cat person

(many xps to brad)

think it's a perfectly fine short story tbh

the ethics of writing about real people - in fiction or non-fiction - is something we're never going to get to the bottom of so yes, the discourse is a bit useless. but this essay introduces a possibly sensational and yes, as per treeship, salacious element which interests some (including myself)

The big question has to do with Charles. The woman in the story has now had her say—she was not some naive victim, and resents being presented as such. She has warm feelings toward her now deceased older ex boyfriend. But he is dead now and Roupenian’s letter strongly implies he did something that justified her representation of him. And we know he was bothered by this, maybe tormented. Was that right or fair? We don’t know.

y’all are weird i’m out

The big question has to do with Charles. The woman in the story has now had her say—she was not some naive victim, and resents being presented as such. She has warm feelings toward her now deceased older ex boyfriend. But he is dead now and Roupenian’s letter strongly implies he did something that justified her representation of him. And we know he was bothered by this, maybe tormented. Was that right or fair? We don’t know.

― treeship., Thursday, July 8, 2021 10:09 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

everyone he knew, even acquaintances, would be aware that he was cat person also. which depending on how he actually acted towards roupenian could be a kind of "just desserts", or you know, could've been an unjustified nightmare

Roupenian’s letter strongly implies he did something that justified her representation of him

I don't really see that this is strongly implied by the quotes in the Slate piece.

I mean she doesn’t say she understands how hard it was for him, just her

Emil.y otm — that’s why it resonated when it came out

And while I don't rate the story very highly, it's relatable for a lot of people because those experiences have been had by a lot of people. It could be anyone.

And she said they had an “encounter.” Kind of an ominous phrase.

Cp

I swear to God, in the waiting room where I’m reading the Cat Person article, there’s an episode of The Golden Girls playing where Blanche is angry that a character in a novel is based on her pic.twitter.com/Egs0Ple298

— David Burr Gerrard (@DBGerrard) July 8, 2021

Xp sry

It's sprinkled that the story killed Charles, without accusing. Just leaving traces of anger.

It's a really good piece.

I guess I meant that I didn't see an indication that he objectively did something that would justify being represented in that way (which doesn't necessarily mean he didn't). I agree that she doesn't seem to feel bad for him (which could possibly mean that he 'deserved' it). xps Not sure I get ominousness from the word "encounter" either but I'm p out of touch.

xp

If he didn’t treat Roupenian poorly, it is pretty inexcusable for her to have made him into an easily identifiable symbol of a groomer.

As jim said, his friends and acquaintances would have recognized him based on the details in the story.

One should only base fictional characters on people who don't really exist, like message board posters.

I think you should disguise it better. Simon’s point from above.

With Treeship on this.

People can base fictional characters on anything they want and people who become the basis for characters can respond accordingly based on how they feel about it.xps

I also think it should be disguised better bc otherwise you’re exploiting someone else’s life which is cruel, or at the very least grossly insensitive to the feelings of other people.

If he didn’t treat Roupenian poorly, it is pretty inexcusable for her to have made him into an easily identifiable symbol of a groomer.

We don't know anything about how he treated Roupenian but it does seem fairly certain that he was not a groomer with her as she was not young at the time of their 'encounter'. (She moved to Michigan for her MFA degree.)

Would anyone have a different perspective if Charles had had some kind of public profile? That by "exposing himself" expectations of privacy were different?

lag∞n is right

― Bongo Jongus, Thursday, July 8, 2021 12:32 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

I would probably be more critical if he were a public figure.

deeply pleased that the bewildered subject of Cat Person is, herself, a talented writer and perceiver

— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) July 8, 2021

LL and lag∞n otm

in my limited, mostly school-years experience of writing fiction and creative nonfiction, it’s a lot easier to use small details from real people to sketch more interesting characters, but not changing easily-identifiable details is pretty bad

by default I’d always assume that a character in fiction, if based on anyone, is more of a composite than a single identifiable person. if you can pin 80% of the description of a character on a real person, you’re going to always wonder about that 20% that’s the writer’s exposition and internal monologue, especially if you’re the person who is seemingly identifiable

fwiw the response piece is I think better written than the original story, or at least my memory of it

the way she writes about reading "cat person" and having it possibly influence her own recollection / judgment of events etc was really nicely observed I thought

Apparently she is a publicist at FS&G.

why is her 9,000 person hometown in here this is goofy pic.twitter.com/Dp80gbYFhv

— bean 🌻 (@christapeterso) July 8, 2021

yikes

That person's thread seems OTM.

saline for the tears i cried

In a way 'Charles' comes out of the essay well, but in another way he doesn't: he will certainly be outed, more details about his life will be revealed, and his short life will forever be associated with 'Cat Person' in a way that it wouldn't have been if the essay hadn't been published. I wonder if he'd really have wanted that.

brad otm people are being weird in this thread

no reason to even assume he committed suicide - people are acting like this slate article is in fact an obfuscatory work of fiction meant to rouse speculation and not a slate article

is it more unethical to use someone else's life as a starting point for a shitty story or to write fanfic about it on ilxor.com

“no reason to even assume he committed suicide”

That’s what “died suddenly” means, no?

*shits*

Defining talking about the story and it's after life in this piece as "fanfic" sure is "weird".

i am not otm about this but i don't care to be

That’s what “died suddenly” means, no?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, July 9, 2021 3:12 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Defining talking about the story and it's after life in this piece as "fanfic" sure is "weird".

― xyzzzz__, Friday, July 9, 2021 4:29 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i just said this:

If he didn’t treat Roupenian poorly, it is pretty inexcusable for her to have made him into an easily identifiable symbol of a groomer.

― treeship., Thursday, July 8, 2021 1:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

we don't know how he died. but it doesn't really matter -- this is the issue. roupenian implies she had a less than positive "encounter" with him, which led to the depiction in the story. the essay describes charles as haunted by the depiction.

these are details in the essay. it's not fan fiction.

Acting like I'm talking about every post in this thread and not Jim and tree's wild unwarranted speculation hour, come on
― ✖, Friday, 9 July 2021 bookmarkflaglink

I also think he committed suicide. The writer cannot blankly state this, but there's enough in the piece to think it.

Every writer dreams of doing what Kristen Roupenian has:
to write a massively successful New Yorker story humiliating a former lover, and then, having accumulated great riches and acclaim, to have them murdered.

— Dean Kissick (@deankissick) July 9, 2021

i just said this:
That is not your only post itt lol. Maybe I should've said "true crime podcast" instead of fanfic

I've read the piece twice and I cannot find any reason to extract "he killed himself and did so because of cat person" from it, people are projecting. Reread it under the assumption that he suffered heart failure or got t-boned by a drunk driver or a piano fell on him and you'll find little resistance

If he did kill himself and the writer is trying to communicate through morse code blinks that cat person did it, without knowing for sure (and why would she know? She barely knew him at that point), that would be fucked up! Plenty of people kill themselves without having cat person written about them

I see nothing here beyond "I'm bummed my dead ex boyfriend's memory is tarnished by a careless writer who should've changed some words around"

Given the fact that people would inevitably speculate about this, and how carefully written the piece is otherwise, it seems that she would have made a point that he was hit by a piano if that is indeed what happened. The silence of this issue is suggestive.

But it also isn’t the point. She isn’t just “bummed”— she writes about how she felt violated and also how it impacted her ex.

The essay is itself a good piece of writing. It isn’t just gossipy.