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“Cat Person” and Me

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Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#11

Post by mlyle »

civilized wrote: post #8
bitwize wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roupenian kind of gave a sorry-not-sorry apology. There's a subtext of "I'm sorry I used your friend's personal details, but you're missing the point which is that the story is fake but accurate -- male anger escalates into threats and violence and by calling me out you're adding fuel to the incel fire I'm facing right now because I'm a woman who writes about the bad things men do." And a deeper subtext of "Remember,…

Maybe Roupenian actually, literally faces threats from men who didn't like her story. It... wouldn't be the first time people harassed a writer for a creative work they took to be offensive.

Nothing justifies threats. But in this case, the reasons that this would offend people -- that it makes untrue and unfair accusations about a real-world case-- are true. Or even worse than one would assume, even, in that it's not autobiographical and does the same about identifiable third parties.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#13

Post by caslon »

danso wrote: post #5

One of the most incredible essays I’ve read in a long time. The author describes a bizarre situation exacerbated by tragedy. There’s no clear remedy or villain for what she’s going through, and that’s just the way life is. I liked the “Cat Person” story when it came out, but I would much rather see this essay be made into a movie

Isn't there a villain, though? A creepy internet stalker writes a story about her stalkee's life, monetizes it and gets critical acclaim (and, again, a seven-figure advance for a collection of short stories that only had value due to that story) for it, causing her strife? I can't help but feel that there's a clear villain here, and a villain that's trying to paint herself as the victim at that.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#14

Post by jollybean »

civilized wrote: post #3

At the end of the day, I kinda don't think this is a big deal. Roupenian was careless not to scrub real-life personal details out of Cat Person, but I think what happened was a bit of a freak accident that she unfortunately failed to foresee, and she apologized. It does make you wonder how much you can trust supposedly slice-of-life fiction, if a friend of one of the "characters" finds the story a poor representation…

The issue has nothing to do with creative fiction. Nobody is bothered by stories that might use real life as a basis of inspiration.

The issue is that these stories are latched onto as 'narrative basis' for some kind of populist ideal, which may frankly just be bigotry.

The story was not picked up upon because it was just 'great writing' - it created buzz because it engendered a kind of bigoted fantasy among those that wanted to buy into the potential truthiness of it all.

Like the 'Man Next Door Who Raped The White Girl' (i.e. Black man) from the 'Reader's Digest', 1952 etc.

It's an issue because people can do whatever they want under the guise of creative fiction, and then try to use it as some kind of scare mongering re: 'This could happen! This is happening!'

I'm Canadian, we had to read the Handmaid's Tale in school. Margaret Atwood is famous for saying 'all these things happened somewhere in history' - essentially she cherry picked the absolute worst bits of history and rolled them into a hyper-fascist theocracy. Which is 100% legitimate and interesting from a creative perspective ... but the TV series became a ridiculous point of reference for the fantastical ignorance of some populists who loved think of this as the interpretation of their political enemies. As a TV series it's great fun. But when it's used beyond that (or more poignantly, used by the studios to play into people's bigotry) then it's not good.

Edit: please see my above comment for reference as to how most of the media picked up on this piece as the basis for a narrative. It's not some corner case conspiracy - it was used by NPR, RollingStone, Wapo, Medium, The Guardian etc. etc..

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#15

Post by afavour »

caslon wrote: post #13
danso wrote: post #5

One of the most incredible essays I’ve read in a long time. The author describes a bizarre situation exacerbated by tragedy. There’s no clear remedy or villain for what she’s going through, and that’s just the way life is. I liked the “Cat Person” story when it came out, but I would much rather see this essay be made into a movie

Isn't there a villain, though? A creepy internet stalker writes a story about her stalkee's life, monetizes it and gets critical acclaim (and, again, a seven-figure advance for a collection of short stories that only had value due to that story ) for it, causing her strife? I can't help but feel that there's a clear villain here, and a villain that's trying to paint herself as the victim at that.

I dunno, if “looked through social media posts of my partner with their ex” is stalking then there are a lot of stalkers out there in the world in new relationships.

Don’t get me wrong, turning that into a story with a few too many true-to-life details would absolutely weird me out too. But I’m not sure she’s a stalking villain.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#16

Post by tptacek »

caslon wrote: post #13
danso wrote: post #5

One of the most incredible essays I’ve read in a long time. The author describes a bizarre situation exacerbated by tragedy. There’s no clear remedy or villain for what she’s going through, and that’s just the way life is. I liked the “Cat Person” story when it came out, but I would much rather see this essay be made into a movie

Isn't there a villain, though? A creepy internet stalker writes a story about her stalkee's life, monetizes it and gets critical acclaim (and, again, a seven-figure advance for a collection of short stories that only had value due to that story ) for it, causing her strife? I can't help but feel that there's a clear villain here, and a villain that's trying to paint herself as the victim at that.

Lots of fiction writers use real people as the bases for characters; that doesn't make them "creepy internet stalkers".

Cat Person was a work of fiction. There wasn't much ambiguity about that.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#17

Post by Aqueous »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #4

I dated a girl seven years younger than me. We were both in our twenties at the time, and I assumed she was a few years older and she thought I was a few years younger and when it actually came up I struggled with it but went forward. She's got an interesting background, and has been horrifically abused, and once told me I was the first person she ever trusted after having sex. Not that the confession was after sex,…

You dated a girl. She was in her twenties. You were in your twenties. You are both legally adults. Adults make their own decisions.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#18

Post by dang »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #6

This was a good read but I was struck with something else… has anyone noticed on long form content the scrollbar being “stuck” at around 85% and never moving after a while? Is this a hack to keep people reading? Am I imagining it?

"Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#19

Post by tptacek »

mlyle wrote: post #11
civilized wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Roupenian actually, literally faces threats from men who didn't like her story. It... wouldn't be the first time people harassed a writer for a creative work they took to be offensive.

Nothing justifies threats. But in this case, the reasons that this would offend people -- that it makes untrue and unfair accusations about a real-world case-- are true. Or even worse than one would assume, even, in that it's not autobiographical and does the same about identifiable third parties.

It does not in fact make untrue and unfair accusations about a real world case. It is a work of fiction. Until this Slate article came out, there were, like, 4 people in the world that know about the story's inspiration.

Re: “Cat Person” and Me

#20

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #16
caslon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a villain, though? A creepy internet stalker writes a story about her stalkee's life, monetizes it and gets critical acclaim (and, again, a seven-figure advance for a collection of short stories that only had value due to that story ) for it, causing her strife? I can't help but feel that there's a clear villain here, and a villain that's trying to paint herself as the victim at that.

Lots of fiction writers use real people as the bases for characters; that doesn't make them "creepy internet stalkers". Cat Person was a work of fiction. There wasn't much ambiguity about that.

[deleted]
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