The envious and chronically online
On reality TV, snark subreddits, and the internet's favorite villain, Caroline Calloway. Plus, what I read in February
In the third episode of this season of The Bachelor, the girls compete in a talent show called The Mrs. Right Competition. There’s an original song, a trumpet, two gymnastics routines, and then it’s Sydney’s turn. Last episode, Sydney, you have to know, told another contestant, Marlena, that a third contestant, Maria, was talking shit about her. This is largely a misunderstanding, but understanding isn’t really important in the bachelor mansion. The point is, there’s a rivalry between Sydney and Maria now, and when Sydney performs a cheer that arouses little applause and a couple of side eyes from the judges, it is clear to us, the audience: Sydney is getting a fool edit. Sydney is the villain.
I listen to this podcast, Game of Roses, that dissects The Bachelor franchise like it’s a sport, the thesis being that the show is a game to win or lose. Sydney’s fatal mistake: a faulty second-audience game (i.e. a bad relationship with the other contestants on the show), which ultimately landed her on a dreaded two-on-one date, pitting her against Maria and resulting in the bachelor sending Sydney home in a black van to be punished by the internet.
Game of Roses also flags producer manipulation. Those shots of the talent show audience: probably filmed before the competition even began with the producer cue to “look unimpressed.” What was said in the two-on-one date: fed via producer with the incentive of a Bachelor in Paradise appearance featuring a redemption arc. While speculation, this wouldn’t be unprecedented. Bachelor contestants have reported being bribed with a Paradise spot to ensue chaos during Tell All episodes, and in one particularly damning edit in Matt James’s season, a woman named Anna Redman jokingly mimicked a line a producer had said to her: “She’s entertaining men for money.” In the show, it appears as though Anna is calling another woman a prostitute. The internet was hell for Anna after that.
What I’m trying to say is, on any given reality show, context is being stripped to create an entertaining narrative, and–no surprise–the internet is made up of assholes. We’ve seen it a million times, the way accusation becomes fact, the way disapproval of someone’s actions becomes character assassination. Sydney no longer did something (that was edited to fit a storyline) on a television show. She is now manipulative / a bully / gaslighting / jealous / in need of serious psychiatric care. Sydney did not do a (debatably) bad thing, she is the bad thing.
In a Substack essay called “The Socially-Conscious Mean Girl,” Eliza McLamb critiques the way Redditors on snark subreddits use a Big Problem with an influencer (child abuse! racism!) as a shield to talk about the small or even non- problems (double-chins! inauthenticity!)–you know, typical mean girl shit. She writes:
“I also think that caring about these things has become a convenient cover for regular, natural cruelty. We have to pretend that we are not jealous or resentful or even hateful for no good reason.”
We all know outrage is currency on the internet, a tool employed by everyone from journalists to politicians to brands, reliably resulting in more clicks and more money, baby! And you can watch that outrage snowball in real time over on these subreddits, where a largely-female demographic creates PowerPoints chronicling the rise and fall of their least-favorite internet celebrity. Influencers don’t even need a Big Problem to be scrutinized by these communities! You can simply be a little bitchy with vocal fry, and soon Redditors are researching your home value as supporting evidence that you’re unrelatable and out-of-touch, two of the worst things a woman can be. These Redditors are fucking powerful, the amount of dirt they uncover and the detail of their posts, but with none of the profit or political impact one might expect from effortfully destroying a person.
A confession: I’ve snarked. In early 2020, I frequented the Caroline Calloway snark subreddit. For the unacquainted, Caroline Calloway is an influencer and author who rose to relevance for supposedly scamming attendees of a Creativity Workshop she hosted. I say supposedly because it’s widely debated whether it was a true scam, given how transparent she was about being unreliable, and either way, it was mostly harmless. People didn’t get their promised flower crowns, or something. It’s not the same as starving a country.
Anyway, Caroline was not Very Responsible. And in 2020 (and every year prior), I was not Very Responsible either. I procrastinated any given task, including work ones with deadlines and grocery shopping when I was out of food. I neither read nor wrote many books, despite blowing so much money at bookstores and having a master’s degree in fiction. And so, when given the opportunity to anonymously tease a stranger who very publicly did not have her shit together, I was like, fuck yeah. It was better than hating myself. It was easier than changing the world.
Natalie Winn’s (aka ContraPoints) video on envy defines envy as resentment over what another person has that you lack. (Big “If I can’t have it, nobody can!!!” energy.) In the video, she examines envy-to-contempt sublimation with an adorable example: the dynamic between Spongebob Squarepants and Squidward. Squidward envies Spongebob’s playfulness and childlike optimism. To sublimate this envy, Squidward embodies sophistication: glasses, literature, maturity. So in Reddit-land, if a snarker envies an influencer’s wealth or access, they may take the position of being the moralistic Underpaid Hard Worker. They can’t afford designer clothes, they actually have to WORK for their down payment, etcetera. And if the snarker envies an influencer’s obvious desirability to publishers due to a captivated audience so large it earned a six-figure book deal, they may say the influencer didn’t deserve that book deal because they’re an inferior person for X, Y, and Z reason, and here’s 800 words on why that shirt looks bad on them!!!!!!!. Hypothetically.
“We have a psychological incentive to believe that people whom we envy are immoral monsters, because then we get to label our hatred and violence toward them as justice. Cruelty generally cannot conceptualize itself as cruelty. [...] Calling cruelty what it is takes the fun out of it.”
