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This is an interesting meta article, but it skirts the bigger picture. "Personal essay" seems to be a euphemism for "first world feminist problems." Note all of the examples in the intro are wealthy(ish) women drumming up trivial problems somehow related to womanhood. There are no listed examples of men having equivalent problems (let's say having a mishap with his pant zipper), and there are no listed examples of lower class problems (let's say a dishwasher who gets type 2 diabetes). The sexual assault essays go both ways - some are genuine and useful to understanding crime, some are authors desperately exploiting other people's victimhood for their own self aggrandizement ("stare rape").

The author's failure to acknowledge the topic of the personal essay boom may stem from her own employment at Jezebel, a publication largely devoted to first world feminist problems.

Personally, I welcome this change. I've been very disheartened by what has been an obvious attempt at the Western upper classes to redirect money attention away from the needy and towards themselves. Sadly, I've seen a fair share of this on HN as well.

I think that yours is a typical viewpoint on this topic among white men. I don't mean this as an insult in any way; since that's most likely your entire life experience. But when you constantly have your competence questioned when people don't do the same to coworkers, you feel unfairly boxed in. It'd be great to solve the big problems of the world; but most women / people of color have to fight to prove that they belong in the conversation. It's a daily frustration, so we complain on blogs about it.

The shitty thing about it is that you really don't know when it figures in. All you see is your white male coworkers advancing in their careers while you're left to wonder "Was he promoted because he goes fishing with the boss? Or is he doing something I'm not?" Never mind that the boss doesn't invite you fishing because you're female and his wife won't allow it.

It's that constant, nagging "What if?" that bothers us. It's not that I don't care about the problems of other people in the world; it's that I'm constantly reminded how little little power I have within my immediate sphere of influence that I don't feel I have anything to contribute outside of it. There is a small but influential political base in this country that actually believes women are second-class citizens (watch how many people the Daily Show was able to get to un-ironically admit that they thought Trump was a better option than Clinton because he was a man -- even other women).

But at the same time, this has caused a backlash against "political correctness" that we first world feminists have to defend against that have very real consequences (abortion rights, family leave, etc). So yeah, the narcissistic essays are gone, but there are still problems to address -- both at home and elsewhere (ignoring the entirely patronizing idea that the world outside western democracies need our help...)

Those white male retired coal miners living on welfare in trailer parks and dying of black lung will never understand the plight of middle class office politics.
Are you a white coal miner dying of black lung?

I think the issue here is simple. Some women make complaints about events in their daily lives, and connect it to a wider conflict/issue about the rights and status of women. Let's call these women group A.

On the other hand, it seems rare for men to complain in the same way.

I've seen men complaining about group A merely having discussions.

I've seen men complaining about the treatment of men whom they are not connected to (e.g. coal miners, kindergarden teachers, nurses).

However, I rarely see personal gripes.

I'd invite you to actually make a personal gripe, because it will be more topical than dragging up an age-old trope.

You're enthusiastically providing a case study of my original comment. The reason you rarely see personal gripes of black lung or factory layoffs or opioid overdoses or IED injuries or the myriad of other ills plaguing humanity, is because you live in an upper class bubble.
Well, considering that some of my close family and many of my friends are military or former military---I'd hardly say that I'm living in an upper-class bubble with no idea about the gripes that military folk can have.

That said, I think I should clarify my comment was about online discussion. In real life, there's no shortage of people griping from all walks of life, but online (or perhaps, I should say on the tech circuit online) most of the articles, blogs, and comments don't seem, representative of men's' personal struggles, but rather complaints about women discussing their lives, or complaints that some sub-fraction of men whom they can't claim membership with is having issues.

Your invitation wasn't to me, but I hope it's ok if I take you up on it. Here is a very personal gripe: some of the women in group A express their frustration by shaming and accusing men beyond what seems justified. But this is often accompanied with the argument that men don't have standing to push back on any of these accusations or ridicule.

The worst example I know is this article that invalidates a vulnerable and personal story by reading it in the most uncharitable and mean-spirited way, such that no empathy with the man is possible.

http://www.rawstory.com/2014/12/mit-professor-explains-the-r...

Similar to the "code of blue" when it comes to police misconduct, no one seems willing to criticize fellow women when stuff like this comes out and say "that's uncalled for" or "that's not what feminism is about."

I won't tell my personal story here, but it has similarities to Scott's.

