I will read an interesting article, want to see what people are saying about it, pop the link in the Twitter search bar, and I will be absolutely amazed at what % of the reactions demonstrate that the people talking about it haven’t actually read the piece. You will see conversations about various essays that go on for dozens and dozens of exchanges where it is glaringly clear that not one person in the conversation actually has a grasp of what the essay says. And these aren’t just randoms, either, but usually writers themselves, people who have built careers producing text. Go to any event where established people give young writers advice and they always say, you have to read to write! But my impression is that many, many professional writers don’t.
I get that there are structural reasons that professional writers don’t read. I get that it’s not all a character or integrity issue. I get that the modern media economy forces people to be producing at a pace that makes reading enough difficult. I’m not unsympathetic. But at some point people have to make the personal decision to say “I’m not going to comment on something I haven’t read.”
I meet people IRL who know me from writing a lot more often, now that I live in New York. And sometimes there’s tension. I’ll be introduced by a friend of a friend to someone who is sure they don’t like me. If I get the chance, I’ll eventually try to tease out which of my opinions they reject. Likewise, I sometimes challenge people on social media or in my email to list their actual grievances, to tell me what I believe that is so objectionable. Often enough – maybe a majority of the time – it will turn out that they are mad at me about something I don’t believe and have never said. I am fine with being controversial or personally disliked for what I actually think and have actually said. But at present my online reputation has almost nothing to do with me or my actual beliefs, because no one online reads anything.
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