A Short Discussion Of The Whole “Amy Glass” Debacle

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  1. …Here’s the story so far.
  2. Chrissy Stockton wrote an article under a pen name.
  3. This article was called “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry.”
  4. She wrote this under the pen name “Amy Glass.”
  5. I did not read the article when it was published, because I do not read obvious troll-bait.
  6. Chrissy Stockton is also the author of such notable essays as “Nachos! Here Are Pictures Of Nachos!“
  7. Whatever.
  8. The point of the “I Look Down On Young Women…” essay was one of two things.
  9. Either it was a deeply-held personal opinion, or it was trolling to get hits.
  10. Chrissy Stockton was then “outed” as the real “Amy Glass,” for those who care about such things.
  11. Up until this point, I did not care at all about any of this.
  12. Then Chrissy Stockton wrote a defensive essay saying how this was all a genius plan that she had all along; that she didn’t really think that young women with husbands and children were pond scum after all; it was just an post-modern experimental piece designed to provoke a larger discussion.
  13. If I could make a counter-point to that statement:  Don’t piss on my head and tell me that it’s raining.
  14. Chrissy’s goal was to get hits.
  15. She wrote a purposefully inflammatory piece under a fake name, so that she wouldn’t be associated with it, and the goal of writing this piece was to get hits and attention and ancillary revenue for the site.
  16. She then “succeeded” by getting 237,000 Facebook shares and lots of attention.
  17. Congrats.
  18. Look, the site is called “Thought Catalog”; not “Stuff That I Will Automatically Agree With Catalog,” so I have no problem with people posting controversial opinions… if… if they actually believe in those opinions.
  19. Writing under a fake name, about something you don’t think is true — something that couldn’t possibly be universally true in the first place, i.e., “Young Married Women With Kids Suck!!!!!” — is, um, bad, in my humble opinion.
  20. Where I come from, we have a name for that sort of thing: writing under a fake name and writing things that you don’t actually believe.
  21. …We call it “lying.”
  22. The name of the site is called “Thought Catalog”; the goal of the site is to reflect our honest thoughts, be they good or bad, likable or unlikable.
  23. The goal of the site is not to lie in order to get hits.
  24. Chrissy got hits; wow. Neat. …Hey, remember when this website rocked and didn’t feature Buzzfeed/Upworthy-style bullshit like this? Because I kind of do.
  25. Anyone could do this sort of thing at any time. I myself could write an essay under the fake name of, oh, let’s say, “Oscar Williams,” and do an article called “All Black People Should Go Back To Africa!!!!!!” or, “Women Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Vote?!!!!”  Do I believe these things? No. But the article would definitely be “controversial,” and would get lots of hits and comments.
  26. The point of writing is to bear witness to the truth.
  27. The point of this website is to accurately describe our young-person-ish thoughts and feelings.
  28. So please, Thought Catalog, let’s not have any more essays under a fake name where the person doesn’t even believe the thing that they’re saying.
  29. Okay?
  30. Okay.
  31. We can always just stick to pictures of nachos instead. After all, everyone likes nachos.