While I do agree that the case highlighted shows a rather uncharitable reaction to said personal anecdote, I suspect your advice could be turned around itself in a number of circumstances. Live and let live. Somebody tells a personal story with a somewhat-incomplete perspective? Live and let live. Some stranger on the internet paints the sky as falling because of said anecdote being shared? Live and let live. Both acts remind me of the old 'someone's wrong on the internet' XKCD comic.

    However, I rarely see personal gripes.
    I'd invite you to actually make a personal gripe, because it will be more topical than dragging up an age-old trope.
Scott Aaronson tried this.

They tried to destroy his life.

This surprised no-one.

Maybe that's why more people don't do it?

Scott Aaranson thought the experience went pretty well for him:

https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-for-you-to-be-widely-...

"destroy his life" is comical hyberbole, and shows the same absurd provincialism that Aaronson initially showed when he claimed that "nerdy men are in fact among the least privileged men out there", blissfully ignorant of the people who weren't raised in upper-middle-class households or get invited to special schools for the gifted.

Yes. This.

My theory is that Silicon Valley (aka "white men" in the most air-quotes way possible) have moved on to solving the problems of the whole world (whether the world wants them to or not) because they don't have acute social obstacles they have to deal with.

The rest of us have things that bother us every day: we work on fixing those. There's no app for that: it takes the hard work of millions of women and people of color every day. Hard work that is assumed as a "given" by most companies.

And this is in no way a critique of white men for not working on these problems: they're not your problems to solve. Just please don't tear us down when all we're trying to to is claw our way up to your level. A little support (even purely verbal) goes a long way.

Just please don't tear us down when all we're trying to to is claw our way up to your level. A little support (even purely verbal) goes a long way.

Here's an honest question so I understand your perspective: what is an example of verbal support that someone could say to, e.g. you, that you believe you would appreciate in the moment and not interpret as patronizing or condescending?

My personal experience (and that of others I know who fall into what you'd colloquially call "privileged" groups) is that it feels safer to not remark on an individual's race or gender at all unless you know them really well, even in a positive and supportive way, for fear of it backfiring and being interpreted as bigoted.

Maybe you can't come up with an example because it's highly context specific, in which case that's fine, I'm just wondering if you have a comment on delivery in social contexts.

My theory is that Silicon Valley (aka "white men" in the most air-quotes way possible) have moved on to solving the problems of the whole world (whether the world wants them to or not) because they don't have acute social obstacles they have to deal with.

I think it's a mistake to assume that anybody who isn't complaining about something doesn't have anything to complain about. Look at somebody like Robin Williams. Who expected him to kill himself? Nobody.

In general, men are discouraged from complaining about their problems in public. It's unseemly and unmasculine. So to be fair to everyone, we should not assume that the volume of complaints is any reflection on how hard people's lives are.

Millions of women and minorities are working hard every day to solve this problem? What are they doing? Who is paying them for their work?

Your theory doesn't account why certain classes of immigrants(specifically Indian and Chinese), often marginalized in society, seem to do so well in silicon valley. Do they get lumped in with "white men" too?

Stop exploiting white male retired coal miners living on welfare in trailer parks for your own attacks on middle-class women. Please refrain from using white male retired coal miners living on welfare in trailer parks as rhetorical hit points until you've don't something, anything, that strives to improve the condition of white male retired coal miners living on welfare in trailer parks
Discuss with people on the internet that entirely forget about them while defending another unprivilleged group is the same kind of help the middle class women is offering to the less privilleged women.
Yeah, being a poor white person sucks.

You know what's worse? Being a poor black person.

Wanna know how you can tell? Go ask those coal miners, if they could swap their skin color, would they?

Ask a lot of poor black people if they would swap and they would say no too. Fairly sure this doesn't prove anything.
> I think that yours is a typical viewpoint on this topic among white men. I don't mean this as an insult in any way; since that's most likely your entire life experience.

Well that's presumptuous.

It might be an assumption, but you can also just Google Bri Holt and see who it is.
Perhaps it's presumptuous in the sense that is presuming that he either has a particular viewpoint because he is male, or that makes can't understand perspective X
Not so comfortable when the shoe is on the other foot?

Edit: I see I'm getting downvoted for this. I stand by it because this is the exact same type of presumption that is made of women ("Oh, she's 30 -- we shouldn't hire her because she's probably going to get pregnant soon") all the damn time.

