Shocker: Every Article on Thought Catalog Secretly Written by Middle-Aged Indian Man
By Danny Horgan
This one will undoubtedly shake up the hipster community.
Popular essay website Thought Catalog, known for its shrill, self-indulgent, nonsensical articles about being a “twenty-something”, is secretly run by a 53-year-old man from India who writes all the articles himself under pen names. The Awesome Cave confirmed the news this morning via a Skype call with Thought Catalog’s real creator.
“I think it’s hysterical that people actually read the shit I put out,” said the man, who wishes to remain anonymous. “None of what I write makes any sense. I just put a bunch of random lists together, find a way to relate them to rich kids in their 20s, and for some unimaginable reason I get millions of reads.”
The nameless ghost writer said he got the idea for Thought Catalog after spending a week with his family in Brooklyn, New York. The lack of real problems experienced by Americans after college, he said, sparked the thought for a satirical advice blog his buddies in India would get a kick out of. When Americans took the site seriously, he ran with the idea, writing countless pieces with an entitled, irrational tone.
“I saw all these Brooklyn girls talking about problems like ‘having too many feelings’ and ‘not remembering which guy they slept with the night before’ and I saw a chance for real humor, “ he said. “I couldn’t believe how much money I started making when the kids who read the site didn’t get the joke.”
Thought Catalog is written under both male and female pen names, which the creator says makes running the site all the more fun. There’s no difference in tone or word choice for the articles regardless of which gender perspective he writes the articles through, and the fact that people can’t tell the difference is deeply amusing to both him and his friends.
“In a way, this whole thing is still a joke for my buddies and me. I spend all day writing the same nonsense over and over again and people still eat it up. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep up this charade, but in the meantime I’ll keep getting rich and having lots of laughs doing so.”