I found the selection from her book (quoted at the bottom) to be quite moving. As for the OP:
-There are US publications willing to call bullshit like this -- though I agree with what I expect your reply would be, which is, not the important publications, only some Internet-only ones. But do we agree the NYT is trending toward the snarkier and more Internetty? They just hired an official Fact Checker from Politifact, for instance.
-My techie friend has been to speeches by many members of the Tech Titan roster and says that Zuckerberg stands out for how obviously rehearsed he is.
I have to say, having recently switched to the most high-proof performance-oriented cocktail of antidepressants I've ever been on: pathologically embracing the endless hustle really does beat the alternative. I don't know if that was part of the recovery process, but it's pretty standard and still pretty taboo as a subject of open discussion. I'll read the OP link at some point.
Would the Unfogged Press Corps agree that only a fool would not "carefully curate their presentation" when being interviewed by a journalist?
4: Sure. But she was giving the interview as author of soul-baring book, not as corporate officer.
soul-baring corporate officer
passionate Phil Collins imitator
nuanced twitter conversation
classy wedge sneakers
6: I'm old enough to remember when "designer punk" fit this category.
5: That just means she has to make an attempt to pretend, which it seems she did.
pathologically embracing the endless hustle really does beat the alternative
I'm kind of wondering how much of funeral traditions aren't designed (or adapted) for that same reason.
Anyway, you can get together with your siblings and say, "At 3:00, we start writing this big pile of thank you notes" and have it stick. Saying, "At 3:00, we stopping staring into the void" doesn't really work.
Is 10 hypothetical or did I miss an announcement? Yikes.
Nobody ever actually announced "At 3:00, we stop staring into the void."
"At 3:02, the void notices that you've stopped staring, and takes a break from staring back."
Anyway, keeping busy really is useful sometimes even if the busyness is about something pretty obviously pointless like thank you cards or operating Facebook.
I used to think about things that might be related to a "growth mindset," but I stopped about five or so years back. I realized that excepting a bout of incredible bad luck, I was never going to be poor enough to be in real need so long as I was able to work 40 hours a week. I also realized that even if I worked 100 hours a week, I'd never be wealthy enough to tell everybody to fuck off. Once I decided this was an unearned privilege instead of a problem, I felt much better.
Something something Christopher Lasch self other to itself something cough
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
-I thought I was playing Zork.
You do not know how to play Zork.
I guess I could put in more time rationalizing away the "unearned" part of privilege.
I used to think about things that might be related to a "growth mindset,"but when I turned 40, I realized I had to give up on ever being as tall as my older brothers.
Is your family known for late growth spurts?
I read the interview (Jesus, there's some upsetting shit in there) and I thought the quoted paragraph in the OP -- "not merely Facebook's COO but its living embodiment" -- was an exceedingly cheap shot. Being "carefully curated" is so gauche, rilly.
I suppose it made me think of another British journalist, the one interviewing the Korean scholar and his family after the viral video, asking the mother how she felt about the fact that so many viewers took her for the nanny. Despite what must be lengthy acquaintance with the bizarre expectation of intimacy and informality in the Anglosphere, she hesitates before this mind-blowingly impertinent question and finally says something like (IIRC), "Well, we can resolve the controversy, happily, because there is a fact of the matter, which is that I'm not the nanny." I was very pleased by this answer.
was an exceedingly cheap shot
I thought so, too, when I first read it. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that, yes, there really is a connection between achievement culture, and Sandberg, who is a paragon of it, and Facebook, which is so much about carefully curated and bullshit representations of people's lives. It is gauche!
That's not to say Sandberg should have done anything differently in this case; but the writer is also right to call bullshit on the whole enterprise.
I kind of think both that it's a cheap shot, and that anyone who is the public face of a company like Facebook should reasonably expect all the cheap shots there are, at which point I realize that I can't possibly get anything useful out of the article.
I got enough out of the article that I think I should read the book, though I'm not dealing with that particular kind of Option B and basically resent learning anything from her.
Aren't most people on Option gg or something like that -- even without have suffered any horrible tragedy?
Is it a cheap shot to say that comparing a person's presentation of self to how people present themselves on Facebook, when that person is one of the prominent public faces of Facebook, feels like a lazy cliche?
"I left my interview with Brin and Page impressed with the rapidity of their responses but in retrospect I realize that few of their answers addressed more than 80% of the question. Sometimes they didn't seem to understand when I meant what I asked literally, and they occasionally confused words that no person as clever as they are would think of as synonyms in context."
Who are these people with carefully curated and bullshit presentations of themselves on Facebook? I think I've only ever had one picture of myself on Facebook, which dates back to when I was in college. (I'm not totally sure it's THAT old, but it's definitely over eight years old by now.) Most people I know put more effort into it than that but still aren't very artful about it.
I sort of get annoyed when people talk about how tragedy or loss made them a better person. She's very clear that she would prefer not to have suffered this loss, but it grates.
I've had a fair amount of loss and suffering, and I don't think I'm a better person for it. I would prefer not to have had it. I don't think I'm a bad person, just not better from suffering.
33 has filled my heart with love, and my extremely biting response to ogged will be drowned forever in syrupy happiness over it. Sorry, ogged.
I don't think you really had a biting response.
I've been working on meme generation today: downloaded an app that lets m rite the text for one of those Trump executive orders he proudly shows off. It's not that easy to get to the right mix. I need a good insult for Trump to deliver to zillionaire Greg Gianforte -- whose current campaign involves staying out of the public eye as much as possible, while spending tons of money on negative TV ads.
me
write
Sounds like you already have his voice down.
35: I look in the mirror and see a somewhat better person in some respects, worse in others. I'd rather not have had the experiences that prompted me to look.
Tragedy and loss don't make anyone a better person, but sometimes coping does.
What 44 said. I think it's very much the response that makes the difference. I can't even say whether I'm a better person than if I'd never been raped or in an abusive relationship because that flows immediately into well, then I wouldn't be ME. But I'm definitely a better person for having learned to run a support group, for being a founder of my school's sexual assault nurse examiner program and associated hotline, for doing the kind of open foster/adoptive parenting I have. I don't know if that's a distinction everyone makes, but it's meaningful to me.
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.