> Not so comfortable when the shoe is on the other foot?

Hm...I find this particular rhetorical technique to be rather lacking in substance. It's unnecessarily adversarial, and it continues an attempt at persuasion by remarking on the individual's identity rather than the statements.

To answer it directly: no, I don't feel defensive about the part of your first comment that I singled out; instead, I think it significantly undermines your (fairly strong, in my opinion) argument.

Opening with a comment that assumes the other party's race or gender based on their perspective, then immediately patronizes them for it ("I don't mean this as an insult in any way; since that's most likely your entire life experience.") detracts from what would otherwise be a well-delivered point.

I don't want to make this a game of suffering-competition, but here's a thought experiment: would you explicitly mention your assumption about someone's race if you figured they're a minority, then go on to use the sentence, I don't mean this as an insult in any way; since that's most likely your entire life experience. to describe their perspective?

Edit to your edit: I understand this is an emotionally charged topic, but even if you are correct that women have to routinely deal with the sort of comment you made towards briholt (and I believe they do), you doing the same to convince others is a poor method of bridging communication and empathy.

I would like to reply tangentially to your comment:

I have just been fired by my boss for pretty much no reason other than cost cutting and "I wasn't one of the guys"

I brought in plenty of revenue and profit for 3 years.

But since I didn't play golf with my boss, they downsized me and gave my responsibilities to someone much less competent but more politically alligned than I.

I think you bring up great points but I feel the categories are broad enough to be unhelpful, even if there are statistical trends that bind their members together. I think class lines are more relevant than simply "white males" or "women" or "people of color" since people within those categories often have lives so different from one another as to be unrecognizable (think Malala vs. Emma Watson for instance). Ultimately they are also poor strategic choice because they needlessly alienate people that could be supportive of your political goals, and also give detractors additional ammo (for instance the "white worker with black lung" mentioned below) which leads the debate to be derailed for the most part.
I have seen tons of low-quality tech-related "My $WHATEVER Journey" Medium essays posted to HN, presumably many of them written by wealthy(ish) men. I wouldn't expect a New Yorker writer to have seen them, though.
"My boring tech-related journey..." isn't quite analogous to the "cat hair in my v----a" type article. I was going to search Medium for articles about animal hair on male genitalia, but then I thought maybe I'll just leave that question unanswered.
I'm sure some website has guys talking about their epic burrito induced shit.

They probably mostly don't tie it into gender relations, because the people who benefit from privilege don't think about their privilege; it's one of the inherent perks in privilege.

Spot the contradiction: - the patriarchy teaches men to bottle up their feelings - in the patriarchy, women's issues are systematically ignored in favor of men

Men generally don't hang out on sites to talk about their burrito shits, they don't bond over their gender, lacking a mechanism for in group preference based on it. They bond over shared interests and hobbies. Unlike women, for whom "X For Women" is inevitably created as an end in itself.

If you want to talk about privilege, the fact that your gender has a political movement, media sector and academic faculty dedicated to it is probably relevant. As does the general ability to damsel, act childlike, and shy away from conflict without paying a price in respect.

When you turn all this privilege theory back onto the originators, the result is loud and vicious protest, and the insistence that you just shut up and let women speak. Backed and enforced by sympathetic ears in the halls of power. It doesn't add up.

> Men generally don't hang out on sites to talk about their burrito shits, they don't bond over their gender.

reddit.com would like a word with you. One of the most active websites in the world, especially social websites. And every thread that tangentially involves a woman (in OP or in comments) features highly upvoted crass discussion of her as a sexual being. Every thread. So women get tired of it and form their own spaces where they can not be drowned out by that garbage.

It's right in the first paragraph: "These essays were mostly written by women. They came off as unseemly, the writer’s judgment as flawed. They were too personal: the topics seemed insignificant, or else too important to be aired for an audience of strangers."

Also, as far as I can tell none of the examples in that paragraph have anything to do with feminism.

"A woman did it, therefore feminism" is an idea oddly shared by both middle-class liberals (see "lean in") and cultural conservatives.
the problem is the 'dishwasher who gets type 2 diabetes' probably is not very educated and may not be able to articulate his story as fluently as, say, a liberal arts master's degree holder. So all we hear are the problems of the well-connected and educated.
Absolutely. It's a NY/LA/SF media-socialite elite echo chamber. The rest of the country is screaming for these people to get some perspective, but they frankly have no incentive to do so. Publishers know dishwashers don't surf Twitter so there's no money in pandering to them. Writers know arriving early to the anti-first-world-victim party will only earn them ostracization.
the problem is the 'dishwasher who gets type 2 diabetes' probably is not very educated and may not be able to articulate his story as fluently as, say, a liberal arts master's degree holder.

