m happy to read your writing and see what happens with you and your writing in the future.”
I then told him about my fears of what he had meant with the invitation to Paris, about how my friends and Internet commentators had said, and how even I had wondered, if that he was just trying to get me to have sex with him, and that that was the reason he had even published my story in the first place.
“No, I didn’t want you to come to Paris to have sex. I like talking to you and I like your writing and your personality and sense of humor and willingness to publish things. I thought that I wanted to meet you and probably would at some point, and the most interesting way to do it would be to preempt you writing about it by making it the focus. I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to do anything without consciousness of it being written about which seemed exciting, but only in a certain mood.”
“I can’t go into a situation knowing that I’ll write about it,” I responded.
*
After we were done chatting, I replayed the phrases “I’m excited that you exist” and “there’s nothing that you can say or do at this point that will make me think less of you, I feel” over and over in my mind; it was successful in tampering the negative phrases that had been playing in my mind all day. No one had ever said anything like those things about me, and I realized that deep down it was what I was always longing to hear from other people, that all of my social interaction with other people was really just out of a want to hear those sentences, and so I felt almost existentially relieved by talking with him that night.
*
However, the intense criticism of me and my story on the Internet continued to grow. I began to receive death and rape threats over email. I mostly fought the compulsion to reply to the comments, and simply deleted the negative emails that I got. Nevertheless, a comment that essentially called me an “ugly slut” pushed me over the edge, and I broke my silence by responding “fuck off” to it. Right after I did that, I was immediately intensely embarrassed, but there was no way to delete my comment. I emailed Jeremy Lin out of desperation for consolation about everything.
“I am worried about how ‘attention’ makes me act weirdly. I tend to crack under pressure. I feel embarrassed about responding ‘fuck off’ to an idiotic comment on Thought Catalog. I feel like all of this ‘attention’ on the Internet is all very draining and exhausting, yet also addicting. I feel like it will be difficult for me to be able to write for a while due to reading all of these things about me, as stress and expectations on myself, and also the perceived expectations and opinions of others, make it impossible for me to write well. It seems like if I want to become a ‘successful writer’ it will be a lot harder than I imagined and in ways that I did not imagine. Maybe it won’t even be possible due to how I crack under pressure. I just felt like telling you all this to get it out, by the way. I’m not expecting you to act as my therapist or something like that.” I wrote.
“I feel like you already have enough for a book, so maybe you can relax for a while and focus on what you’ve already done. I feel like you navigated this as well as I can think. I feel glad to have been a part of this in some way. I feel like the most shit-talking you will ever receive has probably already happened, with this, and it will gradually decrease from now on, so there will be less stress maybe. Overall, just good job, thank you for sending the story to me in first place,” Jeremy Lin replied.
“Thank you. I feel happy that I made you ‘proud’ of me, and that I helped you get hits.”
*
After this message, Jeremy Lin and I Gchatted later that day.
“What do you think when someone says there are flaws in your writing, or when someone says you have talent? Do you think any of those people are right, whether they say you are good or bad, or do you think that everyone just has different preferences?” he asked.
“To be honest, I haven’t really thought about it.” I replied.
“If someone says your writing has flaws or is good, that implies they know a concrete goal that your
writing has, which can be measured in numbers, and that the number would be higher or lower if you changed your writing in a certain way, I feel, but that seems incredibly hard to measure, even if two different people had agreed upon a purpose for your writing that could be measured, like ‘increases heart rate in reader’ or something. But it can be depressing to never think in terms of ‘good’/’bad’ without defining contexts/goals in each instance.
“I feel like it’s two completely different ways of using language, to (1) never use abstractions with 100% seriousness especially qualitative ones, without defining contexts or goals. (2) To use them. (2) makes it so there’s always some purpose, there’s always some people who you view as having ‘good taste’ and others as ‘bad taste’ and there’s always that ‘conversation’ happening, that argument. I think that like 98% of people are (2), but I can only do (2) self-consciously, because I know that it’s not accurate. But out of all the people on the Internet, I’ve found some people who write things who do (1) mostly and have published them on Muumuu House.”
