This is why my blog/twt is pseudonymous as well. Dropped out of a MA in psychology with 1 semester to go, because I was so disenfranchised by the whole thing. I thought it would be fun, but the seminars just devolved into personal anecdotes and political interpretations of studies. I was a great student, professors tried to get me to stay, but it just wasn’t worth it (I was foolishly paying for the degree).
Decided to just read and write about my psychology on my own terms.
Apr 24·edited Apr 24Liked by sympathetic opposition
The commissars really don't like people noticing the inconsistences. While you gave in to their struggle sessions back then, you're not willing to do that now. It shows that you have grown, I hope that realisation tempers the shame.
On the topic of becoming a published writer, these days self publishing is de rigueur. Also given the tosh that publishing houses put out, such as Harry's awful tome, likely for the best. The only thing I know is that whatever you put out into the world having a good editor is a must.
The only thing I can really advise is. keep going.
Haha I'm curious: did your class also enforce liberal use of trigger warnings at the beginning of a story, even at the cost of spoiling an entire story? Or how about the phenomenon of the whole class writing a lesbian romance that's very clearly a little TOO personal and probably should have stayed in their diaries?
i was in poetry so idk much about trigger warnings! re lesbians tho..... i do recall a story.....bc oppressed identity is often not visible, there was often a dynamic of "in a conflict, listen to the oppressed person" meaning "in a conflict, listen to the person who most ppl in this class knows most of the ways that this person is oppressed" meaning "in a conflict listen to the popular person" which at one point played out very amusingly when a girl turned in a poem about a really fucked up relationship & the class was excoriating the toxic heteronormativity or whatever, but i happened to know the poet was gay. so i was like "well in the poem, which one is the boy & which one is the girl, with evidence from the text" & they went thru the poem again assuming they'd be able to back up their reading w textual evidence easily, but only then did they realize the poem was carefully withholding gendered pronouns....the heteronormativity was coming from inside the house
Were the professors in the program generally less bad than the students in terms of supporting all the hyper-politicized rules? I’m curious if any of them ever pushed back (clearly not the one who let the screaming session happen).
off topic but I just realized you're on twitter so I went and read your tweets and what you said about fantasy vs reality of autistic gfs is kind of what I meant about unfacedoxxed egirls as male fantasy (I think I might have articulated that badly)
while there are definitely people who benefit from using their real name, like those who promote their business/services or who use it for networking, I'm skeptical if it's a net positive for most people. Like, I'm a student and not established in any career, I don't want prospective employers to google me and find my opinions on whatever, that's much more likely to give them reasons to not hire me than vice versa. I don't know if those concerns apply to you tho.
Also, context collapse! I didn't know that term until I read https://bayesshammai.substack.com/p/shana-tova-internet but it happened to me recently irl when someone I matched with on a dating app found my linkedin. I'd guess it would also make the effects of that kind of policing worse, because parts of one's life that are entirely unrelated might get dragged into it.
also, this isn' t meant as a criticism, just a funny observation, but talking about how literary journals you're published in are boring is kind of like that tiktok/instagram trend you wrote about. Like, you get the status for being gatekeeper-approved without being that kind of person. I don't know to how many people it would come across like that? It seems like it can be a very smart social strategy so I'm wondering if I should adopt it in some instances but I would probably mess it up through bad execution. Tbh I never would have noticed it if I hadn't read your posts about the phenomenon so thank you for that :) (I don't think this comes across how I mean it but I don't know how to phrase it better sorry)
>, but talking about how literary journals you're published in are boring is kind of like that tiktok/instagram trend you wrote about. Like, you get the status for being gatekeeper-approved without being that kind of person.
This is why my blog/twt is pseudonymous as well. Dropped out of a MA in psychology with 1 semester to go, because I was so disenfranchised by the whole thing. I thought it would be fun, but the seminars just devolved into personal anecdotes and political interpretations of studies. I was a great student, professors tried to get me to stay, but it just wasn’t worth it (I was foolishly paying for the degree).
Decided to just read and write about my psychology on my own terms.
i love this symp lore. that program sounds like hell on earth, i'm glad you kept writing :')
The commissars really don't like people noticing the inconsistences. While you gave in to their struggle sessions back then, you're not willing to do that now. It shows that you have grown, I hope that realisation tempers the shame.
On the topic of becoming a published writer, these days self publishing is de rigueur. Also given the tosh that publishing houses put out, such as Harry's awful tome, likely for the best. The only thing I know is that whatever you put out into the world having a good editor is a must.
The only thing I can really advise is. keep going.
Haha I'm curious: did your class also enforce liberal use of trigger warnings at the beginning of a story, even at the cost of spoiling an entire story? Or how about the phenomenon of the whole class writing a lesbian romance that's very clearly a little TOO personal and probably should have stayed in their diaries?
i was in poetry so idk much about trigger warnings! re lesbians tho..... i do recall a story.....bc oppressed identity is often not visible, there was often a dynamic of "in a conflict, listen to the oppressed person" meaning "in a conflict, listen to the person who most ppl in this class knows most of the ways that this person is oppressed" meaning "in a conflict listen to the popular person" which at one point played out very amusingly when a girl turned in a poem about a really fucked up relationship & the class was excoriating the toxic heteronormativity or whatever, but i happened to know the poet was gay. so i was like "well in the poem, which one is the boy & which one is the girl, with evidence from the text" & they went thru the poem again assuming they'd be able to back up their reading w textual evidence easily, but only then did they realize the poem was carefully withholding gendered pronouns....the heteronormativity was coming from inside the house
Were the professors in the program generally less bad than the students in terms of supporting all the hyper-politicized rules? I’m curious if any of them ever pushed back (clearly not the one who let the screaming session happen).
they pushed it less but didnt push back
such are the wages of going about in life without first catching up with Todd Solodz’ filmography - and I say this as a fellow sinner
we can't even know the real sympopp.. because of woke... 😔
off topic but I just realized you're on twitter so I went and read your tweets and what you said about fantasy vs reality of autistic gfs is kind of what I meant about unfacedoxxed egirls as male fantasy (I think I might have articulated that badly)
while there are definitely people who benefit from using their real name, like those who promote their business/services or who use it for networking, I'm skeptical if it's a net positive for most people. Like, I'm a student and not established in any career, I don't want prospective employers to google me and find my opinions on whatever, that's much more likely to give them reasons to not hire me than vice versa. I don't know if those concerns apply to you tho.
Also, context collapse! I didn't know that term until I read https://bayesshammai.substack.com/p/shana-tova-internet but it happened to me recently irl when someone I matched with on a dating app found my linkedin. I'd guess it would also make the effects of that kind of policing worse, because parts of one's life that are entirely unrelated might get dragged into it.
also, this isn' t meant as a criticism, just a funny observation, but talking about how literary journals you're published in are boring is kind of like that tiktok/instagram trend you wrote about. Like, you get the status for being gatekeeper-approved without being that kind of person. I don't know to how many people it would come across like that? It seems like it can be a very smart social strategy so I'm wondering if I should adopt it in some instances but I would probably mess it up through bad execution. Tbh I never would have noticed it if I hadn't read your posts about the phenomenon so thank you for that :) (I don't think this comes across how I mean it but I don't know how to phrase it better sorry)
to be clear you became more impressive to me when I read that I don't presume getting published of any kind is easy
>, but talking about how literary journals you're published in are boring is kind of like that tiktok/instagram trend you wrote about. Like, you get the status for being gatekeeper-approved without being that kind of person.
noooooooooooooo rekt......
Yes. Good morning