Great Writing Isn’t About Auctioning Your Pain to the Highest Bidder
It’s about telling stories with perspective.
If I could dole out Oscars to all the performative writing I’ve read, I’d wipe out the entire Academy. Everywhere I turn I see price tags clipped to the innards of people trotted out on display like cheap bags sold on the sidewalks of Canal Street.
On Instagram, they sob in front of the camera and they’ll shoot and re-shoot this 30-second video many times. Until the tears are just right. Until they’ve created a piece of content that will seduce the algorithm. The flood of comments ensues. The typed rage, sorrow, and indifference invariably rack up critical engagement metrics. And that open-mouthed sob morphs into a smile because they’re choking on so much coin.
A woman in a small town fictionalizes a story about her son getting jumped, her family in peril — all in hopes of raising $30,000 for her Go Fund Me to get out of Dodge. What she failed to mention was her son sexually assaulted a classmate and when her brother challenged him to a fight, the son agreed. The son threw the first punch and a swarm pummeled back. But who needs the truth when the mother goes live on TikTok panhandling for the lifestyle she believes she deserves?
