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Mar. 23rd, 2025 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavCareless People is a recent facebook expose memoir that feels like the exact combination of three things to me:
1) the un-funny version of Devil Wears Pradaminus the hot milf lesbian chemistry that birthed a banger of a fanfic
2) this gif:
3) JD Vance's biography.
i think in terms of pure "facebook expose that's worth reading" i preferred Chaos Monkeys. that dude had a bitingly witty sense of humor, was a little more self aware even in his nativity and was at least aware of his agency, and had some quotes that will live a long time in my mind. this one.... hm.
i talked about in my review of vance's biography ages ago (before current events) that there was a slightly weird vibe of exaggerating his cultural naievity with the high life at yale; that i thought that part was the weakest section of the book compared with the gripping stories from earlier in his childhood. and it's paired with the vibe that so many books to me written after 2010 have this peculiar active moralistic nudging going on. railroading. coercement. i like coercement here as a specific word because i really do keep feeling knee-jerk emotions being lowkey coerced which adds this whole meta-layer of slimy 'oh man, sucks to be [the author] with that situa-.... wait a sec, something feels too perfect here.' shadow-box narrative that feels wholly unnecessary. like it actively makes the narrative weaker.
i get a lot of that in this book.
("conflict is not abuse" also had a ton of this.)
but like - for example, there are so many times where i think 'girl, where tf are your survival instincts.' (there's an anecdote about her going to the junta in myammar alone and without backup to... plead the case that they should at least let facebook pretty please know if they're about to be blocked in the region.) it's not the last time her actual physical safety is put in the line of fire by her bosses.
and relatedly, i've heard there's a lot of reviews that are very puzzled at the writer's seeming lack of basic self respect when her work slides her into real danger. which then slides into another specific layer of potential subtle narrative coercement i'm not fond of. there's a very.... weird... distinct .... white liberal woman species of writer on twitter that when faced with some kind of negative charge (regardless or not of whether it's warranted), basically doubles down on owning a victim role in defense. rolls over and shows the belly all fawnin'-like towards attackers as a survival mechanism. (girl, that is not how you deter bullies/attackers.)
and it felt really weird that the book's simultaneously aware it's doing that to some degree (she writes with just the right amount of self-aware shame for twitter) over and over and over with all of these little ancedotes of Facebook or a particular c-suite billionare Doing A Bad, aware of doing that as a second-level order effect as a whole theme to the book (given it's a carefully presented expose that feels the ""right"" amount of guilty for fostering all of facebook's various misdeeds) ... and i also have some amount of sympathy that it takes time for people to figure out how to fight back ..
and you think cautiously, well, with this new awareness after writing that whole book as a very public affair, i hope she's found a place that treats her better and also learned enough poltiical savvy and self respect not to be a cog in the wheel with what she's railing against again.
aaaaand then you flip to the back author blurb section and she's in AI tech now.........?
mm. does not really give one hope that she's actually earned self respect or awareness through that hell she went through.
which ends the whole thing on a darker/more nihilistic tone than i think she even realizes.
idk this is a tangent, but it really makes me think back to how fascinating that there's two sharply different bubbles in attitudes towards kink/erotica i notice in my art friend groups; the group that was raised in the south/conservative who is now just grateful that the freedom to have porn is a thing, regardless of how tasteful or crude said porn might be. and then the group who was raised liberal who have .... so many emotional hangups about shit like idk hentai despite being technically raised more sexually liberal. (not talking about squicks which are totally okay, but them actively fighting "through" that baggage)
like sure there's issues with both upbringings, but the nuances of the latter ... i get the latter vibe from her. like it's much harder to rend invisible boxes from that kind of starting place in some ways.
1) the un-funny version of Devil Wears Prada
2) this gif:
3) JD Vance's biography.
i think in terms of pure "facebook expose that's worth reading" i preferred Chaos Monkeys. that dude had a bitingly witty sense of humor, was a little more self aware even in his nativity and was at least aware of his agency, and had some quotes that will live a long time in my mind. this one.... hm.
i talked about in my review of vance's biography ages ago (before current events) that there was a slightly weird vibe of exaggerating his cultural naievity with the high life at yale; that i thought that part was the weakest section of the book compared with the gripping stories from earlier in his childhood. and it's paired with the vibe that so many books to me written after 2010 have this peculiar active moralistic nudging going on. railroading. coercement. i like coercement here as a specific word because i really do keep feeling knee-jerk emotions being lowkey coerced which adds this whole meta-layer of slimy 'oh man, sucks to be [the author] with that situa-.... wait a sec, something feels too perfect here.' shadow-box narrative that feels wholly unnecessary. like it actively makes the narrative weaker.
i get a lot of that in this book.
("conflict is not abuse" also had a ton of this.)
but like - for example, there are so many times where i think 'girl, where tf are your survival instincts.' (there's an anecdote about her going to the junta in myammar alone and without backup to... plead the case that they should at least let facebook pretty please know if they're about to be blocked in the region.) it's not the last time her actual physical safety is put in the line of fire by her bosses.
and relatedly, i've heard there's a lot of reviews that are very puzzled at the writer's seeming lack of basic self respect when her work slides her into real danger. which then slides into another specific layer of potential subtle narrative coercement i'm not fond of. there's a very.... weird... distinct .... white liberal woman species of writer on twitter that when faced with some kind of negative charge (regardless or not of whether it's warranted), basically doubles down on owning a victim role in defense. rolls over and shows the belly all fawnin'-like towards attackers as a survival mechanism. (girl, that is not how you deter bullies/attackers.)
and it felt really weird that the book's simultaneously aware it's doing that to some degree (she writes with just the right amount of self-aware shame for twitter) over and over and over with all of these little ancedotes of Facebook or a particular c-suite billionare Doing A Bad, aware of doing that as a second-level order effect as a whole theme to the book (given it's a carefully presented expose that feels the ""right"" amount of guilty for fostering all of facebook's various misdeeds) ... and i also have some amount of sympathy that it takes time for people to figure out how to fight back ..
and you think cautiously, well, with this new awareness after writing that whole book as a very public affair, i hope she's found a place that treats her better and also learned enough poltiical savvy and self respect not to be a cog in the wheel with what she's railing against again.
aaaaand then you flip to the back author blurb section and she's in AI tech now.........?
mm. does not really give one hope that she's actually earned self respect or awareness through that hell she went through.
which ends the whole thing on a darker/more nihilistic tone than i think she even realizes.
idk this is a tangent, but it really makes me think back to how fascinating that there's two sharply different bubbles in attitudes towards kink/erotica i notice in my art friend groups; the group that was raised in the south/conservative who is now just grateful that the freedom to have porn is a thing, regardless of how tasteful or crude said porn might be. and then the group who was raised liberal who have .... so many emotional hangups about shit like idk hentai despite being technically raised more sexually liberal. (not talking about squicks which are totally okay, but them actively fighting "through" that baggage)
like sure there's issues with both upbringings, but the nuances of the latter ... i get the latter vibe from her. like it's much harder to rend invisible boxes from that kind of starting place in some ways.