I said that I appreciated his thoughts, but that I wasn’t in a cerebral mood at that moment. In actuality, I was very interested in Jeremy Lin’s opinion, but thought that I needed to do more reading and think on my own about this before I formed an opinion. But I was too afraid to tell him all of that.
*
A few days later, Jeremy Lin and I were invited to participate in a letter in the mail writing project, and also participate in a reading that was to be held in New York in connection with it. Jeremy Lin then arranged a Muumuu House reading to be held around that same time. He emailed me about the Muumuu House reading, “Would you want to confirm the reading for February 21?”
“Yes, the 21st it is. I just booked a plane ticket to New York today. I feel very grateful towards you.”
“I’m excited that you’re coming and that we have readings. I’m really glad that you’re coming,” he replied.
*
Until then, my interactions with Jeremy Lin had been overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Perhaps this led me to a false sense of complacency; that he would like me no matter what I did. Even with Jeremy Lin’s emotional support, the onslaught of hundreds of comments calling me a horrible writer and attacking me personally got to me. Out of want for support, I emailed a writer that I admired. After I sent it to her, I forwarded the email to him, hoping that he would comfort me, even though the email contained these lines, “The ‘attention’ positive and negative is making me get into an unhealthy obsessive/self-hate cycle and I developed massive writer’s block and I lost my voice and confidence in my ability to write. I know the thing to do is just to ignore all of the comments, but I can’t help but read things about me. I hate how I’m being described as some Jeremy Lin imitator or groupie. I don’t want to be really associated with Jeremy Lin/Muumuu House (as a writer), I really want to escape that shadow.”
Jeremy Lin responded to the forward, “There will always be people talking about you if your writing is available. The more people who read your writing, the more money you’ll make and the more people will talk about you. If you don’t want any personal attention I think the only way to do that is to completely make up an identity and write only completely made up stories. Even if you have no Internet presence, if you publish a book, people will be talking about you. I think the only sustainable solution is to just learn over time to not be affected by what other people say or think. As for what you want or don’t want to be associated with, focus on what you like and publish your work at places you like, and talk to people you like, and that’s what you’ll be associated with and if it’s what you like then that won’t be a problem. But being associated with things is unavoidable also.”
I could tell that he was upset with me. I wrote him a reply email, “I’m sorry if I came off as rude or offensive with regards to what I said about not wanting to be associated with you or Muumuu House. I didn’t mean it like that, I don’t know. I really feel very grateful to you for publishing me on Muumuu House, and all of the advice and support that you have given me.”
Jeremy Lin replied, “Can you elaborate on ‘I didn’t mean it like that, I don’t know’ as much as you can or want to? I feel that it would decrease the awkwardness I feel now, and also I’m interested. I’m also interested in any elaboration of your original email. I would like to know more. Who do you seek validation from? From reading your blog and Facebook, I feel like you place more value in writing that is political and uses academic terms, but your fiction is nothing like that. I think it’s interesting, the difference. I can see how you wouldn’t want to be associated with certain things. I am interested in hearing more, both out of interest and to decrease the awkwardness.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want things to be awkward. I don’t want you to dislike me or think less of me. I’m not sure who I seek validation from. I feel like I would be unhappy and insecure unless every single person who read my writing said they liked it and got what I was intending to do 100% and obviously that is impossible. I think deep down I published things because there was a desire to be understood by other people, but that didn’t really happen and it now seems kind of ridiculous to think that could happen. Instead there were just a lot of people misunderstanding me and totally misrepresenting me as a stupid Jeremy Lin puppet attention whore.