IME the difference is usually that the dishwasher knows he's not all that smart, while the liberal arts degree holder has a very inflated sense of their own intelligence.

Browse any unmoderated forum to disabuse yourself of the boundaries of self-unawareness of stupidity.
I don't find un-moderated forums to be any more low brow than moderated ones.
There used to be well-connected educated people who were spectacular at telling, genuinely and without condescension, the stories of the dishwasher with Type 2 diabetes. The all-time greatest was Studs Terkel.
> I've been very disheartened by what has been an obvious attempt at the Western upper classes to redirect money attention away from the needy and towards themselves.

Don't ascribe motive. Everyone gets a voice, and everyone can use it however they want. Sometimes people have high-minded ideals and they write about them. Sometimes gross shit happens to them and they write about that too.

Besides, just because bad things are happening doesn't mean we can't talk about trivial things. If that were really the case we'd never be able to talk about anything.

Completely false, very narrow minded perspective that pretty much works backwards from its conclusion using lots of anecdotes.

The Personal-Essay Boom is just getting started, because now people are sharing more interesting things in more interesting ways in the past. Dishing on former employers. Describing personal journeys. Letting people experience a slice of life that they otherwise would not come across.

The only problem with Personal-Essays is that anybody without any training or practice can sit down and give it a try, which is why 95%+ will read like a Sophomoric diary entry based on literary merit (if lucky) or Ranting (overloaded with emotions), or just not as interesting as the Writer thinks.

So, to contrast the anecdotes and conclusion I disagree with in the article, I will happily cite that on my Medium.com page, where I have 70 publications, the highest viewed, most shared, and apparently most liked are Personal Essays. They are about interesting subjects - Film, Music, Writing - not, as the Writer uses as a comparison - some kind of nuveau-critique about life as told through the lens of a Tampon.

The signal to noise ratio has always been a problem. That's the role of Copy Editors (RIP, really they're seemingly extinct in the US outside of Top 1%) and Publications to get things into shape. Or, to re-frame the discussion in terms of guitar and me experience with it, "Anybody can pick up a guitar and make noise, but making beautiful music is going to take a lot of time and effort." Personal Essays also follow this axiom.

I personally cannot relate to reading other people's journeys unless I'm trying to get actionable information out of those reports. E.g. you're someone who achieved a good degree of success somewhere, let's say a Derek Sivers, in which case I WANT to know how you did it.

I don't enjoy being a passive consumer, I'd rather have the experience instead of reading about it. And yes, it takes a lot of work to get yourself in a position where you can have an interesting lifestyle, which is why most people would much rather passively dream of those experiences.

Reminds me of how every person on Instagram has to show the world how great of a time they're having, how amazing of a vacation they're on, and how much they've grown from the experience every day. Some of that is done to build an audience for later advertising revenues, sure. I however have no reason to look at any of it.

The way I see it, nobody with a fulfilling, busy, exciting and interesting life of their own will consume that kind of content. People are fundamentally selfish and self-centered, they don't care about other people's experience nearly as much as we think.

This is a strange response. You talk about yourself personally and then go on to generalize: apparently no-one with a "fulfilling, busy, exciting and interesting life of their own" will ever be interested in other people's experience. Apparently the explanation of why other people have tastes that are different to your own is that their lives suck.

A less preposterous (and less self-congratulatory) idea might be that "people like different things".

Thank you for sharing your personal essay here. But I don't understand why you would write it, since nobody interesting would read it, as you argue.
> “The boom in personal essays—at Salon, at least, but I suspect other places—was in part a response to an online climate where more content was needed at the exact moment budgets were being slashed.”

That makes those essays the literary equivalent of Reality TV.

I wonder if it has something to do with trends in education. It seems like the only thing my generation ever did in high school English classes was learn how to write college application essays, the more personal, the better.
no it's not over. the personal essays have moved to Medium
The phrase "personal essay economy" drove me nuts.

The personal essay largely to me seemed like posting a blog in the paper, I'm not sure why you'd want to, but sometimes they're interesting to read.