cat person

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.

man i got popcorn over here. who will win????

Roupenian has already won. The book deal, the film rights.

no i mean who will be deemed the most correct on this thread??? jury’s out

if you read between the lines of my posts you'll actually see pretty clearly it's me

who says the aggrieved party won't get film rights? might be looking at a deep impact/armaggedon situation here

and also how it impacted her ex.

― treeship., Friday, July 9, 2021 8:24 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree that the piece isn't gossipy and shouldn't be defined by the 20% of it that's about him

i do admit i am extremely impressed cat person is doing this to people again, the movie release is gonna be wild

She said he kept reviewing his old texts with Roupenian to reassure himself he wasn’t the monster in the story

*bodyslam*

makes u think

'Charles' clearly committed suicide, his cause of death would be mentioned otherwise.

She said he kept reviewing his old texts with Roupenian to reassure himself he wasn’t the monster in the story

― treeship., Friday, July 9, 2021 8:50 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

aha, now i have to cancel my podcast

Idk if that is definitely what happened, and even if it did I'm not sure Roupenian can be held responsible, but it did affect him enough to hold onto his old phone and keep reviewing their texts as treeship said, and his reaction to the story seemed significant enough to his friend to bring up to Nowicki right in their first conversations after his death.xp That is significantly more than what your first post said tbf.

i already said i cancelled the podcast! i don't put any value in the second thing though, they'd been talking for an hour of course the story that binds them is gonna come up

Ha OK I read more sarcasm in that comment than you may have intended.

The writer makes a point of how all these friends/acquaintances etc contacted her with IS THIS YOU but the thing is, I bet those same conversations were happening everywhere. Lots of young women receiving IS THIS YOU texts from their friends bc this story is so fucking common. I worked in a big supermarket from 15-18 and the social life was huge and it was extremely common for male managers in their 30s to be dating teen girls who worked there. The essay writer acknowledges friends were weirded out by the age gap but she doesn’t address it directly at all.

I've been picturing Buscemi in Ghost World for the past day.

^^^^^^ yes

from the flirty customer aspect to the sexual encounter all the way to the end -- this is hardly full of unique details. THAT IS WHY IT IS COMPELLING!!!

oops that yes was for just1n3

I read cat person when it came out (NYer subscriber not literary clusterfuck audience).

I've followed this thread since and that's the first I heard of this essay, which I read yesterday. And woke up this morning thinking about, wtf. I think it is assholish of the essay author to write this under the circumstances. I can only come up with two true motivations to publish: attention and/or paycheck. And both of those things are fine in theory. But I dunno if it were me I wouldn't do it.

I also feel it is my professional duty to point out or remind people that "committed suicide" is a phrase that is frowned upon in professional/mental health advocacy circles. "Died by suicide" is better.

"lots of people share stories like this and wonder if it's about them" would be a fine objection if it weren't literally confirmed as true in this case

the objection re language around suicide is fair, no need for catholic bullshit

The story used her exact hometown, her workplace, the circumstances of their first date, his physical description, etc

That's the irony: the vague details spoke to thousands, so why did the writer need to derive the specific details from this one person?

seriously this story/essay/clusterfuck keeps popping up in my head, it is annoying! I was just reading this week's NYer (instead of, you know, doing my job) and the Rebecca Curtis story has this line:

"We paid babysitters to watch our toddler, theoretically so that I could write novels, but all I'd written were short stories about SLUTTY CAT-WOMEN, which my agent told me to DELETE FROM MY COMPUTER

emphasis mine lol. cat ppl everywhere.

Either carelessness or animus toward Charles

I assume the former xp

I am totally assuming simple laziness followed by self-preservation impulses kicking in, not outright malice. happens all the time.

“Careless” doesn’t seem the right word for choosing to keep every personal detail in tact. And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is, whether she had to sign any agreement that would keep the magazine from being legally culpable here.

The story used her exact hometown, her workplace, the circumstances of their first date, his physical description, etc

― treeship., Friday, July 9, 2021 12:13 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i know fact-checking isnt the right term for fiction but did the new yorker not inquire abt this stuff ?

xp

Maybe the editor also had it in for charles

I mean, if Olivia Rodrigo wrote a song from the perspective of her current boyfriend’s ex and called it “Deja Vu,” that’s an act of imagination. But if the song then mentioned his ex’s specific hometown, job, and so on…

And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is

not sure how they could possibly vet this

more than anything else, boy I sure do hate the web of underlying social and economic conditions that led to this clusterfuck, just throwing that out there

i'm smashing the rt button on that post simon

I would think the New Yorker would have some kind of legal form so that one of Updike’s neighbors couldn’t sue them if the names and addresses in a story matched.

This poem is called My Ex’s Medical Records

I would think the New Yorker would have some kind of legal form so that one of Updike’s neighbors couldn’t sue them if the names and addresses in a story matched.

― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, July 9, 2021 9:54 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

who would they send this to if they didn't know updike was writing about one of his neighbors

unless you mean some kind of language like "any resemblance to person's living or dead is wholly coincidental"

And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is

Yeah maybe this is the dark side of the rise of auto-fiction. Maybe they need to start doing anti-fact checking, making sure that fiction actually isn't identifiably based on real (non-consenting) people?

xp

i just really have no idea how you would do that unless you personally knew the person who's biography was being absorbed into the text

really using apostrophes incorrectly this afternoon

unless you mean some kind of language like "any resemblance to person's living or dead is wholly coincidental"

Yeah, exactly. If Updike has a story about fucking his neighbor and describes her house and location and job exactly, no one is going to suburban Boston to check this out, but a legal form would keep them from getting sued by that neighbor,

honestly not sure what the new yorker or anyone could do about it either. I guess if there are a lot of potentially personally identifying specifics to the story it doesn't hurt to ask "hey does this identify any real actual person" but if they say "no" you're basically just taking them at their word I guess

Suicide is the only way one can die suddenly?

not sure if you're really asking here, but just in case: i might be wrong but i understand "died suddenly" to be a commonly used journalistic euphemism for death by suicide. this is done because explicit/specific references to suicide in the press result in more suicides ("the werther effect").

Cat Person got no reason
Cat Person got no reason
Cat Person got no reason to live