“I guess those people don’t matter but it was very frustrating. Why do other people feel they understand my motivations and intentions with regards to my writing? Why do they feel like they can write in detail about my mental health? Why do they feel they get to decide if I’m ‘degrading’ myself, and assume that I have no understanding of those things? Why do they get to decide that just because my writing seems straightforward and direct, or that because I’m a 21-year-old ‘girl’ that I can’t have any intent with regards to my writing that isn’t directly stated? And so on… I guess I just feel like I don’t want to be associated with you as a writer in the way that it brings people to think my whole writing efforts are just to impress you/get famous/attempt to write exactly like you.
“As a writer and as a person I admire and like you a lot. I like how you are very intelligent but don’t feel the need to show it off and are completely sincere and unpretentious, and I feel the same about your writing. Probably I was trying to use publishing as a way to bypass forming real life relationships with people, which is very difficult for me to do via awkwardness and social anxiety. I also feel like I desired to be validated by people as a writer and wanted to be able to see myself as a writer. I realized that I do want a book though I know I won’t make much money or probably be reviewed well. I can’t say why really that I write. I don’t really aim to make money so much as like you said you did (not that I think wanting to make money is a bad goal). Writing is just something that I’ve done everyday since I was like seven years old and it feels like something I have to do, the same as with eating or whatever, but I feel like I come off as pretentious or taking myself really seriously if I say that. I don’t want to be pretentious or ambitious and I really dislike those qualities in other people. I hate any sort of artifice. I feel like I can see myself becoming someone who is very ambitious and careerist and tries to suck up to people and who brags about being published in places, and I don’t want to be like that, and I can’t really operate or write under those conditions,” I responded.
“Thanks for typing all of that, I feel less awkward. Some people understood you and your writing. Wanting to connect with people is also a main factor as to why I write and publish things, forgot to mention that. Don’t you feel you were successful in that? You’ve met a lot of people through writing. You didn’t feel ambitious before? What were you thinking when you were sending out stories and emailing me a lot of times even if I didn’t respond, with your writing? Is it different now? I’m interested in what you think about Muumuu House, because I honestly feel that Muumuu House is the least careerist, sucking up, ‘contest’-like thing for writing there
is now that I know of, since I and most people published that I know of on the site honestly believe that there is no good or bad in art (for example I 100% believe a 10-year-old’s writing is not less good than James Joyce’s, or replace either with any people) and have demeanors where it’s impossible to fake interest or ‘suck up.’ I feel like someone who wants to avoid those things you listed would feel an affinity with Muumuu House. But I also think that you want validation and it’s an environment where you won’t get much. I don’t value intelligence and feel aversion to the word ‘talent.’ I feel like based on your stories I would think that you would like my writing, but based on other aspects of you I feel like you wouldn’t like my writing. I feel like if there is anything I’m the opposite of it’s probably essays I’ve read by n+1 people. So I’ve felt vague about what you think about me and why you repeatedly send me things. Can you elaborate on that? Also, what do you think about all the advice people have given you? I’ve felt aversion whenever I’ve read any advice people have given you. I feel like you know what you’re doing and when I read other people’s advice it makes me feel like I want to help you feel like you don’t need their advice,” Jeremy Lin wrote.
“It’s true that some people understood my writing, and my friends who knew me well grew to understand me more. For instance, my friend said, ‘my girl friend in high school really likes your writing and admires you. I think there are a lot of people, girls especially, who intuitively understand what you’re writing about and feel excited about it.’ I guess it’s hard for me to focus on that, though. It’s also true that I started to talk to a lot of people I really like because of my writing. I guess it just comes back to insecurity; a desire to be recognized by intellectuals or everyone, even. I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know why I sent you things. I feel like I was just on autopilot and did those things because they intuitively felt like the thing to do and there wasn’t conscious thought behind it. I didn’t know or think much at all about Muumuu House before, and I had never read any of the writers there except I read a few of your short stories and Richard Yates, but I read those way after I published writing on Thought Catalog and sent you writing. I see some competition, ambition, and sucking up though it is in a different way than in other places.
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