The Personal-Essay Boom Is Over
This is an interesting meta article, but it skirts the bigger picture. &quot;Personal essay&quot; seems to be a euphemism for &quot;first world feminist problems.&quot; Note all of the examples in the intro are wealthy(ish) women drumming up trivial problems somehow related to womanhood. There are no listed examples of men having equivalent problems (let&#x27;s say having a mishap with his pant zipper), and there are no listed examples of lower class problems (let&#x27;s say a dishwasher who gets type 2 diabetes). The sexual assault essays go both ways - some are genuine and useful to understanding crime, some are authors desperately exploiting other people&#x27;s victimhood for their own self aggrandizement (&quot;stare rape&quot;).<p>The author&#x27;s failure to acknowledge the <i>topic</i> of the personal essay boom may stem from her own employment at Jezebel, a publication largely devoted to first world feminist problems.<p>Personally, I welcome this change. I&#x27;ve been very disheartened by what has been an obvious attempt at the Western upper classes to redirect money attention away from the needy and towards themselves. Sadly, I&#x27;ve seen a fair share of this on HN as well.