Every single college-aged kid I know has a LinkedIn profile. You’d think: what’s the point? They have no career experience. But Gen Z treats LinkedIn like an extension of their college application, which makes sense since they worked hard to frame their accomplishments within compelling personal narratives for admissions. Gen Z sees that it doesn’t make sense to throw that effort away. And what’s a better receptacle for those carefully crafted stories than LinkedIn? Read more
Some people have a bank account. I have an email list. This explains why nothing makes me overreact more than when something goes wrong with my email list. People who see me overreact regularly will probably disagree. They’ll be like, “I saw you throw a fit about [insert one of 10,000 things here].” But trust me, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen me send out 250,000 emails with a bad link. Read more
I’ve developed a survey to give to people who slipped me into their not-friend category. Since I’m a person with no ability to cope with nuance, answers to all questions are yes/no.
1. Were you ever my real friend? I want to know if you needed me like I needed you, but I don’t want to ask in person because it’s pathetic to have an uneven relationship. So please write yes or no so I can tell if the whole thing was doomed from the start.
Below is a comment from my last post about the Wikipedia editor who kept trolls from deleting my page.
I know you have no reason to believe this, but I’m Agent 86. I haven’t followed your blog or been on Wikipedia in years. In fact, not trying to be rude, I had forgotten about you and all the other bloggers I used to follow because I just don’t follow blogs anymore. However, the other day I was reminded about you and told to check you out again. So I did and saw…this?!? I kind of freaked out at first, because I thought someone I knew had figured out my editing history. Whew – with further investigation I realized it was an amazing coincidence. Read more
John Gallagher wrote his dissertation about how people with a large following online relate to comments from their audience. Over many years he interviewed people who were top Redditors, top Amazon reviewers, and he interviewed Heather and me. Read more
I’ve stopped saying yes to interviews because I piss people off. Or I scare them. I’m not sure I can tell the difference. If someone hangs up in the middle I know they hate me, but if someone doesn’t hang up in the middle but also doesn’t use the interview, I think, maybe they liked talking with me but they’re saving the interview for a really special time. In ten years.
The leasing company said they were waiting on a criminal background check. This was a good sign since it’s the only part of the rental approval process that I pass with flying colors. While we were apartment hunting, we rented a beach house priced to attract people who want to recreate Grey Gardens without the grandma’s-attic-glamour or Kennedy-kid square footage. Read more
I woke up on August 12th and my Twitter account was stolen. This is not a small account. I have 130,000 followers.
Is it too optimistic to use the present tense? I’m not sure, because there is still a picture of a cat in the spot that should be me. Read more
A reporter emailed me to set up a call to talk about millennials. There was a time in my life when I would have ignored the email. I’m tired of talking about millennials. But now that I’m home with kids, I say yes to reporters so I have someone interesting to talk to. Read more
This week Melissa is working with clients in New York during the day and sleeping at my apartment in Swarthmore. I wait for her to return each night at 9pm like I am like the cranky wife frustrated by her spouse’s long commute. My kids wait to light Chanukah candles with her like they are the cranky four-year-olds frustrated by the long wait for gifts. Read more