Natalie Winn, “Envy”
Winn talks about incels who “malignantly moan” about, ya know, women hating them for being beta or whatever. She says, “part of the satisfaction of moaning is inflicting your pain on other people. [...] It’s not an attempt to diagnose or solve any problem, it’s just a contagious expression of misery. A moan of pain that masquerades as a political agenda.” If I really wanted to solve the problem of Caroline Calloway’s book deal, I would’ve written my own fucking book. But where’s the fun in that? And more importantly, where’s the impotent vigilance toward life’s unfairness that allows me to stay unaccomplished and annoying? :(
Ultimately I left the Caroline snark community, not because I am incredibly self-aware, but because of brain rot from black-and-white thinking. I realized any comment suggesting nuance or, god forbid, compassion was downvoted into oblivion. There was only room for cruelty. We confuse snarking on public figures with activism: we’re calling out capitalism! manipulation! bad people! In Caroline’s case, we were standing up for the little man, swindled out of money for supporting her.
But most often, these call-outs are infighting, punching neither up nor down, but straight across our own social class. We’re mad an influencer made a million dollars, which is not similar to being mad at a billionaire with enough offshore accounts and grit to overthrow an election. In response to Eliza McLamb’s essay, a person on the NYCInfluencerSnark subreddit commented: “She's really reaching lol. [Who the hell] wants to snark on the Koch bros or Jeff Bezos?” which makes me Carrie Bradshaw: I couldn’t help but wonder if we used our time and brain power to, for example, get billionaire money out of politics, could we have fairer laws and elections? It’s not a fun or sexy conversation. It doesn’t give the thrill of gossip, which, I’m only human, I do love. It’s notably less mean and more difficult. I understand avoiding it, I guess I just wish we wouldn’t.
My therapist recently asked me why I like reality TV. Did I enjoy feeling superior to the contestants? No, because I don’t. If I feel anything toward reality contestants, it’s pity. They’re infrequently fed and sleep-deprived. They’re in constant competition to be the prettiest and funniest and most interesting (and, with The Bachelor franchise, most traumatized). I liken their environment to sleepaway camp, something I attended for the first time as an adult and wouldn’t wish on my enemy. Sleepaway camp, like reality TV, gives you tunnel vision: you’re trapped, your routine and meals are determined without your input, and the only options for a love interest are whatever semi-attractive person shares a lunch table with you. But unlike sleepaway camp, there’s no watch-back period, thank god. There’s no reliving your heartbreak or discovering that editors have frankenbiten your words so only you the speaker know where a soundbite was clipped and another one from an entirely different interview three days earlier was attached to the end. And even! if the soundbite wasn’t manipulated to make the contestant look shitty! and was just literally what someone said! you can’t tell me the best texts in the world aren’t the ones from friends asking: “Can I be mean for a second?” I’m no sociologist, but I imagine many of us feel the impulse to be unkind sometimes. And that impulse happens for me way more often when I’m hungry and drunk. For others, apparently it happens as soon as they open a social media app.
My appreciation for reality TV is simple. I like the game play. I like viewing the show as an anthropological study into an exploitative summer camp. I like detecting producer manipulation and guessing what happened behind the scenes. Maybe crazy, but I like the entertainment. And if I feel superior to anyone, really, it’s the people in the comment section. Those people suck.
what i read in february
THE ANIMATORS by Kayla Rae Whitaker
I’ve heard the general criticism of debut novelists that try to take on too much in a first book. This is not the exception. There are so many major plot points, each chapter a new story, that I’m not even sure what the book is about. I expected Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow for animators, but got Grey’s Anatomy without the compelling characters. I seem to be an outlier on this opinion, though, so don’t listen to me.
GOOD MATERIAL by Dolly Alderton
Dolly is my pleasure author, and this was my pleasure read for giggles and good vibes. Multiple times I laughed out loud and had to share with my boyfriend what just happened.
PERFUME & PAIN by Anna Dorn
My favorite of Dorn’s yet. Astrid, a canceled author, is technically unlikable: she makes terrible decisions, repeatedly, but I loved her for her social commentary and self-awareness. (I actually tried to work this book into the above essay, specifically a scene in which Astrid complains, “it’s always the ACAB bitches who are most desperate to punish you,” and the character to whom she’s talking responds, “people just want their moral superiority written on their tank tops.”) The conversational voice felt like a close, deranged friend talking to me, all to conclude with an ending scene reminiscent of Raven Leilani’s Luster: emotionally and visually satisfying, sure to stay with me a long time. (Forthcoming May 2024, s/o to NetGalley)
PIGLET by Lottie Hazell
As a character study, I loved Piglet. Her big, impulsive choices created a well-paced story ripe with tension. But as a lesson in novel devices… eh. There were two major devices employed here. The first was Piglet’s relationship with food, and the many scenes in which she cooked and ate. These were effective. The second device was keeping from the reader how Piglet’s fiance betrayed her. The whole book, Piglet’s reacting to it, telling other people about it, debating what to do about it. But we never find out what it is! Maybe this works on other people, but I’m a nosey bitch, and I thought this was just mean.
CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN by Coco Mellors
God, GoodReads hates this book. I get the criticism. It’s told from too many perspectives that makes some of the characters fall flat or feel stereotyped. There is a lowkey checklist happening here: make sure there’s a trans person, a black person, a depressed person, etcetera. Those criticisms are for sure fair, and I wish this was told from the perspectives of just Cleo, Frank, and Eleanor. But here’s the criticism I’m not down with: everyone hates Cleo. Like, she’s fucked up, but I just know if we all met her IRL we’d be mesmerized. The hate is envy!!!!
“And more importantly, where’s the impotent vigilance toward life’s unfairness that allows me to stay unaccomplished and annoying? :(“ DEAD. 🩷 this