Back when I was temping and ever-so-bored, I occasionally read a McSwy's-themed (but not in name) thread on the Atlantic Monthly bulletin board. It was one of those things I read just to make myself mad (a niche now filled by bad girly blogs, the worst of which I read every. single. day.) On this board, if anyone dared to comment negatively about any aspect of the McSweeney's Empire, he or she would be instantly ganged up on. These people, mostly women who fancied themselves fiction writers and could not possibly have taken themselves more seriously, lived in constant terror that Dave Eggers himself would banish them from the world of publishing forever if they so much as allowed a well-intentioned newbie to say something like, oh, "Maybe Dave should have just swallowed his pride on that whole New York Times thing."
I think the essay is actually pretty good and ends perfectly, though it should have been better fact-checked (she hung out with McSweeney's guys in 1995? Strange, since the journal launched in '98). Be sure to check out Neal Pollack's response.
Speaking of the smart girl's rock star, why, it's none other than
David Cross, buck naked (You're welcome.)
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